Doing It Down Under

by Richters, Julia; Rissel, Chris

The book begins with an introduction of the author Julia Ritchers who has worked for 20 years in the field of Sex research and the education. Perhaps her biggest shot to fame was the Condom project :-) which included a World first - a Study to measure men's erect penises to check appropriate condom sizes.

The Book in general is a result of a extensive telephonic interviews involving more than 111,290 phone calls to 19,307 Australians between 16 and 60, who agreed to reveal intimate details of their sex lives.

Read a detailed review of the book here or some additional details here.


The book is food for those who are curious about figures and statistics, when I mentioned to a friend on the phone that I am now reading this book, immediately came questions on statistics which I actually couldn't bother to remember. All this in spite of the fact that the information he had asked was just a few chapters behind, and I had just read it all.

If you ask me today I cannot remember a single number in all those hordes of statistics mentioned, except for the fact that the current generations are loosing their virginity at an earlier age and they know more about sex and condoms than what their parents did at their age. And if you think of it , I shouldn't have had to read a book to know this, its anyway obvious when you look outside.

Overall I reckon the book is worth a single glance or may be as a reference guide if Sexual practices of Australians is your thesis topic in graduation. Apart from that book has a kind of a research report flavour which it is actually. I must appreciate the very asexual and stoic manner in which such a raunchy topic is discussed in the book.