Retro sex education

[emmuzka]

I have been reading The Joy of Sex, originally published in 1972. Pretty interesting and even hilarious reading with their suggestions of Group sex is fun, yay!, and Even when you want to teach to your children that sex is natural, please don't keep them in the same room while performing. The hyper realistic illustrations with armpit hairs an all is also fun.

The age of the book kinda shines through, though. The first edition didn't have anything about Aids or HIV and they hastily slapped together something for the second edition, and it shows. Now the book suggest of refraining altogether from anal sex and sex during mesntruation, even with condom, because that could give you Aids. They also suggest that you wouldn't swap partners during an Aids epidemic. Yes, because Aids is like a flu, it comes and goes like an epidemic. But anyway, it was fun to read, a mix of sex ed, position guide, sex history and couples therapy. Definitely worth to pick up if you see it in a used books store for a few bucks.

Comments

[cimness.livejournal.com]

OH AWESOME. I've long wanted to get a look at that! My mom has some classic sex-related books originating from the seventies - I learned a lot of the answers to my questions, as a child and teenager, from this:



--even though the edition I remember was a crumbling paperback with a severely retro font and a picture of a naked woman's back. It looked sort of like an ad for moisturizer. ;)

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Ha! Even I know the name of that one. There was this fic where Rodney didn't have porn but his sister's "Our Bodies" to read when he was a kid?

My "Joy of Sex" is actually a Finnish translation called "Rakasta hellästi". (Literally, either Love Tender or Make Love Tender") The 70s' "sexy" undervear and such are hilarious, but it's not like sex would have changed in the last forty years.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I suppose some medical knowledge and so on might have but that would mostly be in STDs, as you mentioned. Our Bodies, Ourselves has sections about masturbation and sexual positions and describes the stages of orgasm and such - not very good porn, though, but maybe it's more effective for a desperate teenaged boy. For my purposes, the harlequin romances were always a better bet. ;)

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Too bad that I never find the bodice rippers in my teens. Maybe I would have then had enough bloodthirsty fantasies to be a normal adult ;) Luckily there was at least some pseudo porn in science fiction and Modesty Blaise novels...

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Hahhahahahahaha, yeah. I actually preferred the pseudo porn in sf - less graphic but usually better-written, and in those cases the characters weren't as silly. Harlequins, on the whole, make badfic look fairly well-written! My mom had quite a big collection of them, though, and it's a lot easier to find the dirty bits in a romance novel than in an sf novel.

[twindouble.livejournal.com]

And you didn't read my paleo-porn?! Shame on you. (Jean S. Auel, Children of the Earth series, lots of sex there.)

[linblad.livejournal.com]

Minullapa on hyllyssä lapsuudenkodista sosialisoitu Fritz Kahnin Sukupuolielämämme vuodelta 1946, 500 sivua. On muuten Kansalliskirjaston puutelistalla (varmaan vohkittu sieltä joskus), mikä aiheuttaa moraalisen dilemman.

Ko. teso sisältää useita lukuja mm. impeyden ottamisesta ja alempien kansanosien ja rotujen liiallisen lisääntymisen aiheuttamasta eugeenisesta ongelmasta, mutta toisaalta esim. homoseksuaalisuutta käsitellään yllättävän avoimesti eikä masturbointikaan ole tabu.

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Kyllä minä lahjoittaisin sen jossain vaiheessa sinne kansalliskirjastoon, muuten päätyisin jossain vaiheessa maksamaan isoja rahoja kirjan restauroinnista ettei se tuhoutuisi :)

Mulla on turussa kaksi kappaletta sellaisia "miehen kirja"-tyyppisiä opuksia, jossa opetetaan valokuvausta ja kielletään masturbointi ja sanotaan, että älä käytä hammastahnaa. (en minäkään olisi sen aikaisia tahnoja käyttänyt, olisi varmaan tippunut hampaat suusta sen jälkeen)

[twindouble.livejournal.com]

Meillä on vanhojen poikien harrastuskirjojen kokoelma (siis ei vanhojen poikien, vaan vanhojen kirjojen!). Sain pitkään etsiä Osmo A Wiion "Harrastelijan kirjaa", mutta löysin sen aikanaan Vammalan Vanhojen Kirjojen Päiviltä. Kirja on alan harrastajien himoitsema, joten olen todella iloinen, että onnistuin löytämään sen! Nyt siinä on vielä itse Wiion omistuskirjoituskin. Tästä aarteesta ei luovuta. Kirjassa on kuuluisa lause: "Mustaruuti on suhteellisen vaaratonta."

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

:D Woo hoo!

I have to take a look of that book some day. Just professional interest, you know... I have a copy of All You Ever Wanted to Know about Sex (and were too shy to ask) from around that era, and it's absolutely hilarious.

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

We loaned a book called "Teens ask about sex" when we were kids and wer all Tee hee! about it. My sister used it to be all knowledgeable about sex between her friends..

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the HITE raport, of course!

[2ndbs.livejournal.com]

I also read "Independent woman and sex" when I was about 11 years old. I wondered what was the "organism" they were talking about all the time. This "organism" thing seemed to be very important. Years after i realised that I had read the word wrong. ;-)