Satisfaction - the Art of the Female Orgasm, by Kim Cattrall and Mark Levinson (Thorsons) Sex and the City's Kim Cattrall and husband Mark have hit the headlines with this book about how women can really get the satisfaction they want. But does the book do all it sets out to do? iVillage's couples counsellor Susan Quilliam gives her opinion

I have to admit I felt a bit cynical when I was asked to review Satisfaction. Oh no - not another sex manual. But first impressions were good. It's hardback, with a classy cover, charcoal pencil drawings and not too much text on each page. Medieval Japanese lovers used to keep a 'pillow book' of possible sexual variations near to hand during lovemaking - and this pillow book would certainly look good on any bedside table.

So then, what's inside? I liked the introduction. Right up front Kim Cattrall talks about her own difficulties in reaching orgasm until she met her husband Mark - then she goes on to make the point that 'no one wants to admit that millions of women have unsatisfactory sex lives and that most men do not know what to do about that.' Speaking as a couples counsellor, I have to agree with her. There's a huge gender gap in understanding of what turns a woman on - and many men haven't bridged that gap yet.

Reading on, I liked the book more and more. Kim and Mark make the point that it's the clitoris - not intercourse - that holds the secret of success for most women, and that until a man learns how to stimulate a woman's clit, he is not going to be able to satisfy. The book then offers very specific descriptions of how a man can give oral sex - with suggestions that he practise using his own fingertips.

The book then moves on from clitoral pleasures, to a comprehensive list of intercourse positions, though always with the emphasis on women's pleasure. And I also appreciated the nice little brush stroke diagrams which completely avoid the common sex manual trap of going into turn-off medical detail.

Towards the end, I have to admit, my interest trailed a little; I got the sense that Kim and Mark had a number of topics that didn't fit in the first three quarters of the book - such as Viagra, abuse and premature ejaculation - and that they'd bundled these topics all together at the end. Apart from that, however, so far so very good.

I had only one other problem with the book - and that is the style of some sections. The parts where Kim and Mark speak directly are nicely done - you get the feeling these are good people, genuinely interested in improving their readers' sex lives. And large parts of the rest of the book are beautifully written, telling the man just what to do, in luscious detail. But all too often, the book slips off this successful style and takes on the flavour of an old-fashioned biology textbook telling us what 'a woman should do' or 'a man should do'. Big yawn.

Overall however, I'd recommend Satisfaction. I very much appreciated its commitment to stating that clitoral stimulation is the key - so giving women permission to ask for it, and men encouragement to offer it.

I also appreciated the book's presupposition that 'she' comes first, and often. I liked the idea that penetration should only happen after she's climaxed at least once. And I loved the comment - on page 50, if you wish to bookmark it for your man - that oral sex on a woman should be done for a minimum of 'ten or twenty minutes, or even hours'.

Yes. Yes. Yes!