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Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert
A twenty-two-year-old perennial virgin, Englishman Grant Stoddard didn't know what to do with his life in America—until he won an X-rated online contest, the prize being intercourse with an infamous married sex columnist. He consequently wound up delivering mail at Nerve.com but accidentally found his calling as a gonzo sex reporter who would try any and every lurid activity his crafty coworkers devised—from offering himself up as man-bait at a hard-core gay bar to attending an elite orgy, to being a hapless participant in a sexual home invasion—all the while wishing he could be safely tucked in bed.Working Stiff is the humble, hilarious, and delightfully salacious fish-into-water story of a young man who followed his heart—and other organs—into places where few would dare to venture.
304 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
April 18, 2023
A 22 year old English virgin, Grant was at a loss at what to do in America, until he won a online adult contest, where the prize is getting to have sex with a celebrity sex columnist! And no, I have no idea why I picked this up in the library, maybe it wasn't me? It fell in my basket? Anyhoos he becomes a sex reporter who will try out anything, and I mean anything! Probably not the point, but a more reflective take on his experiences would have made this a better read. Oh, and this is a memoir!!
5 out of 12, Two Stars. Published by Virgin :)
2008 read
5 out of 12, Two Stars. Published by Virgin :)
2008 read
November 21, 2007
Grant Stoddard is only interesting because of his former job writing for Nerve. He knows this, so the book starts and ends with his unusual and perhaps metaphoric final assignment. Unfortunately, he can't write about his job, since he is/was engaged in a dispute with his former employer about who owns how much of those experiences.
Instead, in the pages in between, Grant tells us about being a loser who wants to score but can't in high school, then about being a loser who wants to score but can't in college. Then he meets an American girl, who sees through his loser ways to someone worth shagging. (I honestly don't know how. She may have been delusional.) He follows her home. He discovers that many American girls find accents cute and loses interest in the original one. There are visa issues, but a distinct lack of interesting hijinks.
Grant then becomes a loser who can occasionally score and works at Nerve. From what I've been told, his column was interesting.
From what I read in his memoir, Grant is a self-obsessed loser. His total focus on how much of a loser he is/was eventually caused me to believe it wholly, and he never redeems himself in anyway. By the end of the book, I could care less about him. May I recommend Candy Girl instead?
Instead, in the pages in between, Grant tells us about being a loser who wants to score but can't in high school, then about being a loser who wants to score but can't in college. Then he meets an American girl, who sees through his loser ways to someone worth shagging. (I honestly don't know how. She may have been delusional.) He follows her home. He discovers that many American girls find accents cute and loses interest in the original one. There are visa issues, but a distinct lack of interesting hijinks.
Grant then becomes a loser who can occasionally score and works at Nerve. From what I've been told, his column was interesting.
From what I read in his memoir, Grant is a self-obsessed loser. His total focus on how much of a loser he is/was eventually caused me to believe it wholly, and he never redeems himself in anyway. By the end of the book, I could care less about him. May I recommend Candy Girl instead?
April 22, 2013
I didn't like this book as much as I hoped I would. It sounded like a great idea, following the exploits of a guy who gets paid to report on crazy sex acts. But there's too much of his everyday trials and tribulations and not enough about the craziness. It's a promising set up: inexperienced British guy moves to the US and pretty much lucks into a job at Nerve that has him meeting people for all manner of sexual activity. And the things he is willing to do for the sake of his job range from a bit of kink to what the hell are you thinking. But between the accounts he writes about his near-homelessness, poverty and immigration issues... quite honestly, making the overall tone a bit of a downer. You get the impression by the end that he didn't do any of this because he was actually into it; it was all a means to a paycheck. It would have been better had the author been more engaged in what was going on and actually seemed to enjoy some of it. (On a technical note, I'm reluctant to believe that the author actually wrote the majority of this book or didn't get a hell of a lot of editing help and rewrites. Numerous times he references the fact that he's not a writer and hadn't written anything before getting the job.)
