Sextrology: The Astrology of Sex and the Sexes by Stella Starsky

Sextrology: The Astrology of Sex and the Sexes Reviews

• 
  mark monday

  have you ever wondered which star sign is the most likely to engage in scat play? well, dear reader, never fear - welcome to the astrology guide of your dreams! which sign likes it rough? which sign is a big excited puppy? which sign has the smallest tits? which sign has the biggest dick? which sign is bossy in bed, which sign just lays there like a wooden plank? which sign is the gayest, which sign is the most lesbionic? hey, what is the hairiest sign? which sign likes to trim that bush? all those answers and more await you and your quivering fingers within this exhaustive tome.
  
  good grief, the level of detail on every single sign is mind-boggling. how do they know these things, every tiny little thing about a person, down to the most obscure details? are people really defined by their sign, so much so that each sexual longing can be exactly predicted and minutely detailed, in every way? why would the stars know which sign has the biggest feet? why would the stars even care? or was this book written by God? a God-like level of knowledge of all human beings and everything they do is certainly contained within. fortunately, the tone of the book is light rather than ponderous, which makes reading this perhaps similar to the feeling one would have rushing through a lavish and over-heated bodice-ripper. it is a true guilty pleasure.
• 
  Izzy

  So, true fact: I considered going to Astrology School. Doesn’t that sound fun?! Apparently, there is an actual school for this tucked somewhere in the hills of upstate New York. Unfortunately, a rare fit of “common sense” led me to pursue a boring office job – and trust me, I would have been a better astrologer.
  
  Now, a disclaimer: I do take astrology with the proverbial grain of salt. I do. I know it can’t all be true, and logistically it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
  
  (This:
  http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/... is an excellent article on the subject.)
  
  Yet I still sorta kinda maybe believe it. I’m the girl that responds with a verbose, intellectually stimulating (I mean, to me) conversation when a rando dude saunters up to me at a bar and asks me what my sign is, in a tone of voice that somehow saunters as well. I will leave it up to you to judge how well I fare with the bros.
  
  So, the book. It’s a lengthy, wordy, somewhat pretentious treatise on the subject by a couple of folks with obviously suggestive names and a truly annoying photo of themselves on the jacket. I haven’t read the whole thing, but enough of it to get the gist (the book will lazily open itself up to the astrological profiles of men I have dated throughout the years, with the Libra and Scorpio chapters showing exceptional wear/tear).
  
  I think Starsky and/or Cox must be a Virgo, because there is an insane amount of organizing: categories, subcategories, and lists abound. The analysis splits each star sign into male and female aspects - the authors argue that when a person’s gender corresponds to their sign’s as(sign)ed gender (for the sake of example, Taurus is a feminine sign, so let’s say a female Taurus) they EMBODY the qualities of that particular sign, while a male Taurus is always REACHING and SEARCHING for these qualities. Which makes sense in my personal experience? (You could also argue that the influence of astrology in the collective consciousness is swaying my viewpoint. CHICKEN/EGG.)
  
  I found the section on archetypes particularly interesting. Some examples were great, and really used existing information and connotation to the author’s advantage, just in explaining the damn thing. I never took anything too literally and just assumed it was all sort of a blurry-edged philosophical word-spew (no, I don’t think Pisces men are literally Jesus Christ; yes, okay, the use of Artemis makes me understand the fierceness of this sign; etc).
  
  I came away with some new knowledge of the astrological variety after reading this. I now know which signs are into whipping, lite bondage, and kissing (isn’t everyone into kissing?). I know what section of the population to seek out if I am yearning for that perfect lesbian bedfellow. (But seriously, it’s nice to include the gays for once.) I know which men like sloe-eyed girls (the Googling of this term led to the awkward discovery of a college professor writing about his boner-inducing sloe-eyed student, which led to his abrupt termination; it means “soft, dark, purplish or black eyes; having slanted eyes”). An open letter to professors: don’t put it out there on the internet when you want to fuck your students. I now know: who I want to have sex with and whom I should avoid.
  
  And of course, I will arm myself with this information to endlessly analyze people, but it won’t matter a damn in my end game. That’s the boon of having a rich inner life!
  
