An Intimate Life

November 15, 2012
A woman's compelling memoir of her unusual career. Being a surrogate partner is not a profession most people would choose, but as Cohen Greene points out in this moving account, it's not uncommon for someone to require a surrogate's assistance. "My ultimate aim," she writes, "is to model a healthy intimate relationship for a client, and that involves much more than intercourse." First developed by William Masters and Virginia Johnson in the 1960s, surrogate partners help men and women, singles and couples, with sexual issues. Whether it is premature ejaculation, lack of desire or experience, a poor body image, or a lack of knowledge regarding genitalia, surrogates help a person "address some of the most deeply personal, anxiety-provoking issues that they...face." Over a series of six to eight visits, a surrogate uses deep breathing and relaxation techniques to help a person reconnect with his/her sexual self. As the two become more intimate, hands-on exercises eventually lead to sexual intercourse. Growing up Catholic, where her frequent masturbation and sexual activity at age 14 were major topics during confession, Cohen Greene had some major hurdles to cross before becoming a surrogate, but coming-of-age during the sexual revolution of the 1970s and a move to the San Francisco Bay area helped. The author adroitly twines stories of her own life with tales of compassionate care for a wide variety of clients, including the physically handicapped and a 70-year-old virgin. Baring it all in a sexually explicit but clinical, non-erotic way, Cohen Greene opens a door onto an intimate life of some of the more than 900 partners she has worked with over the course of four decades. Her work with one handicapped man is the basis of the film The Sessions, starring John Hawkes and Helen Hunt. An illuminating revelation of the unfamiliar.

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January 1, 2013
Thanks to the movie The Sessions, starring Helen Hunt and John Hawkes, the story is well known. Greene is a surrogate partner, not a sex surrogate, yet the first line is an eye-opener, I have had over nine hundred sex partners. As a surrogate partner, she explains, she uses hands-on methods to help clients to overcome their sexual problems. She admits that some people may still equate what she does with prostitution. Whereas prostitution is one of the world's oldest professions, she counters, surrogacy is one of the newest. Although Greene has been a surrogate partner since 1973, today few people practice it. According to Greene, the International Professional Surrogates Association only has 50 members. Greene's clients come from all walks of life and socioeconomic levels, including CEOs, truck drivers, attorneys, and carpenters. The youngest was 18; the oldest, 89. Greene interweaves her own story with stories of her clients (names, physical characteristics, and mannerisms have been changed to protect their privacy) to create a provocative and unusual book about a provocative and unusual profession.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)