Manga Sutra/Futari Ecchi

In a rather random but happy find, I bought Manga Sutra in a used books event.

As the title would imply, it's a manga (or rather, a Japanese) version and distillation of the famous sex guide Kama Sutra.
Now most people think the Kama Sutra is porn and/or a guide to sex positions. And don't get me wrong, it is that to an extent.

But both the Manga Sutra and Kama Sutra are a guide to having good sex with your partner. It comes with helpful tips about positions and advice when to stop and how to try different stimulations so both of you can get off. I don't know about you, but despite the massive, massive amount of porn and sex guides available on the internet, very few of them actually focus on making both partners in a relationship happy. And as far as I know, none of them have helpful diagrams like the one below

I mean honestly, try typing "penis guide" on google and not getting millions of fun but completely unhelpful smut sites.

Manga Sutra takes complete advantage of it's visual medium to include diagrams like the one above, as well as types of breasts, erogenous zones, hymen shape, etc.
Unfortunately Japanese censorship does not allow pictures of genitalia (excluding shaded, un-sexy diagrams like the one above); so it's rather lacking on visuals of penes and labia. Kind of sad for a sex guide in my opinion. I have not finished reading all 37 volumes of it, but I'm pretty sure that without being able to depict genitalia, the author would have a hard time explaining how cleaning it is an important part of sexual health, including when and where to clean the male and female organs.

Also, neither the old Indian text or the rather modern Japanese one talk about gay relationships. Quelle surprise.

But this manga/guide does have a lot of good points. They talk about the importance of communicating with your partner and taking care of their needs while making them know you want your needs to be taken care of.
Its modern setting works to its advantage as they can talk about how ridiculous it is in the 20th century (when this was first published) for a man to tell his wife that she's required by law to have sex on request.
Despite the fact that the main couple is a married, monogamous couple; characters with several partners exist and they are not portrayed in a negative light. I find it charming that the first of these polyamorous characters introduced is a woman and she is not portrayed as a slut for having five boyfriends and losing her virginity before marriage. Rather open-minded for Japan!

As I said, I have not read this series to its entirety yet, so I don't know all the subjects it covers and how well it covers them. But I have high expectations.
I assume that they will talk about contraceptives and lubrication more. This was lightly touched on in the first two volumes, but I know for a fact there's a false alarm pregnancy later so they have to bring it up at some point. Otherwise I will be disappoint, especially for a series that focuses on heterosexual sex.
I also think that sex toys will come in at some point as well, since talk about masturbation and partner stimulation has not been lacking so far. Maybe a hint of how to play safe BDSM?

Either way, I'm glad I read this. Not that I will ever use this sort of advice because I'm a Forever Alone Permavirgin, thanks to living a liberal society, I knew a lot of the things the book stipulated; but I imagine this advice will be helpful to some people. Spread the word!
Manga Sutra is not your regular porn.

Final thoughts: so far I think all the sex scenes have been very male-oriented. This may change as the series goes on, but it's been rather flat on how women feel about sex.