  Far less interesting were the incredibly specific profiles of each sign’s background and childhood, etc. Starsky/Cox should have stuck to the vague philosophical. I guess you just have to read this for fun.
  
  As for astrology as a science, honest, some things were pretty cool. Particularly the explanations (in the form of little symbols and charts, naturally) of male/female, opposite signs and their attractions/repulsion (stuff I knew about but now understand a lot better), the whole astrological wheel situation, in which reincarnation plays a huge part - for we are apparently rebirthed according to the lessons we have yet to learn, and each signs corresponds to a spiritual age, and you are a Sagittarius because you have to learn the secrets/wisdom of all the signs that follow you! So get to work.
  
  I’m a Leo. According to this book, I can’t survive this life without sex, exercise, and ambition. And that’s true facts.
  
• 
  Laura

  This book totally rocked me. It is to most other astrology books what fresh-squeezed organic orange juice is to Tang. Some of the claims it made about my sign shocked me so much I had to put the book down to digest them and pick it up again later. I've read certain sections over and over again and every time I find something new and valuable that I never really noticed in the text or never considered fully. I'd say this is one of my 'desert island' books, except that good books make me realize how intricate human beings are and how incricately linked we are to other human beings, so being on a desert island in this desert-island-for-the-rest-of-my-life scenario would probably drive me to find a way off the island or kill myself trying, not sitting around reading books. Anyway...read this book. You won't regret it.
• 
  Rukshana

  One of my favorite astrology books - it is THE textbook. A favorite coffee table read at parties! Intelligently written and surprisingly accurate although descriptions of each zodiac sign are based on sun sign only. This book won't help you create your astrological chart, but it will give you great insight into yourself as a human being in (intimate, romantic) relationships. One of the only books to examine gender in relation to astrology. For example, there are different sections for Libra men and Libra women, and so on and so forth. Also, one of the only books to discuss same sex relationships. Looking forward to their next book which will examine specific couplings (e.g., Gemini woman + Leo man). A must-have for any astrology freak - HIGHLY recommended by this one.
• 
  Ani

  The first time I started reading this book in the store, I started tearing up because most (if not all) of what it said about my sign (Cancer) was eerily true, the good as well as the bad. It was too thick for me to read in one sitting so I told myself to buy it one day and now that I have it, I don't regret it!
  
  While astrology might not be exact (there are other elements at play when it comes to characteristics of someone's personality like the environment, the way the person was brought up, etc.), since I rarely believe that everyone born on the same birthday is alike (not even twins are alike, most times!), this book at least studies it approximately with an approach that usually hits close to home with people under their zodiac sign, even if it's not EVERYONE, it's very detailed and properly structured, so even if you're not the Virgo they're talking about, someone else might find himself in those pages and be pleasantly surprised (and delighted) about it!
• 
  Xenomantid

  Sextrology is a Pandora's box. You can find some good at the bottom if you search assiduously enough, but the multitudinous evils conceal it. No, that metaphor is better reserved for Barbara Walker's The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets and the works of Gershon Legman. Sextrology is more like eating pepperoni pizza at a friend's house when you wanted cheese: it doesn't quite measure up to your standards, and you know that you're partaking of something other than what you wished for, but you go along with it because the alternative is to go hungry.
  
  To demonstrate, the very first paragraph is as follows:
  
  For years, we've contended that men and women of the same astrological sign are actually different signs. Most astrology books lump males and females together, while those that do attempt to treat the sexes separately have never fully explored the distinctions between the so-called sex signs or even so much as ventured to explain why it is they are, as is so often the case, markedly unlike each other. We maintain that astrology must factor in the great divide between the sexes, that the energies that comprise the signs filter through the opposite sexes as through prisms, separate and unique from one another.
  
  That, speaking plainly, is a bad sign. No pun intended.
  
  In all fairness, the opening paragraph establishes the guiding sins as quickly as possible. The authors' extreme focus on the gender polarities of the Sun sign lead them to forward some unorthodox (some would say nonstandard) interpretations of the zodiac. An astrology book that concentrates on sex might have a reason to take the differences between men and women into account. Sextrology focuses on archetypes, so it only follows that the authors would liken the men of one sign to famous male mythological figures and the women of the same sign to their female counterparts.
  
  Unfortunately, Starsky and Cox do not stop there. A crucial factor in their decision to segregate the sexes is their insistence that certain Sun signs can incline people born under them toward certain sexual orientations, long after other astrologers discredited that notion. (This book was published in 2004.) And, aside from their nods toward gender-conforming or gender-exaggerating gay people (as seen in Sagittarius Man, for example), Starsky and Cox absolutely conflate homosexuality with gender deviance. I could scarcely believe how much the authors relied on stereotypes when writing about homosexuality. In other words, by cleaving the sexes from each other, the authors allow themselves to declare that Aries men are usually straight while Aries women are often bicurious--because Aries men are the most macho of all signs, of course, and Aries women are "bratty" and like to dominate both men and women. Similarly, in Starsky and Cox's view, Virgo women typically dislike lesbian sexual activity because they tend to fit traditional expectations of their sex, but Virgo men love mating with other men by nature because Virgo men are big sissies. Pisces women, meanwhile, are usually straight but find themselves flocked by admiring gay men, whereas Pisces men--who are often actually trans women because they're also big sissies, as are many Taurus men--are "homoerotic to the core" but "disdain men who call themselves bisexual."
  
  Sextrology, as did Linda Goodman's Love Signs before it, suffers irreparably for its attempts to reconcile two contradictory concepts with each other. In the latter's case, Goodman's mental gymnastics almost made their own perverse sense: a woman can be liberated...if she is masculine, which is against nature but beneficial in societal terms. Sextrology jumps through hoops as well, but it stumbles and falls prone onto the sawdust. It wants to be hip and postmodern (which is a detestable enough goal), and yet it clings to primitive concepts of gender. For all its psychological efforts, this book's salient features betray its original intentions as a work of pop astrology: its romantic comedy-derived concepts of gender, its extraordinarily lengthy lists of celebrities of each Sun sign, its citation of pop culture icons in addition to the mythological and classic literary figures (likening Harry Potter to a Virgo and Draco Malfoy to a Scorpio is a particularly laughable example), its fixation on the minutiae of sexual acts and references to pornography, its various fashion tips, its tiresome belief that not labeling one's sexuality is somehow taboo-breaking or revolutionary instead of a sign of arrested development. (If your sexuality is fluid, then call it fluid. If it isn't, then call it by its correct name.) Oh, and incidentally, the book lists transsexuals and bisexuality as "turn-ons" alongside such items as water sports, bondage, and homemade porn.
  
  In Sextrology's defense, I resonated profoundly with the book's profile of the Pisces man. Many people claim to identify with the characteristics of their sun signs as described in astrology books, but this one positively nailed it (though I have nothing against bisexual men, despite being "homoerotic to the core"). I honestly did not expect such an accurate analysis. As a pre-op transsexual (female-to-neuter-leaning-male, in my case), I anticipated that this book would have no place for me, but it did.
  
  Unfortunately, the authors' view of transsexualism is...iffy, to say the least. They don't seem to realize that, for example, a trans woman would look up information on herself under "[Sun Sign] Woman" rather than "[Sun Sign] Man," or that the Unified Transsexual Narrative--biological male identifies as a woman, wants surgery to become biologically female, desires biological males sexually--is not a universal law. Trans lesbians, trans gay men, and non-binary people don't seem to ping these authors' radars. Neither do asexual people, although their conspicuous absence doesn't really surprise, since this book is about sex. The omission of these groups may be attributable to the combination of pop culture influence (when was the last time you saw a transsexual on television who wasn't a male-to-female androphile?) and Freudian-derived psychology.
  
  
  Oh, yes, how could I forget about that? In their zeal to link everything to the sun sign, Starsky and Cox describe each character's home life, as if the child's sun sign determined the parents' behavior. You'd expect that that would be enough, but the authors sincerely refer to the Oedipus complex and similar late-ninteenth-/early-twentieth-century psychological concepts. I don't mean the Oedipus complex in the sense of a man who expects his wife to take over where his mother left off, since that's so common as to be a plague, but the honest-to-God father-killing, mother-fucking Oedipus complex that every little boy supposedly suffers, sometimes into adulthood.
  
