When I grew up in the 1970s, I found my parents’ copy of The Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide to Lovemaking. My best friend also found it on his parents’ bookshelf. In fact, all my friends, at some point, had either found a copy at home or had spent hours at another friend’s house, flipping page by thrilling page through, what seemed to be, the most popular book alongside the Bible and the Yellow Pages.
The Joy of Sex spent 11 weeks at the top of the New York Times bestseller list and more than 70 weeks in the top five (1972–1974).
First published in 1972, The Joy of Sex was a landmark in what Boomers like to claim as “the sexual revolution.” When published, there was nothing else like it. The famous Kinsey Report had rocked American’s understanding of their sexuality. But the state of sex manuals stuck with the science and sanitized the pleasure.
The original Joy of Sex contained numerous illustrations by Charles Raymond and Christopher Foss based on original photographs of the book's art director, Kenn Ford and his wife Anna. In contrast to the clinical style of earlier books about sex, the illustrations were titillating as well as illustrative. Unlike the glossy, airbrushed Playboy Bunny’s I found in my Dad’s magazine stack, the pencil-sketch images in The Joy of Sex showed a couple engaging in the actual act. I saw oral sex, both given and received, dynamic sexual positions with exotic sounding names (“croupade” for anything today we’d call “rear entry” and “feuille de rose” for rimming) and images that made me touch myself to orgasm. Most importantly, I saw images of a couple obviously in love. I saw them smile, flirt, and play. One image showed the woman playfully tied to the bedposts, legs parted and ready. (How I touched myself to that one!) And, as one good turn deserves another, an image of the man on his back, his ankles bound, and the woman on top. (How I dreamed one day a woman would do that to me.)
The center of the book also contained color images of sex from ancient Japanese and Hindi texts. These were exotic to me, not quite as erotic for my onerous purposes. However, they added to the central message of the book: sex is nothing new; it has been enjoyed in generations past—people today should enjoy it as well.
Throughout the book, I saw a couple, beautiful in their natural state, loving each other, embracing, kissing, and holding hands. It teaches that good sex is really, at heart, about good communication: “feeback means the right mixture of stop and go, tough and tender, exertion and affection. This comes by empathy and long mutual knowledge.”
While the spirit of the book is empowering, the text is, admittedly, cumbersome. The text, in parts, is warm and witty, and in others heavy-handed, and even a little pompous and judgmental. Then again, its author, Dr. Alex Comfort, was born in 1920 and studied medicine at Cambridge. So, reading Joy of Sex is at its fundamental level getting bedroom advice from a then 52-year-old White male upper-class English doctor. That, my friends, may not be the ideal image we conjure when imagining an advisor of our most intimate questions. Nonetheless, it’s now widely accepted that Dr. Comfort’s 1972 Joy of Sex set the standard for sex self-help books.
Now, a generation later, a new edition has been released. The new 2008 edition has been rewritten and “reinvented” by relationship psychologist Susan Quilliam, and, apparently, approved by Nicholas Comfort, Dr. Comfort’s son
Hearing this news, I have to admit, my heart sank. All the classic images, the sense of discovery and innocence flooded my memory. And the thought of a classic being “reinvented” felt, I’ll admit, like lossing part of my own coming of age. So of course, I had to learn more. I began to read and watch all the reports, blogs, and reviews of this “New Joy of Sex.”
The online articles point to the areas the new edition revised, focusing almost exclusively on “buttered buns” and “group sex.” “Buttered buns” is basically what some call “sloppy seconds.” Some of the blogs I came across point to the inclusion of “buttered buns” in the original Joy as the author’s endorsement of that act. If you actually read Comfort’s entry, he dismisses the practice as a “carry-over from a fairly general age behavior.” In the entry for “Foursomes and moresomes,” he states from the start that it’s a trend of his time, and that he doesn’t participate. While the idea may seem thrilling, the reality can leave some couples cold. Orgies, he says, “need a hell of a lot of martini-lubrication.” If a couple wants to experiment, he suggests caution and commutation between both partners. In short, he states, it’s not quality sex and even if a couple tires it, they’ll probably tire of it after the first or second session.
Apparently the very minor entries on horse riding and motorcycles have been deleted. In the original, Comfort says that he hasn’t actually tried either. He says that it’s rumored that some women can experience orgasm from riding. And for motorcycle sex, he doesn’t suggest actually fucking while riding, but some form of the female passenger behind on a private, isolated road, doing something as a form of foreplay—perhaps riding topless—not such a bad thing, as any Harley enthusiast knows.
