I’m not sure why people publish sex manuals. Do we really need books to tell us how to do it? Either you can or you can’t and if you have to interrupt the act of physical love to refer to Chapter 7, Subsection 6, then you’re talking about a real mood killer.

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Still . . . where, uh, would young folks be without these books?

I was a kid when David Reuben’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex was published. That was a sex manual that got people hot. It was written foreplay. Then came The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort, complete with watercolors of coitus. (“Watercolors of Coitus” – good album title?)

So when Sex is Fun (Avery, $20) arrived in the mail, it didn’t seem at first to break new ground. But leafing through it, you see that the authors (text by Kidder Kaper, illustrations by Josh Lynch) have used the graphic-novel approach to get the message across.

Far from the academicizing of sex by Alfred Kinsey or the clinical descriptions of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, Sex is Fun presents its topics in cartoon format – with graphic illustrations of what goes where and what happens when Tab A is inserted to Tab B.

There’s not much that revolutionary about the sequence of the chapters – how to get started, arouse the mind first, here’s how and where to touch – but the presentation is unique.

Whereas the text is strictly instructional, almost like those translated-from-Taiwanese instructions on how to assemble Junior’s new Transformer toy, the cartoon balloons that go with them (“I love the feel of your cum on my tits!”) offset the clinical nature of the prose.

And it’s an equal-opportunity, egalitation sex manual. Rather than limit the audience to heterosexuals or homosexuals, the authors mix preferences. Therefore, after several cartoon panels showing a man-woman couple, the images suddenly change to same-sex couples.

The publisher calls it a reinvention of the classic sex manual – and that it is.

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The author, Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, has an interesting theory to posit. He says it’s not just the tactile that gives us pleasure, but the “deeper nature” of the essence of the things we love.

It’s an interesting study – though “study” makes it sound academic and the book is written with the popular audience in mind – of how we live, both in reality or vicariously.

How Pleasure Works asks a lot of important questions, including at one point wondering if people in a blind taste test can distinguish dog food from pate.

Science and psychology books are rarely this much fun.

COMING TO INKWOOD:

• Late notice, I know, but if you see this today, make plans to see ESPN’s Mike and Mike in their only Florida appearance, promoting their book Mike and Mike’s Rules for Sports and Life.  See them at Inkwood Books, 216 S. Armenia Ave., Tampa. The appearance is from 6-8 p.m. today (May 20.)
• On Friday, May 21, Denise Gee returns to Inkwood to promote her book Porch Parties, which is all about how to entertain outdoors, including great recipes for summer drinks.  Her event starts at 5 p.m.
• And then, on Saturday at 2 p.m., go by Inkwood to see my friend Craig Pittman (of the St. Petersburg Times) talk about his new book, Manatee Insanity. Craig spoke at this big-ass writers’ conference at the University of Florida last week and was deeply moving as he spoke with expertise of Florida’s fragile eco-system. Show up and talk about manatees or tar balls of what the hell other calamity is on the horizon. Manatee Insanity, like Pittman’s 2009 book, Paving Paradise, (written with Matthew Waite), will be a key addition to the Florida naturalist library.

William McKeen is chairman of the University of Florida’s Department of Journalism and author of several books, including the acclaimed Hunter S. Thompson biography Outlaw Journalist, now available in paperback.