  I wouldn't go so far as to call this book bad--it has plenty of redeeming qualities, its spiritual dimensions chief among them. But my god, I wish it had focused exclusively on the archetypes.
• 
  Driver

  As far as astrology, or particularly the astrology of sex and the sexes, goes I found this to be a surprisingly thorough book.
  I have read Joanna Martine Woolfolk's hilarious little book
  Sexual Astrology: A Sign-by-Sign Guide to Your Sensual Stars which suggested such unsavory things as Capricorns generally being turned on by their lover sticking their toe in their armpit. Alas, I still wonder how many Capricorns she may have tried this on and how well the author herself actually reads facial expressions or other reactions to such endeavors. As a Cap, the notion of a toe in my armpit as a part of successful foreplay had me somewhere between gagging and giggling hysterically.
  In contrast, Marlene Rathgeb's
  Sexual Astrology seemed far more structured and very briefly outlined the various pairings between partners, the role their rising sign may play etc.
  Now, going back on this book it is divided into chapters or sections about the different genders, gives an overview of what "makes this sign tick," then goes on to elaborate on things such as "Sign & Mind," "Body & Soul," "Sex & Sexuality" and lastly offers insight into the differences between straight and gay sexuality or compatibility with other signs.
  We learn about the planetary symbols, sign quadrants, polarity, psychology, the signs in literature and the Bible (okay), elements and archetypes as well as myths involving the signs.
  It is, probably unsurprisingly, a very positive book for the most part, not going very deeply into the weaknesses and "problems" of each sign, which is why I found a book like
  Darkside Zodiac for example rather refreshing and although I often laughed out loud it was for other reasons than why Woolfolk's book cracked me up the way it did, it simply hit very close to home but was never patronizing or offensive.
  In any case, Sextrology is - despite its length - a quick read. Now, we must be clear on the fact that astrology is not a science of course but that aside, for as concrete or exact as a book like this can be, it did deliver.
  
• 
  Kd

  I only read my sun sign and a recent past relationship and it was super interesting to read. I learned things about myself that I might need to work on. I also had some Ah-Ha moments where I understood why I may be like the way I am. There were a lot of things that matched with me. There were some things I may not have agreed with but we have to take in our own opinion. Not everything can match exactly right. I loved how it had the descriptions of each man and woman. I also liked the description of the couples at the end. I think being open to growing as a person is wonderful and this may help with personal improvement. At the same time understanding your partner in a different light and seeing who might be a good fit according to your signs.
• 
  Audrey Babkirk Wellons

  First off, the name of this book is SEXTROLOGY. Second, the authors are Starsky and COX. Sold and SOLD.
  
  Given these classy attributes, I was surprised to find that this was one of the more in-depth sun-sign books around. I mean, you get 26 pages on Gemini Woman, for instance. And while part of that is bedroom antics, het-vs.-homo preferences, and annoying psychobabble, a lot is thorough personality assessment. And for each sign and gender you get commentary in the margins about the related symbol, myth, planet, body part, etc. Definitely re-read, read aloud, and highlighted this one.
• 
  April

  My friend's roommate had this on his bookshelf, and out of boredom and, admittedly, what I found to be an alluring title, I picked it up and began perusing. Oh WOW, did it ever have ME pegged, as well as the habits of my (ahem) suitors, past and present. This was so alarmingly accurate that I simply had to buy my own copy, as I kept going over to aforementioned friend's house just to look something up! Very fun, very hilarious, very scary.
• 
  Valerie Baber

  The cleverly pen-named authors "Starsky & Cox" provide endless amounts of titillating cocktail conversation and useful research material upon meeting someone new. Each profile will offer about 25 pages of detailed information. While it's a light-hearted subject, at 560 pages, this is no light book for flipping through, but it's highly amusing, interesting and worth the investment of your time.
  