On an ABC News special, Susan Quilliam proudly boasted that one of her additions was updating the original text’s view on “hygiene.” No doubt she was offended by Comfort’s original entry on deodorant. He calls for washing with soap and water, but stated plainly: “A mouthful of aluminum chloride in a girl’s armpit is one of the biggest disappointments bed can afford.” It’s hard to argue with that logic. Phermones, scientists now know, are one of the most powerful forms of sexual attraction. There’s nothing sexier than the slightly salty skin of a lover; few things are unsexier than the chemical taste of deodorant.
Pleading for natural scents to be an important ingredient in sex fits the larger aesthetic of the book. It celebrates a sense of being naked and natural. The couple in the illustrations is not Ken and Barbie, but a fairly average looking couple in their late 20s, early 30s. The woman has average B-cup breasts rather than implants and a triangle of pubic hair rather than a landing strip. Yes, the dude has a beard, and yes, he looks like a guy would have in 1972. But all fashion is cyclical. He also looks like some of the hipsters and idie rockers in the coffee shops I see everyday.
Now, beard dude and his hipster girlfriend are gone. In the 1990s, The Joy of Sex was revised to insert safe sex in the post-AIDS epidemic era. The black and white drawings were replaced by pastel color pencil. Mr. Dude had apparently “gotten a hair cut and a real job.” Gone was the beard. The woman, though, retained her unshaven underarms. In the new edition, gone is any semblance to the hippie and the hipster. Here we find a new dude with close-cropped, semi-spiked hair and his perky gal pal with dyed highlights.
Oh Boomers, can you just leave well enough alone? It’s like George Lucas going back to the original Star Wars and digitally altering Luke Skywalker’s haircut. As if that changes the story, or changes the historic impact of the movie’s 1977 release.
The original Joy of Sex is a classic. Dated, yes. Perfect, no. By today’s standards, it’s text heavy, and somewhat judgmental when pretending to be open-minded. While once breaking middle class barriers, it’s now quaint. Even laughable in places. It is, in a nutshell, reflective of its generation.
Yes, that’s a slam on the Boomers. But that’s my generation’s right to slam my parent’s generation, just as they slammed their 1950s “Leave it to Beaver” parents, just as the Roaring 20s slammed the Victorians….and on and on. Each generation becomes dated to the next. It’s inevitable.
So why update a classic of its era rather than just write a new book? Does the Mona Lisa need a facelift because she’s “dated”? Do we need the “revised” Declaration of Independence? Should we rewrite Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech because he uses the word negro?
Ironically, just last night, when I came home with a documentary on James Dean, my girlfriend said, “Oh I don’t like James Dean, his movies are so dated.” She thought his straight-legged Levis and hair combed back in a pompadour was pretty ridiculous. “I don’t get it,” she said. After watching the documentary, she said, “He’s actually really sexy.”
Yes, Jame’s Dean’s movies are dated. Part of the Technicolor look is exactly its charm. So, too, the shaggy 1970s man making love with his naturally unshaven partner. The pathos of Joy is an acceptance of thing natural, especially sex. Its fundamental thesis is that sex is natural, that we are naked animals and the many ways we can make love can be enjoyable and healthy.
Today’s media-rich generation no longer finds their parent’s Joy of Sex on the bookshelf. They can find anything sexual on the internet. It is far more explicit and extreme than anything that even Comfort could have foreseen.
Today, any kid with an internet connection can pull up 1,000s of images of every type of human sexual act, and every form of pornography. In the barrage, there are also detailed, informed, and clearly-written articles on safe sex, and positive pro-sex education.
It seems that the original Joy of Sex is more relevant today than ever. I think we are well past any danger that anyone would ever take the 1972 original as their sole source of information. Even the original encouraged readers to pick and chose—try one thing, and if you don’t like it, don’t do it. It never claimed to be the definitive source, and plainly stated that people’s individual tastes will vary.
Since there are so many quality sex ed sources available today, why not let people discover the original Joy of Sex? In this age of young women battling eating disorders, and crushing self-esteem issues from media projected body images—in a time when natural bodies are criticized and puffed up botox lips and silicone-inflated breasts are celebrated—wouldn’t it be a nice message to say to the young women of this upcoming generation: you are beautiful as you are, the size of your breasts, the way your hair grows and how it smells is natural. Sex is about love and communication with a committed partner. Sex is about having a loving relationship that is based on trust, respect, and genuine tenderness.
So, dear readers, if you’re now a little curious about what’s between the covers of the original Joy of Sex, then I have given you just a small part of my own adolescent experience. Rather than jump on Amazon for the new edition, I recommend searching your neighborhood used bookstore. Support your local business community, and the adventure of the hunt may be a perfect little weekend spice for you and your partner. And hey, if you don’t like the same parts I like, that’s part of Comfort’s original intent. And, if you read it in bed together, and have a good laugh, perfect. Laughter is in bed is also part of the joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment