Sewell, Joan

PERSONAL: Married; husband’s name Kip. Education: Earned master’s degree.

ADDRESSES: Home— Seattle, WA. E-mail— joan@joansewell.com.

CAREER: Writer.

WRITINGS

I’d Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido (memoir), Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS: Joan Sewell not only felt out of place in an oversexed society but also found that her husband’s sex drive, which was much higher than hers, was placing a strain on their marriage. Thinking something was wrong with her, Sewell set out to find a way to increase her desire to have sex. I’d Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido is, as the author describes on her Internet home page, “the chronicle of my adventures through Sexpert Wonderland to cure my ‘dysfunction.’” The author describes her meetings and studies with numerous experts in the field of human sexuality, from counselors and “sexperts” to writers in women’s magazines. Sewell eventually comes to view most sex therapies and advice to be much too focused on men’s desires and needs and ultimately decides that the difference in the sexual drives of her and her husband are natural and that their marriage can thrive despite the difference. A reviewer writing in Publishers Weeklycalled the book “honest and accessible,” adding that it also makes good reading for those interested in taking “a closer look at one subject that continues to gap the genders.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor referred to I’d Rather Eat Chocolate as “astonishingly frank and often funny disclosures about the author’s sex life, with a serious underlying message about the actual differences between the libidos of women and men.”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES

BOOKS

Sewell, Joan, I’d Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2007.

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2006, review of I’d Rather Eat Chocolate, p. 1060.

Publishers Weekly, October 16, 2006, review of I’d Rather Eat Chocolate, p. 43.

ONLINE

Joan Sewell Home Page, http://www.joansewell.com (January 29, 2007).*