Sextrology: It's all in the stars... but I wish it wasn't

The Telegraph (UK)

New York's favourite sextrologers are about to hit London. Bryony Gordon finds they give a little too much information

Many people look to their star signs for answers but when I meet the New York astrologers Stella Starsky and Quinn Cox, I find that my star sign is possibly providing a few too many answers.

"Ok, that's kinky," says Stella, running a manicured finger over my birth chart. "Cancer is your sun sign and you've got Scorpio rising. At the moment you're probably into businessmen and nudism and things like father figures and..." And maybe it's best if we stop right there.

"But as you get older you'll take on more Scorpio turn-ons, like voyeurism and erotica and..."

And?

"Biting. A bit of pain, perhaps."

Goodness.

"You're a bit of an exhibitionist, aren't you?"

Me?

"And you use sex to express yourself don't you?"

I do?

"And friends. You use them, too, but just for booty calls."

Welcome to the wonderful and kooky world of Starsky and Cox, a married couple who are quite clearly not your run-of-the-mill-Mercury-is-in-retrograde astrologers.

You wouldn't catch Russell Grant being this explicit (thank goodness) or Mystic Meg oozing this much style (as I arrive, Stella is having a Mui Mui vs Jimmy Choo shoe crisis).

Their clients include Scarlett Johansson, Mario Testino and fashion designer Marc Jacobs. They even have their own Vogue-featured jewellery line called Astercast, which features 18-carat necklaces that you can add all your astrological elements to in the form of charms.

Actress Robin Wright Penn recently borrowed her stylist's Astercast necklace to wear for a cover shoot for the New York Times Style Magazine, and loved it so much that she wanted to keep it.

"They are both Aries women though," says Quinn, with a mock shake of the head, "so as you can imagine, there was a bit of a scrum." The stylist won.

The stars love Starsky and Cox because they are sextrologers, a very different, esoteric form of astrology of their own devising that uses our star signs to work out what we are like as people, and what we like in bed.

And next month they are bringing Sextrology to Britain, giving free consultations to the public during London Fashion week.

Starsky and Cox believe that there are actually 24 signs, not 12; each sign of the Zodiac creates different characteristics for males and females. "Some signs are feminine, some are masculine," explains Quinn, "and the genders use the energy of their sign in a very different way.

An Aries man is a fiery and explosive character, but a woman hangs back and instigates those fires." It is, they say, astrology as psychology.

Their best-selling book, Sextrology: The Astrology of Sex and the Sexes, which has recently been updated for the British market, explains those differences in immense detail, covering everything from the way we act in relationships, to how we look, to the most fun bit, what we like sexually, and who with (ladies: steer well clear of Sagittarian men).

Even cynics find themselves squealing in horror when they discover that their Virgo boyfriend is into submission, that their Leo wife delights in using handcuffs and whips or that their Scorpio lover has a penchant for dungeons.

Starsky and Cox don't take themselves very seriously - their zodiac cabaret act, which sounds as if it needs to be seen to be believed, is a permanent fixture in hip clubs on America's East Coast - but they do take their astrology seriously.

"It's a science to us," says Stella, who met her husband more than 20 years ago when they were both studying in France. Discovering their mutual love of the stars, they got together and took up their study of the Zodiac professionally.

Stella is a Capricorn; Quinn is a Libra. "We share a cardinal quality that means we are both very assertive and like initiating things," says Stella.

"But unfortunately neither of us has yet managed to master the art of following that through."

And sexually?

"Well she's in it for herself, and I'm in it for her," smiles Quinn. "So that works for us."

And then they leave me to contemplate a future so explicit, I'm not sure it's suitable for publication in a family newspaper.