April 7, 2024
Well-written and at times insightful book into the modern sexual mindset of young adults. This British columnist ends up in New York City and traces his own sexual growth in welcoming all sorts of peculiarities and perversities. While it may shock some readers, the book actually fails to follow-through with enough details regarding his thirty encounters with women, men, threesomes and orgies. He was paid for doing all these things, acting as a naive innocent being exposed to a new world, but soon became a confident expert.
It's refreshing to read about an adult virginal novice learning to make out with girls by being forced into uncomfortable situations. The book takes the right approach for much of it, telling his personal story, but then as he becomes less interesting it falters by focusing too much on his New York City life, not giving specifics about what he did to produce a regular sex column. He lists in one paragraph these things but never explains what occurred during any of them: using cock rings, prostate massagers, tantra, attempting to induce female ejaculation, sex while on different drugs, threesome with a couple, working with a relationship coach, watching 24 hours of porn, a casual hookup with a stranger from Craigslist, wearing a chastity harness, being a nude photographer, giving lap dances, being a cock model, sex with a mannequin, being treated like an infant, working at a gay bar, and making out with men.
You have to ask, "Why no details?" It could be for legal reasons (his boss is a real monetizing freak who claims ownership over Stoddard's "persona" of fish-out-of-water sexpert). But one of Grant's columns (on getting a happy ending massage) is reprinted in the book. This should have been filled with details of his adventures, but beyond his first couple of times he doesn't mention much. Namely, there's not enough sex in this book about the life of an experimental sex columnist!
His preferences also seem questionable. He claims to be straight but he certainly does a lot of gay and bi activities without much complaining. The author also has a very cavalier attitude toward taking illegal drugs--he seems to consume them like candy and there is little thought here regarding any moral or physical ramifications of his choices.
The guy also is horribly in love with New York City and everything he details as being selling points for the place are the things that I detest about it. In the early 2000s the city was filled with people who championed sexual promiscuity as normal and the guy who didn't do it was the weird one. He writes, "My love (of NYC) informs my politics and worldview, my lifestyle and relationships." That's really too bad.
From his life there I realized how warped those residents are, that they fear loneliness by valuing constant noise and people and commotion (he said that in his first four years there he had never been truly alone for more than three hours), have no real conscience other than the fake liberal kind that professes tolerance while bemoaning anyone outside their inner group, and are nothing like a large portion of the rest of the county.
So while I enjoyed the book as far as it went, it didn't go far enough, and wasted the last couple of chapters on his attempt to get an MTV show produced while living in the mountains. He was let go from his column, the book ends, and we're left wondering what happened to this good writer whose life had been changed. He certainly was no longer working stiff.
It's refreshing to read about an adult virginal novice learning to make out with girls by being forced into uncomfortable situations. The book takes the right approach for much of it, telling his personal story, but then as he becomes less interesting it falters by focusing too much on his New York City life, not giving specifics about what he did to produce a regular sex column. He lists in one paragraph these things but never explains what occurred during any of them: using cock rings, prostate massagers, tantra, attempting to induce female ejaculation, sex while on different drugs, threesome with a couple, working with a relationship coach, watching 24 hours of porn, a casual hookup with a stranger from Craigslist, wearing a chastity harness, being a nude photographer, giving lap dances, being a cock model, sex with a mannequin, being treated like an infant, working at a gay bar, and making out with men.
You have to ask, "Why no details?" It could be for legal reasons (his boss is a real monetizing freak who claims ownership over Stoddard's "persona" of fish-out-of-water sexpert). But one of Grant's columns (on getting a happy ending massage) is reprinted in the book. This should have been filled with details of his adventures, but beyond his first couple of times he doesn't mention much. Namely, there's not enough sex in this book about the life of an experimental sex columnist!
His preferences also seem questionable. He claims to be straight but he certainly does a lot of gay and bi activities without much complaining. The author also has a very cavalier attitude toward taking illegal drugs--he seems to consume them like candy and there is little thought here regarding any moral or physical ramifications of his choices.
