Sex@Work (ePub)

Schooled in sexist attitudes and fancying himself a ladies' man, Dante Aloysius Grace strikes out on a pleasure-seeking quest to find the perfect sexual partner. Dante, who can barely unite words in a coherent sentence, decides to write his memoirs about his sex life as an aid for later remembering the pleasure of his self-indulgence but largely to make sense of it all, for Dante has arrived in the middle of his life at an emotional crossroads. Like his illustrious, medieval namesake for whom crisis had occasioned a spiritual journey toward enlightenment, Dante can only hope his own journey will conclude with the ideal heavenly encounter.

However, as the madcap romps and sexual escapades that he records with the help of his circle of friends carry him by comical fits and starts toward his heart's desire, Dante meets and falls miserably in love with Julie Ann Warren, the embodiment of his wildest erotic fantasies-and purgatory personified. Through the humorous intercession of the zany patrons of his brother's pub, the Man Cave, Dante gradually unlearns a lifetime of sexist attitudes and inappropriate behavior toward women. His fellow travelers-on quests of their own through a tangle of heavens, hells, and purgatories-tutor Dante with the lessons of their own sexual misadventures, helping him to a fuller appreciation of and deeper respect for women and a more sensitive understanding of the human condition itself. They guide him to the threshold of a new consciousness where an emotional and intellectual epiphany awaits him with insights about men and women and relationships-and about the human capacity for generosity of sentiment that ennobles us.