Nerve.com sexperts, Em and Lo, are about to launch a new sex manual, The Big Bang. This encyclopaedic guide is a hilarious and fully-illustrated overview of original sin. Packed with step-by-step guidance and practical, well-researched advice, The Big Bang covers all bases – from safer sex and birth control to female ejaculation and bondage for beginners. Whether you’re new to the game or consider yourself a pro, whether you’re a swinging single or married with children, and whether you’re straight, gay or somewhere in-between – there’s something here for you.

So what does it offer that other books don't?

"Well, over the years we’ve read pretty much read every sex manual out there in the process of researching our sex advice column for nerve.com and there wasn’t a single book that we felt talked about sex in the way we talk about it with our friends. And the thousands of letters we’ve received from readers over the years has given us a feel for what people don’t know and what they really want to know more about. The most common question we get from guys is ‘How do I make my penis bigger?’, hence the chapter titled ‘Self Help for Your Peter’.

There are a lot of photographs in the book. Are they strictly necessary?

"We wanted to write a sex manual that people would want to have on their coffee table, the kind that we’d want to buy for friends. The kind that doesn’t try to ‘fix’ your sex life and make you feel bad for what you don’t know, bur rather the kind that makes you want to jump into bed.

And there are line drawings too, of dildos, sex toys and things. Lo did those."

It seems as if you’re positively encouraging promiscuity?

"How often and with whom is absolutely up to the individual. If it feels good, keep doing it. But we definitely don’t shy away from the subject of safer sex. There is a tendency these days to want to separate the hot steamy sex fantasy from the cold harsh health realities – but you have to think of them together."

It seems as if you really believe in this product. What kind of thing have you done in the name of bringing better sex to the masses?

"Well, we’ve taught a three-hour workshop on How to Drive Your Woman Wild in Bed (very popular) and performed our lecture on anal sex (where we dress up as air hostesses) at the Bleecker Theatre in New York. We’ve travelled across the States throwing parties and set up tables offering ‘5 cent sex advice’ in malls and tourist spots. We’ll be doing the same thing in the UK. You can read about the US book tour dairy at www.nerve.com/bigbang/blog.asp"

Finally, I don’t mean to pry – but I’d like to know a little more about you.

"Em: I’m thirty, have had nearly 20 personal-ad dates and am single. I have a friend who likes to introduce me as the girl who wrote a sex manual and can’t get laid. I lived in Oxford until I was sixteen when my family moved to New Jersey and have been working at Nerve for about four years."

"Lo: I’m thirty-one, American and have a boyfriend. Em and I have been best friends since we met and together invented the nerve.com questionnaire, which they say reinvigorated internet dating. It’s now used by more than 150 newspapers and websites."

The Big Bang, Nerve's Guide to the Sexual Unvierse by Em and Lo is published by Hodder and Stoughton on 26 April 2004, priced £12.99.