The guy also is horribly in love with New York City and everything he details as being selling points for the place are the things that I detest about it. In the early 2000s the city was filled with people who championed sexual promiscuity as normal and the guy who didn't do it was the weird one. He writes, "My love (of NYC) informs my politics and worldview, my lifestyle and relationships." That's really too bad.
From his life there I realized how warped those residents are, that they fear loneliness by valuing constant noise and people and commotion (he said that in his first four years there he had never been truly alone for more than three hours), have no real conscience other than the fake liberal kind that professes tolerance while bemoaning anyone outside their inner group, and are nothing like a large portion of the rest of the county.
So while I enjoyed the book as far as it went, it didn't go far enough, and wasted the last couple of chapters on his attempt to get an MTV show produced while living in the mountains. He was let go from his column, the book ends, and we're left wondering what happened to this good writer whose life had been changed. He certainly was no longer working stiff.
October 1, 2018
This is an energetic, quick-read that starts brilliantly, a laugh a minute or more, and continues to deliver for a hundred and fifty pages or so before dropping off and ending abruptly and rather dully – ironically, a bit like sex that starts well but finishes disappointingly. Best of all is the humour – Grant is a funny, funny writer. Memorable indeed are the vivid descriptions of weird sexual situations, the deeply, tragically uncomfortable moments (like the time he’s leaving a sex party and waves goodbye to the host who replies, "thanks for coming" while she's being done from behind by a bloke who also smiles and waves.)
Perhaps surprisingly though, some of the simpler, non-sexual moments are the best, like when his old landlady decides whether or not to put her teeth in while she’s talking on the phone depending entirely on the importance of who's calling. A lot of reviews I’ve looked at for Working Stiff say that the author’s descriptions of his everyday life are dull and depressing, but I disagree entirely. In a book that could alienate anyone with a straight-forward sex life of steady boyfriends and periods of celibacy, those normal everyday life observations stand out as what gives Grant his ordinary-man appeal. Without that down-to-earth element, I’d personally find all that talk of fetishes, oral with strangers and train sex pretty tiring to read.
For me, the worst part of the book is the shift back and forth from the selfish, hedonistic, animalistic sexual encounters to supposedly intimate girlfriend sex; it’s not believable and emotionally jarring (and he does say he feels that shallowness within himself, which is at least truthful). My advice to any sexpert: if you're going to take part in orgies, indulge a demanding gay fetishist or get a friend to bugger you with a wax mould of your own penis, stick to perverse and don’t pretend to be anything other than a horny pervert – and by the slippery sound of this book, Grant Stoddard makes an excellent one of those.
Perhaps surprisingly though, some of the simpler, non-sexual moments are the best, like when his old landlady decides whether or not to put her teeth in while she’s talking on the phone depending entirely on the importance of who's calling. A lot of reviews I’ve looked at for Working Stiff say that the author’s descriptions of his everyday life are dull and depressing, but I disagree entirely. In a book that could alienate anyone with a straight-forward sex life of steady boyfriends and periods of celibacy, those normal everyday life observations stand out as what gives Grant his ordinary-man appeal. Without that down-to-earth element, I’d personally find all that talk of fetishes, oral with strangers and train sex pretty tiring to read.
For me, the worst part of the book is the shift back and forth from the selfish, hedonistic, animalistic sexual encounters to supposedly intimate girlfriend sex; it’s not believable and emotionally jarring (and he does say he feels that shallowness within himself, which is at least truthful). My advice to any sexpert: if you're going to take part in orgies, indulge a demanding gay fetishist or get a friend to bugger you with a wax mould of your own penis, stick to perverse and don’t pretend to be anything other than a horny pervert – and by the slippery sound of this book, Grant Stoddard makes an excellent one of those.
July 25, 2020
Read this a few times as it thoroughly made me laugh in parts.
