"This is sort of like the comically stated science of how to have sex in the woods," says Luann Colombo, author of - you guessed it - How to Have Sex in the Woods, just published by Random House.
But what possessed a science journalist who normally writes science articles and books for children to have a whack at examining sex in the great outdoors?
"Well," Colombo says with a small chuckle, "there were two reasons. One, about ten years ago, there was a book out called How to Shit in the Woods. It did well, it was comical but informative, but my thought is that sex is a lot more fun - and this would be a fun topic to write about.
"Second," she continues, "I kind of majored in sex in college - well, who didn't?" She takes a laughter pause and then continues. "It was the mid-70s, the middle of the sexual revolution, and I got a double major in biology and psychology with a concentration in human sexuality and I'd planned to become a sex therapist. That plan changed but the interest in sex still remained."
Colombo began the project by "brainstorming all the aspects I could think of" about outdoors sex. "Mostly," she says, "plotting diagrams of two people's activities and intimately enjoying each other, to see if there was even enough to write a book, what would be interesting and fun to research."
And she found plenty of both, although she admits there were more than a few obstacles and drawbacks. "When you tell people you're writing about sex in the woods," she says, "everyone has a story to tell - sex on the beach, sex on the golf course, on the way home, and I've kind of covered all that, everything except sex in the bed."
Colombo may have approached the book with a comic bent, but she could not avoid the clinical side of the topic, either. She devotes a chapter of How to Have Sex in the Woods to hygienic issues and needs, such as proper ground cloth, the right type of clothing (she recommends mountain climbing pants for women with special zippering so that a woman can have sex without removing her pants, "or, if you will, how a guy can get into her pants without getting her pants off"), and the proper health aids.
One recommendation she makes is an insect repellant called Blocker. "It's non-toxic," she says, "and it's made out of chrysanthemum flowers with a pleasant fragrance. You sure don't want the toxic repellants causing you problems." And, depending on your locale and climate, you want every possible element protection.
"For example, you could be out in the desert or on the hot beach, and the symptoms of heat stroke in the midday sun are similar to symptoms of the heat of passion," she says, "and you have to be careful, because if you think your partner's getting hot and passionate in the midday sun your partner could actually be heat stroking."
Otherwise, Colombo recommends for basic packing for safe outdoors sex and other emergencies condoms, lubricants, Zip-loc bags, and Monestat, "because you don't want to get any kind of infections out there, you don't wash your hands as often as you would normally when you're outdoors. And yeast and urinary tract infections for women are a lot more prevalent out there than inside."
And while How to Have Sex in the Woods covers and offers suggestions for year-round, all-season outdoors sex, she's quick to point out that it's a smart idea to prepare for the colder climates and environments as well, especially guarding against hypothermia, "because you can have an orgasm out there and the next thing you have is a fainting spell if you're hypothermic, and sometimes people don't really realize that."
Otherwise, be sure to take as well as things like "the Kama Sutra, vibrators and spare batteries, breath mints."
Both during the writing of the book and since its publication, Colombo says, she's asked often about the strangest things she had heard along the way.
Still, she can find something. One was about where the law covers having sex in the woods or elsewhere outdoors. The answer, she says: nowhere.
"I thought there'd be a law against it, but there isn't," Colombo says. "There's no one legal body that says you can't do this." And she had spoken to attorneys, judges, and police officers alike to learn that. "I found in general," she says, "that if you're trying to be discreet, and trying to maintain some sort of privacy, you'll be fine.
"But it also depends, say, on how voyeuristic a police officer is, and how much trouble they want to cause for you, but they can get in trouble if they step over their bounds."
Colombo tells of a couple skinny dipping, though not having sex, in the Pacific Northwest, when a police officer spotted a car near the spot "and had to go out of his way to see them." The officer, she says, "dragged them to the station without letting them put their clothes on. He was a somewhat voyeuristic cop, and the judge threw the book at him, she thought that was completely deplorable."
And she says that, early on in the project, she tried to glean some stories and information from a source which provided more raunch than raconteurism - the World Wide Web chat society.
"I got more total trash that way," she shudders. "I was chatting with this guy, and he told me he did it in every park in New Jersey. And I asked, 'But did anything funny happen out there?' And he said, 'Call me and I'll talk to you about it,' but I thought, well, I don't want to call this one…"
Colombo admits she has been surprised by how many people, both during the writing and since the publication of How to Have Sex in the Woods, have asked about her own sex life.
"Well," she says, not hiding laughter, "just say I'm a character that runs throughout the book, but you have to find me." She began to make a follow-up wisecrack, but halted herself "because that might cause a problem or two for my husband. He's a brand new husband, I just got him three months ago, and I want to keep him."
But the book provided an intriguing hit at the couple's Cape Cod wedding.
"We used the manuscript as a wedding sign-in," she says. "Well, the dedication is to him. And the second dedication is to my parents, I said that if they hadn't done some of this stuff somewhere, I wouldn't even exist. And under that, my mother wrote, 'It was our pleasure!'"
From there, the question became what were, as Colombo could determine, the most romantic places for sex in the woods or elsewhere outdoors. She says that before you can determine where, it depends so much upon whom one is with. "I mean, depending on who you're with, you could almost be standing in a train station and have a grand time," she says.
Then Colombo offers a place…sort of.
"Most romantic would be the one where you were completely prepared, had all the right things, the weather was perfect, you have a soft, cushy ground cloth underneath you, the birds are chirping, the crickets, and you really thought it out and had some of nature's foreplay materials, like feathers you found, or soft plants where the petals can brush lightly past your skin…
"I can't really say there's an absolute best or least, it depends on what you and your partner like - and how much you love each other. And, don't forget that, with each kind of environment, there's wonderful things about it, and there's adverse things to watch out for."
