BUDAPEST, Hungary — Italian publishing house Mondadori will release tomorrow a new book, "Sex Lessons," by Rocco Siffredi.
Siffredi — a household name in his native Italy, and recognized around the world as one of the top male performers ever — spoke to XBIZ from his Budapest home about the genesis and purpose of his new book, which is aimed at a broad mainstream audience.
“During the lockdown, we started doing live broadcasts with international figures like Angela White, Adriana Chechik, Maitland Ward — all the superstars — for the Italian people,” the multiple XBIZ award-winning performer-director said. “All those girls are wonderful and they’re so great for those [livestreams].’”
For two months, Siffredi explained, he and his son and collaborator, Lorenzo Tano, broadcast live every night. “After that ended, we were missing that kind of experience,” he continued, “and we said ’Why don’t we make a regular YouTube show where we give advice to young people who have problems, to girls and guys who want to be in porn, to couples, and soon that became a phenomenon in Italy.”
Always Relevant in Italian Culture
As news of “Rocco’s [livestreams] spread through Italian culture, Siffredi — known in his birthland as re dell’hard ("King of Hardcore") — heard from one of the editors at Mondadori, a prominent Italian publishing house, which belongs to the umbrella corporation owned by one of the country’s most powerful figures, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
“They called me and said, ‘Rocco, we’ve watched your [livestreams] on YouTube, they’re fantastic, you give so much good advice to young people! Why don’t you put all those interviews in a book?’ And I said, ‘Why not?’”
To complement the transcripts of the popular YouTube broadcasts, editors asked Siffredi to expand his experience regarding sexual matters to include new trends, tips for couples, instructions for amateurs on how to shoot themselves having sex, advice on how to keep passion alive in long-term relationships, and even advice about sex for younger people.
“All of a sudden it became something more for everybody,” Siffredi told XBIZ. “But since the beginning, I wanted to do this for the young generation, for young people. About seven years ago, I started saying that the new generation is growing up by watching us, by watching porn, and someone should do something like this.”
The Main Goal of 'Sex Lessons'
Siffredi described this much-needed educational aspect as “the main goal of ‘Sex Lessons,’” which arrives 15 years after his bestselling autobiography. And they are lessons that he presents “not as a sexologist, who says he understands it all, but as an older brother.”
“We have to explain to the new generation what we do, and describe to them that what we do in porn is completely different than their first approach to real-life sex,” Siffredi explained. “If no one is explaining this to them, it’s complicated because then they learn from porn and this can be a little confusing for people at the age they start, which, let’s face it, can be quite young. We have to tell young boys not to imitate us, because in porn they’re dealing with professional people, in front of the camera every day. We know how to do these things, and mostly we know how to make it look like it’s incredible.”
“The sense of the book,” Siffredi concluded, is “giving advice and trying to keep sexuality healthy,” and recently told the Italian edition of Vanity Fair that “we’re already educating the second generation” about sex through pornography.
Siffredi also told XBIZ he is currently wrapping up the editing of his next “big, exciting series,” written and shot over two months and titled “Maximo, the Spanish Stallion.”
Rocco Siffredi’s “Sex Lessons” is available (in Italian) through online book retailers.
