Guest Toy Review: Sex Smarts

Ross Raises His IQ While Raising His Libido

Meet our first-ever guest toy reviewer, Ross. He (along with our female reviewer, Madison) won our "Be a Toy Reviewer" contest, so they're both here to give you the low down on what toys get them off! We'll rotate their columns so you get a fresh perspective, and to give them time to play with their toys! Here's Ross, with his take on the Sex Smarts Card Game.

If knowledge is sexy, then playing Sex Smarts will make you hotter than Angelina Jolie wearing a black latex catsuit in the sauna room at the Tehran Hilton, which, if you weren't sure, is pretty darn hot. Sex Smarts is a trivia card game, the questions and answers all possessing a sexual theme. There are four categories: Dirty Talk (vocabulary), Carnal Culture (history), Bodies (biology), and, of course, Wild Card (general trivia). Questions range in difficulty from Alfred E. Newman-easy to Alfred Kinsey-difficult and are either multiple choice or true-or-false.

One of the great things about Sex Smarts is that there are neither rules nor instructions. The makers included a score pad, but that's it. No board, no spinner, no tiny metal top hat. The players are free to use these cards anyway they want. My girlfriend and I took Sex Smarts on a long weekend getaway, and we tried it a number of ways. First, we took turns reading the questions right out of the box just for entertainment while we drove (Sample question: "True or false: Freud claimed that clitoral orgasms are superior to vaginal ones?"). Later at the hotel, we raised the stakes: the first person to get three questions correct in each category got to have their sexual wishes filled, which was a great way to kick off our vacation. It was a close game, one that I lost (if you can really lose that kind of game, that is). Finally, we tried to incorporate the cards into a homemade board game that was a fairly inane hybrid of Monopoly and Truth or Dare that was ultimately aborted in favor of necking.

Sex Smarts differs from other sex-related games in that it is not necessarily outright sexy. Other games try to serve or instigate foreplay. This game is like pre-pre-foreplay; first you answer the questions, which lead to conversations about sex, which then lead to foreplay (hopefully). The questions are designed to be arousing, not steamy, so if you're looking for a game to give you play-by-play instructions like "Kiss partner on the thigh" or "Nibble ear," Sex Smarts will be a disappointment.

However, if you find learning and talking, especially when tossed with a dose of competition, to be sexy than you're in luck. Sex Smarts is inexpensive, but not cheap in terms of quality. The cards are attractive and come in a cute miniature cigar box about the size of a paperback novel. Plus, it comes with a brief but clever Sex Tips Guide full of great information. All in all, Sex Smarts is a winner-a game that can raise your IQ while also raising your libido. Now that's hot.