  
• 
  Lauren Kayes

  Was hoping this would be an entertaining read, but I could not get past the casual racism/transphobia/biphobia/etc. ("Primitive/native women," "Asians/Latinas," and "transsexuals" listed as kinks/turn-ons? Yikes.) The gay/lesbian sections felt like afterthoughts at best, and I'm regretting having spent the money and bookshelf space on it. Fun concept, poor execution.
• 
  Barbara Peña

  This book is highly-entertaining and never fails to liven up a dinner party or get together! Keep it on your coffee table if you've got friends coming over - instant good times. Ever wonder why your ex was so weird? This book may just clue you in. Lots of fun.
• 
  SmarterLilac

  Right up there with my favorite astrology books...ever.
• 
  Karen

  This book isn't subtle and really gets into the down and dirty traits of each sign from the physical aspects to what's going on in the bedroom. It's hilarious and sometimes down-right insulting. I love it! The authors are biased for some signs though so it's not a fulfilling read.
  
  I had a lot of fun reading my friend's signs. The 'Turn-on' section was especially a great conversation starter. There was a lot of things that were fairly on point about people but also some that didn't seem to apply. I know there's more to a person than their Sun sign but this is one of the first astrology books that I've read that pretty much hits the nail on the head. Even if it doesn't, the other signs are equally as fun to read as your own and more fun to tell others about theirs. Just pick it up in a bookstore and stopping yourself from reading is kinda hard to do.
• 
  Holly

  There's a lot of superfluous words in this book, and the only reason for them is to make it sound all hip and sassy. This could be edited down by 200 pages and lose nothing of value.
  
  I didn't get the physical descriptions of each sign's genitalia, either. I mean, just going on my own genitalia, it's nothing like what Sextrology claims it should look like.
  
  They describe all the way down to the size of my labia, and it's pretty much exactly opposite. I did some physical appearance comparisons to friends and ex-boyfriends, and none of the physical descriptions ever seemed to match. The personalities were usually closer, so I'm not disregarding the research, but...come on, how do you expect to know what each sign's sack looks like?
  
  And more importantly, Why does it matter?
• 
  Amanda Patterson

  Everything you want to know about sun signs and their sexual makeup. From fantasies to emotional needs to the psychology behind it all, Sextrology doesn't disappoint.
  The book is filled with famous and infamous individuals from each star sign. It includes body rulership, symbols, elements, straight and gay turn-ons.
  I always test these books by telling different star signs what the authors say about them. This one gets a 95% accuracy rating.
• 
  Uyen Nguyen

  This was wildly entertaining! The book holds sharp-witted humor, fantastic astrological insight and is fun. Its most distinctive quality and comparative advantage beyond all others includes the dissection of astrology. Sextrology breaks down sex and astrology for males/females and as well for heteros and homos. I.e. ARIES FEMALE section: for straight female and for gay female. I love this book! Perfect as a coffee table book (if there are no children around).
• 
  Mimi Toure-Gorham

  What a gem this book is. The in-depth and original approach it has is quite delightful.
  
  I thoroughly enjoyed reading and spending time with this book, it gave me a new perspective on Astrology and covered all the topics I liked and wanted to know more about.
  
  Contemporary, fresh was the feel and I am ever so grateful the cover is red, caught my eye right away that day in the book shop!
  
  Mimi TG
• 
  Lauren Patton

  Eh. What I liked most about this was the deep mythological history of signs and, for me, that made it worth reading. What I didn't like is a longer list... There's no mention that the reader should consider their moon, rising, or Venus signs and I found it extremely skewed towards whiteness or being fair-skinned. Although astrology inevitably contains sweeping generalizations, most of them were just too much for me, especially when it came to physical descriptions (which often involved being light-skinned) and family history. I also found the writing and language to be a little cringey at times--it may be a product of its time, but it felt like word choice was base to the point of trying to appeal to a wider audience. It would be interesting to see how an updated version of this would look.
• 
  Jana

