Hooking up with Amber

It isn't easy to make Amber Madison blush.

Whether talking about masturbation, birth control, or ``the Big O," as she sometimes refers to an orgasm, the 22-year-old Tufts graduate manages to sound matter of fact. Ask her about the first time she had sex, and Madison answers without a trace of shame.

``You mean intercourse? Right before college," she says. ``I had a lot of serious boyfriends in high school, but we never had intercourse."

What's with the explicit sex talk? It's Madison's thing, you might say. Not only did the North Carolina native study human sexuality at Tufts, she also wrote a popular sex column for the student newspaper, and today she has a book coming out called ``Hooking Up: A Girl's All-Out Guide to Sex & Sexuality."

The paperback, published by Prometheus Books, is equal parts how-to and how-not-to, a mix of straightforward information and personal anecdote. Got questions about Depo-Provera , discharge, or sexually transmitted diseases? This slender volume -- the one with the long-legged girl in pink thigh- highs on the cover -- might make good bedside reading.

``A lot of books about sex for girls come from a fear-based place," says Alison Keehn , a freelance book editor who teaches sex- education classes at the Cambridge Friends School.

``Amber's book is different. Kids want entertainment. What Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart have done for news Amber's doing for sex."

She's not the only one, of course. Copulation has long been a hot topic on college campuses and students have started whole magazines on the subject of sex. (Boink at Boston University and Harvard's H-Bomb are a few examples.) And then there's Natalie Krinsky , a former sex columnist at Yale who, like Madison, successfully parlayed her preoccupation into a book.

Lounging last week in a Somerville apartment she shares with three girlfriends, Madison happily talked about ``Hooking Up," and the reasons she wrote it.

``It's really important that girls be better informed," she said, curled up on a couch in a pair of sweat pants and a sleeveless T-shirt. ``There's just not enough information out there. Like, do you know how to store condoms?" (At room temperature, she tells us on Page 114, but check the use-by date before ``getting busy.")

As you might expect, Amber Madison has an interesting backstory. Her father, Roger Madison, has a doctorate in neurobiology and teaches at Duke University, and her mother, Jane Leserman, has a doctorate in sociology and is a professor at the University of North Carolina. An only child, Madison was raised on a quasi commune not far from Chapel Hill.

``There are 24 house sites with shared community acreage, a playground, and a pond," says Roger Madison. ``We were interested in exposing Amber to multiple families and adults, a sort of extended family."

Growing up in this liberal enclave, there were few, if any, taboo topics at the dinner table. Madison's parents enjoyed a bawdy brand of humor, and wrote sexually explicit rap songs for friends. As her book makes clear, the family felt comfortable talking about even the most private matters. Madison writes, for example, that once while touring colleges she developed a painful itch. ``I bought my first box of Monistat 3 with my mother, my father, and my uncle all there for moral support."

Madison says her decision to major in sex was a no-brainer. (Although her degree is in American Studies and Community Health, her focus was definitely sex.) ``I took a human sexuality class and was, like, `Wow, there are tons of STDs out there, everybody has them, and nobody knows this stuff,' " she says.

Madison's dad admits he would have preferred that his daughter pursue one of the more traditional sciences, but he and Madison's mom supported her decision to concentrate on the carnal. ``I thought if it made her happy, go for it," says Leserman. ``I was very impressed with her teachers and the curriculum. She learned a tremendous amount."

Not long after declaring her major, Madison met with the editors of the Tufts Daily to propose a column. ``I stood up in front of, like, 20 people and said I wanted to write about sex," she says. ``I wasn't even aware of `Sex and the City' because we didn't have cable, but I knew this was something that needed to be in the paper."

Campus reaction to her column, tantalizingly titled ``Between the Sheets," was largely positive, especially among girls eager to learn more about birth control and STDs. But others disdained Madison's openness, and called her ``slut" and ``whore" as they passed her on campus.

``People figured because I knew a lot about sex, I did it all the time with tons of different people," says Madison. ``There are doctors who know a lot about eating disorders, but that doesn't mean they have eating disorders. "

After graduating in 2005, Madison was offered an internship at a film production company in Los Angeles. The idea didn't excite her, however, and she opted instead to work on a book for girls who are considering becoming sexually active. She wrote during the day -- usually on her laptop while still in bed -- and worked at night as a waitress at several local bars, including the Hong Kong, Sissy K's, Under Bar, and The Rack . She wasn't crazy about wearing skimpy outfits and serving drinks to drunken men, but it gave her time to write.

``Life is a compromise," she says with a shrug. ``I'd rather be working at a gynecology clinic part-time signing people in, but the reality is making $10 an hour at some really cute, all-women's nonprofit isn't going to give me the money I need to sustain my life while I write.

``The bigger picture," she decided, ``was that I'd let some guys harass me for a year while I did this book."

The book, which is in stores today, is already getting attention. In a recent USA Today story about teenage condom use, Madison was one of the experts quoted. And ``Joan of Arcadia" actress Amber Tamblyn read ``Hooking Up," and wrote a blurb calling it ``revolutionary for the 21st century female."

Not bad, but what's next? Well, Madison's got a few ideas. She plans to hit the lecture circuit to talk about her favorite subject, and she's developing a sex-education curriculum that would be taught to small groups of girls in a slumber party-type setting.

``We are so ridiculous about how we approach sex and sexuality in our culture," says Madison. ``We have tons of media that is all about sex all the time -- if it's a car ad, it's about sex; if it's a perfume ad, it's about sex -- but when it comes to actually talking about sex, people just won't do it."