August 13, 2016
I came away from this book feeling like this guy had been victimized by the sex trade. He initially takes the job because he's working on a foreign visa and wanted to stay in the United States. He worked completing humiliating scenarios for the same reason that many women prostitute themselves, they have few to no other options. His stories of his various experiments weren't titillating so much as told in a way that made me queasy, because it never really felt like Grant was fully consenting to the sex acts he was engaging in. Grant also came off as rather callous and without a lot of skill at self-reflection. For instance, why did he immediately dump his girlfriend after they participated in the orgy together? Isn't that what memoirs are for, to analyze one's responses in retrospect and illuminate the reader? It sounded to me like a case of slut shaming the girlfriend for being game enough to accept *his* invitation to the party and actively participate. (This would have been a great opportunity for him to analyze the emotional consequences of free-wheeling sexuality, but he didn't.) It was a fast read, but overly fairly shallow. There are much more insightful books on similar subjects out there.
August 20, 2011
While waiting for books I ordered online to arrive in the mail, I decided to stop at the store and pick up a "quick read" for time filler until my books came. So I picked up "Working Stiff" by Grant Stoddard because it looked hilarious and a funny read seemed to be exactly what I was hoping for.
Grant Stoddard was a college-age British man when he wondered over to NYC and after couch surfing and girlfriend hunting stumbled upon sex writing at Nerve.com. Grant's job was to try a variety of unique sexual activities/atmospheres and report his findings. This is everything to public subway sex, to throwing all sorts of food items at a gay man with a unibrow.
I had mixed feelings about this book. His sexual exploits were hilarious and well-written, but frankly, his daily grind was quite dull. I felt like the rest of the book in-between the sex stuff was pure filler. It was nothing but garbage that I was tempted to skim. So, although his adventures were fun compelling reads, the rest was mind numbing.
Grant Stoddard was a college-age British man when he wondered over to NYC and after couch surfing and girlfriend hunting stumbled upon sex writing at Nerve.com. Grant's job was to try a variety of unique sexual activities/atmospheres and report his findings. This is everything to public subway sex, to throwing all sorts of food items at a gay man with a unibrow.
I had mixed feelings about this book. His sexual exploits were hilarious and well-written, but frankly, his daily grind was quite dull. I felt like the rest of the book in-between the sex stuff was pure filler. It was nothing but garbage that I was tempted to skim. So, although his adventures were fun compelling reads, the rest was mind numbing.
March 28, 2009
This book was hilarious. Even for those of us who may not consider ourselves exactly - ahem - "vanilla," this book goes way beyond that - and then some. That Stoddard was a perennial virgin to all things beyond the vanilla only adds to the hilarity and ability to relate to his thoughts as he put himself in increasingly crazy sexual situations, all for his column in Nerve. His exploits are deliciously outlined here, and I loved every bit of it. I read Dan Savage's column regularly, and there were still things in this book I would have never guessed people did. And while it has its lovable raunchy moments, it is not gratuitously filled with sex. Grant fumbles through his work assignments and it endearingly clueless at times, just as most of us would be. Even throughout a book detailing his sexploits, I still felt like I got to know Grant through this book. I can't wait to read more of his stuff.
July 25, 2011
"Working Stiff" is the amusing tale of Grant Stoddard, a rather normal English guy with an unsuccessful love and sex life who moved to NYC in the 1990s and stumbled into a job with Nerve.com as a sex writer, basically acting as a guinea pig for the site by placing himself into a number of crazy sexual situations.
The author is very self-deprecating and the book an amusing light read. Recommended to me by my girfriend as a vacation read, I was not expecting much from the writing, but found it to be competently written and rather witty at times with wry descriptions of the author's childhood and life in NYC. Stoddard's observations of English and American life are often spot-on and amusing. And some of the situations he gets himself into are bizarre and funny.
An entertaining quick read.
Hate the cover though, embarassed to carry it around. Bad publisher!