  It is good, but in a way vague because it is not connected with your Sun or Moon or Ascendant but zodiac signs female/male. For beginners ideal.
• 
  Thần Cupid

  a good book for me right now.
• 
  Katie

  Starsky and Cox (yeah, like those are their real names) clearly have had super bad experiences with Piscean females, because they basically rip us all new assholes in this book. Which is part of why I've rated it at only three stars - being the self-obsessed "diva" Piscean lady that I obviously am, I only really care what the book has to say if it reflects positively on me! No, for real - this one is interesting because each sign is divided by gender (oh, that pesky binary), and each gender for each sign is then described in both straight and gay relationships/sexual situations. The writing is colloquial and snarky, and the "turn-ons" lists are pretty intensely specific and detailed, and so although overall I would take this one with an additional grain of salt from the grains you normally put towards all things star-related, it's quirky and somewhat different from your average astro text.
• 
  A Templeton

  this bloody book...
  
  have had this for years and keep coming back to it when i feel like really going into one of the signs - most recently when I needed a relationship diagnosis, and I absolutely found it.
  
  I've been studying astrology for years and Sextrology one of the best sources I've come across for archetype studies.. also fairly unironically grounded in a SATC-style dating mis en scene? lol. the best parts for me are those that connect the signs to literary personas, biblical figures, myths, etc. powerful, like, what my housemate refers to as 'spirit' charting, for lack of a better term.
  
  my most recent trip into it (maybe during the part diagnosing cancer man's predisposition to breastfeeding, 'to the point baby could have some fairly stiff competition'), I realised that it must've been written by dominatrixes... it was definitely written by dominatrixes.
• 
  Fer

  Finally! I learned so much from this even being knee-deep in astrology geekiness prior to finally buying this, but the writing was so incredibly redundant at points that it became a chore to slog through :( What this book really could have used was a good, solid editor to give it a better run-through, because there are quite a handful of typos, the same phrases used multiple times on singular pages, and for some reason whenever skin-tone was specified for a sign's physical appearance it was only ever described as being "fairer than the rest of their family members'"
  But with the negatives out of the way, this really is a great reference book. If you genuinely believe in it, as I do, it's helpful for application to real-life interpersonal relationships, and otherwise, it's just good, sexy fun. Win-win, but gosh, what a commitment!
• 
  Blair

  I am such a sceptic when it comes to most things, but surprisingly, I am completely fascinated by astrology. The only thing I really do believe in is the power of 'the universe'. I'm not a pantheist or anything, I just think the Earth is capable of far more than what science alone can explain. Which brings me back to astrology and the possibility that the alignment of each planet at a certain time and place (like when we were born) may actually mean something.
  
  I've read quite a few books on astrology, and this one is the most comprehensive and the best, due to how bizarrely accurate I have found it to be. My only criticism is its focus on sun signs. I would really like to find out more about the possible impact that our moon, rising and other planetary signs has on our sexuality.
• 
  Allison ☾

  You never really "read" this book. You may read the whole thing cover to cover, but you will always keep it around as a sort of reference.
  
  Personally I love this book because it has many more facets than your traditional Sun Sign over-generalized Astrology book. It shows your sign's number in the zodiac, biblical character and Greek/Roman mythological character translation. It shows your element, polarity and glyph explained.
  
  This is a great Astrology reference book for yourself or for others. However, I would not recommend reading the small bits of compatibility at the end of the chapters. If you want more accurate and in-depth compatibility you should get Cosmic Coupling by Starsky & Cox. It's another of my favorites.
• 
  Gerri Davis

  Birthday gift from my friend EkateriniMaria - a Greek who holds true to her birthright on the isle of the oracles, Kefalonia . . . this one is a gem though I would never have bought it for myself. It pairs people by sign and orientation - and gets into all the gritty stuff with a sassy take. In social arrangements it can take on all the major qualities of a good old fashioned game of spin the bottle. Almost.
• 
  Arley

  I am an astrology book collector, this is one of my favorites.
  Very entertaining, just take it with a grain of salt. The book is fun. I highly recommenced it, if astrology is your thing. It talks about individual relationships, sex and turnons.
  
  Also includes what couples work best if you are in a Male/Female, Male/Male or Female/Female relationship. It has something for everyone and that makes it even better.