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Sex! Tips! from Cosmo

BY JULIA ALLISON | Special to amNewYork

July 10, 2006

Kate White's How to Set His Thighs on Fire. (Photo by Handout / July 9, 2006)

No one has ever accused Cosmopolitan of being subtle.

So it's not surprising that the latest book from Cosmo's editor in chief, the irrepressible Kate White, sports one of the most gutsy cover designs I've ever seen.

A pair of impossibly long, tanned supermodel legs attached to four-inch stilettos spread wide across the top of the cover, while the model's hands clasp an apple red fire extinguisher in between her thighs.

"Thighs," of course, is the operative word, as the title below screams in neon pink and orange caps: "HOW TO SET HIS THIGHS ON FIRE." Um--use gasoline?

OK, OK. Maybe not.

Although some of the book's tricks are almost as unconventional (two words: glazed donut), nowhere in the subtitled "86 Red-Hot Lessons on Love, Life, Men, and (Especially) Sex" must you resort to flammable liquids. Whew!

Of course, I wouldn't put it past the winsome White, a 50-something size 4 blonde who picked up a tip or two (or 86) since taking the helm of the legendary magazine eight years ago.

In fact, "How to Set His Thighs on Fire" was an accidental book. Although White is a veteran author with six titles (including the bestselling Bailey Weggins mystery series) under her fashionable belt, she never even wrote a proposal for "Thighs."

"One day I was talking to my publisher," White explains, "and she said, 'Do you like your job, Kate?'" (This seems to me a silly question, as anyone who has ever talked with White knows that she's deliriously in love with her job.)

So of course White answered, "More than you can imagine--it has been the most delicious, fabulous experience of my life." She then 'jokingly' added, "Someday I want to write a book on How to Set His Thighs on Fire about everything I learned!"

Apparently that's all her publisher needed to hear--the next day she sent a contract over to White's literary agent. "My agent called me and said 'I have a contract for a book I've never even heard of!' And I said, 'maybe it's a mistake!' and she read the title and I said 'oh my God.'"

The resulting book is a grab bag of observations and wisdom written in the style of notoriously provocative Cosmo cover-lines, filled with laundry lists, amusing anecdotes, and (of course) a healthy dose of alliteration.

White herself epitomizes the famous Cosmo-girl mantra--Fun! Fearless! Female!--but she also integrates that persona into her writing. She's not afraid to discuss topics like (#62) 'The Most Neglected Moan Zone on a Man's Body' (hint: it's not his feet) or brazenly proclaim (#83) 'Sex is one of the Best Things in Life.'

In the first chapter, White acknowledges that it's not exactly difficult to seduce a guy: "'Why don't you drop your pants?' will usually suffice," she writes. But for "three alarm seduction" (that would be the legs a blazin' kind) women should "tease, tantalize, and torture" their victims. Er, men.

The next 85 tips appear in a stream of consciousness fashion, segueing from sex to men to love back to sex, almost like a How-To Tip of the Day calendar, but in book form. Of course, this makes sense, given that White wrote the "How to Do Anything Better" guide over at Glamour for years.

"You could say I'm the 'How to' queen!" she laughs.

Her job perks include a constant diet of new findings about human behavior, and sharing that info just seemed natural. "I soak up everything," she says, "I'm always thinking, 'is there any lesson to be learned?'" Ultimately, White just wants women to feel more comfortable about their bodies, their relationships and their sex lives.

Like your saucy, more-experienced best friend dishing her advice to you at a sleepover, White's lessons are sometimes common sense:
-#9: Guys Will Do Whatever It Takes to Get You in Bed (shocking!)
-#42: Guys Like Women Naked, Period (yep)