from The Edmontonsun.com: There’s something about Ducky DooLittle that’s larger than life.
Maybe it’s the way she signs her business e-mails with “xx”s and “oo”s, the cyber-equivalent of bubble letters on heart-shaped paper.
Perhaps it’s her pen name, which evokes some quirky comic book heroine – a sassy street-smart sexpert who saves the day by screwing her way to the answers to your burning sex questions.
Or maybe it’s because she’s a survivor.
The once orphan runaway, who worked as a peep show girl and stripper in New York City to pay the bills, didn’t succumb to the gritty lifestyle, but eventually thrived by taking what she’d learned and treating that knowledge as a treasure trove.
Today, the smart, sensual and irreverent woman is a sex educator with a far-reaching fanbase. Her advice has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Penthouse and The New Yorker. She performs on stages around the world and frequently presents at universities throughout the U.S.
Ducky’s first book, Sex With the Lights On: 200 Illuminating Sex Questions Answered (Carroll & Graf, 2006), is a witty, plain-spoken and accessible guide to everything from sexual anatomy and foreplay to orgasms and body image.
In an interview, Ducky told me she credits her career success to good instincts and a lifelong fascination with sex.
“I come from a tough place, but I had no problems with drugs, kids or lovers living off of me. Once I had some savings I was able to leave,” says the 36-year-old by phone from New York, where she lives with her husband.
As an enterprising seductress, Ducky describes herself back then as “sexually unsophisticated.”
Her decision to answer a wanted ad in Village Voice was driven by curiosity and the novelty that she could make scads of money “just for looking and talking dirty.”
“I’d had sex twice, in the dark. I was 18. To me, this (job) was my entry into the world of sexuality. I got to learn all about male desire and fantasy,” says the black-maned unorthodox beauty, who came to see her clients as everyday people with everyday passions.
“Nothing my customers asked me to do struck me as so outrageous that they couldn’t just ask their partner for it,” she says. “I began to realize there was a serious disconnect in relationships.”
Perhaps that’s what’s inspired her frank, direct style as a sex educator. “It’s stunning to go to an Ivy League university like Columbia and genius business students don’t know where the clitoris is. I mean, it’s your body. You live in it,” she says. “Sex is one of those topics people are very isolated around. They don’t talk enough about it.”
Her fascination with sex took her from behind the plexiglass to Babeland, a sex shop in Lower Manhattan, where she sold sex toys and ran workshops. Later, she wrote erotica and became a sex columnist.
Ducky’s been teaching the ins and outs of having safe, healthy, mind-blowing sex ever since.
Her goal: To inspire people to get it on.
“There’s a real Girls Gone Wild factor in our world. Sex permeates our media, but there isn’t a lot of heart in those messages,” she says. “It should be real, honest, dirty, sexy and juicy. I think you can have all of those things.” Visit Ducky online at www.duckydoolittle.com.