The author is very self-deprecating and the book an amusing light read. Recommended to me by my girfriend as a vacation read, I was not expecting much from the writing, but found it to be competently written and rather witty at times with wry descriptions of the author's childhood and life in NYC. Stoddard's observations of English and American life are often spot-on and amusing. And some of the situations he gets himself into are bizarre and funny.
An entertaining quick read.
Hate the cover though, embarassed to carry it around. Bad publisher!
January 18, 2008
An enjoyable read. Light and silly, as expected. The author, is a virginal Britt who comes to America, and finds himself working at a kinky website. Hilarity ensues. Almost. The book left me feeling a little cheated. Throughout, the author tries to make sense of his crazy life, and find his niche in the wacky American Dream. But by the end of the book, he seems frustrated, and so was I. I feel like it could have been better if he would have written it ten years later, and been able to say, "this is where my crazy adventures got me, and this is what I learned." But he's just to emmersed in his own turmoil for any moments of clarity. But I did enjoy the book. What can I say...some of it was hot.
July 8, 2008
I wanted a book that could hold my attention through a day of airports and airplanes. in that sense, the book succeeded. however, several times I thought to myself that this sex columnist didn't seem to have picked up many writing tips during his exploits. Stoddard is amusing and brings a level of sincerity to his sex adventures, but the book gets a bit lost when he's not describing those adventures and detailing other topics like emotions, citizenship, and post-Nerve.com plans. but I'll stand by my first assessment: if you want to stay interested on a plane from Miami to Boston, you'll do fine to pick up a copy. just be aware that your seat mate may stop talking to you once he reads over your shoulder a little bit.
July 29, 2013
A quick read that made me laugh out loud many times. Of course, I'm Canadian and get dry British humour, even that so sere your vision evaporates off it (i.e., subtle). As well, not being too sexually adventurous I find most of the the situations Stoddard stumbles into cringe-worthy and can relate to all the personal struggle surrounding them—including the struggle to bundle it all into a book. I actually read this shortly after I met the author and began working with him on a music project. I found his ability to actually capture and portray himself as he really is—without any pretence to projection—to be uncanny and unusual among authors, especially first-timers. I could hear every neurotic word coming out of his mouth.
March 6, 2009
Straightforward, chronological memoir of Stoddard's arrival as a sex writer with Nerve.com. Interesting for me as he is a Brit who always felt more affinity for the US than his home country. I can completely relate to his attitude to the UK and how he is treated by fellow Brits he meets here.
The prose is matter of fact and self-depricating and in places, very funny. Can't help feeling that the sort of things he gets up to ultimately leave him unsatisfied, lonely and sad. This is probably what he is going for and if so, succeeds very well. It doesn't sound like a lifestyle to aspire to frankly!
The prose is matter of fact and self-depricating and in places, very funny. Can't help feeling that the sort of things he gets up to ultimately leave him unsatisfied, lonely and sad. This is probably what he is going for and if so, succeeds very well. It doesn't sound like a lifestyle to aspire to frankly!
March 7, 2013
Not going to lie, this book was nothing like what I expected. I don't even remember how I came across it at the book store and definitely not why I decided to buy and read it. That said it was interesting - funny, disturbing, and simultaneously informative. It was a very shocking and rare perspective to write from especially in a society that shuns anything remotely sexual. I didn't love the book as it made me increasingly uncomfortable, but that is also why I loved it. It's really hard to describe how this book makes me feel as these were entirely un-relatable situations. Overall, it was fun while it lasted but made no lasting impression.
August 12, 2008
You really have to have had a preexisting affinity for this guy to really care about the book. My thoughts going into the book were that he was going to detail a bunch of his experiments, and yes he touched on a couple and yes some of it was interesting, but then he talked about his struggles in New York and about his deal with MTV or VH1 or whatever network it was and then it just devolved into this list of people he had worked with throughout his burgeoning career. I think fans of his work will be happy, but he doesn't make the book accessible to a larger audience.
