Terrific Sex in Fearful Times

The breathy, you-can-have-it-all tone of this guide to ""safe sex'' is off-putting, yet its central message on the need to exercise care in this era of AIDS is worth heeding. Its matter-of-fact discussions of such matters as oral sex, self-stimulation and mutual masturbation are unusually detailed. Readers are encouraged to draw up a Sex Plan, master the art of safe-sex negotiation and compile a Sex Bio to discover their own preferences and fetishes. Peters, who writes for Vanity Fair and New York, covers the gamut from sensual massage to showers, flashlights, blow-up dolls and phone sex. It's all a bit exhausting. His basic premisethat sex devoid of contact with bodily fluids can be romantic, hot, ingenious and terrificstretches a point. First serial to Cosmopolitan, Playgirl and New Woman; author tour. (March)