December 31, 2016
Mr. Stoddard is very funny when he's being himself. Throughout the book I feel like he contradicted himself (or maybe I was to sleepy). It seems as if there's more than one story being told at the same time. I thought Stoddard mentioned him having no sexual experience at the beginning of the book, but then writes about having had sex in a farm in the last pages of his book...
Quick read, laugh-out-laud funny on some parts, not believable though, just like his sexual life, this book seems to have been an exaggeration of his adventures.
Quick read, laugh-out-laud funny on some parts, not believable though, just like his sexual life, this book seems to have been an exaggeration of his adventures.
October 3, 2007
I never read any of Grant's columns on Nerve, but I really like the premise. Erica's right -- he's a bit heavy-handed with the "but I'm just a simple virgin boy from England" stuff, but he does seem pretty likable and his discomfort in unusual situations is palpable. I think the PS section helps the book a lot -- it might've been better to cut in his actual articles with the chapters, though Nerve probably wouldn't have gone for it. Also, where is he now? I haven't bothered googling.
January 27, 2009
I originally had this rated at 4 stars, but I decided to drop it down to three. It was a very well written memoir, very funny, but it started to get pretty labored as it went on. If it had held my interest all the way, it would have kept it's fourth star, but as is, I found myself just wanting to be done with it. Maybe that's just due to my addiction and not wanting to wait to get onto the next book, but there you go.
April 4, 2007
It's amusing enough, but nothing phenomenal. The strange sex situations become passe as per the author's intent and the whole bit ends up as a memoir of the author's journey from virgin to perv; sometimes it's a bit hard to care, sometimes it's wry and funny. I recommend it as a light read.
Get's overdrawn towards the end.
Get's overdrawn towards the end.
Read
January 8, 2008If you're looking for a great, fast holiday read, pick up a copy of Grant Stoddart's very funny book. Grant's story about accidentally getting the job of 'sex scientist' for nerve.com is full of witty anecdotes. Having been an active member of nerve for a while, I recognised many of the characters.
July 16, 2007
This book isn't terribly well written. He wanders from his subject a little too often and fails to tie all these side-steps into any kind of overall journey. That said, this book is fun and worth picking up. It's really funny and when he is talking about his fish out of water sexcapades, it's excellent.
July 21, 2007
I started reading this book after hearing the author on a radio talk show. He was funny. I though the book would be fun—and at times it was. But mostly it was like watching Springer: You realize that your life is so much more normal, and——at the risk of passing judgment here——ultimately better, than some of the weird folks out there.
September 4, 2010
Hard to describe this book. I was explaining the plot in an IM to a co-worker and I only managed to make the book sound like a sexcapade! I did find it was missing something and even though I'm not squeamish, some of his antics made me squirm. I have no inkling whatsoever to find out what he's doing now.
September 23, 2008
As I was looking through my Goodreads list, I suddenly thought "Hey! I already read this!" The fact that it took me months to realize that I'd read it is, I think, telling. Not aggressively bad, but not overly gripping, either.
November 29, 2007
The back cover says it will make you blush, and trust me, it will. This guy gets himself into so many awkward and interesting new positions (yes, they are sexual). The non-sexual part of the book that deals more with his life and the timeline are a little hard to follow.
June 16, 2008
interesting memoir, in the same vein as "i am not myself these days" but not as much fun to read.
September 20, 2017
It just... Wasn't that interesting. I would never have imagined this to be the person behind the humorous columns I used to read on Nerve. This does say a lot about the power of taking the opportunities that come your way, though- he had a lot of experiences that people struggle to obtain.
November 13, 2007
OK - this Euro-dork guy lived the American Dream by far - I found myself laughing, and totally freaked out by what he got himself into both at the same time from cover-to-cover... hilarious!
January 6, 2008
I know the guy who wrote this through photoblogs about NYC nightlife. He's hilarious in his sexploits and is well versed. Laughed out loud at some points.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews