Lifted from the Comments: What about the Joy of Sex?

[elfs]

Someone in my post about Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask) asked me about Alex Comfort's famous The Joy of Sex.

I'm sad to say that The Joy of Sex was also "updated" within the past decade, and the update is horrible. If you must have a copy, buy the original.

The New Joy of Sex does terrible violence to the original. Despite the ever increased prevalance of kink-awareness and kink-safety in our culture, New Joy pares back the bondage section to the barest minimum and recommends scarves and neckties despite all we've learned about how those things can go potentially wrong. The section on threesomes and swapping is gone, replaced instead with short paragraph on how to find another couple to watch, because really, y'know, actually swapping would be icky, and in Alex's universe there exists no porn to rent. The original had a pretty good section on anal sex; it's entirely missing from New Joy.

But what pissed me off most about New Joy was the section on Bisexuality. It starts off with this gem:

Being actively bisexual makes problems in our society, not least with the other-sex partner on whom most of most people's most worthwhile sex-life depends. It is difficult enough to try to make out with the half the human race without trying to make out with the whole of it!

I'm sure Alex clapped his hands together when he wrote it and said "brilliant! I'm just brilliant!" BZZZZT. First of all, I am NOT trying to make out with the whole human race, Doc, just those individuals I find interesting. But he's just getting warmed up for the better insults:

Moreover today, although bisexuality is not "unnatual" (as evidenced by the homosexual dreams all heterosexual people may occasionally have and from what we know of primatology) a male who has been actively bisexual poses an active threat to future partners because he may-- especially if he had a homosexual encounter in the USA-- be an AIDS carrier.

By [ insert Elder God here ], why does Alex think that bisexuality needs "evidence," especially primatological evidence? I want to know when bisexuality is going to be accepted as "natural" because it has been observed in Humans! (With wonderful apologies to whoever on soc.motss first made this brilliant observations... I've misplaced your name. Thank you!)

And the snide wink at the end there... Guess what, gentlemen, bisexuals are responsible for the AIDS epidemic spreading to the heterosexual community. Alex said so. It's right there in The New Joy of Sex, one of the most trusted books in the world regarding sex education. Oh, it gets worse.

Medicine is concerned about this group because (together with people who injected drugs or were given intravenous blood products) they spread the HIV virus into the general sexual community.

(Bisexual women don't generally present this risk because they become infected incidentally, because AIDS rarely passes among lesbians. Women far more readily respond to women than men do overtly to men because intimacy among women is socially acceptable where anything looking like male-male affection has been tramped on with society's heaviest boots. Many lesbians are simply women who have given on men after spending a lifetime kissing frogs who failed to turn into princes.)

Oh, here's another beauty. Hi, girls, Alex has you figured out, doesn't he? You can all go play with each other in whatever manner you feel, it's perfectly safe, 'cause Alex said it doesn't happen to you. What is the purpose of this parenthetical aside other than to titilate and otherwise encourage the hetporn standard of watching women have sex together?

Fuck Alex Comfort, and fuck The New Joy of Sex. Damn, I'd forgotten how angry that section made me. The original's section on bisexuality was bad enough, but to leave in all the crap and then accuse bisexuals of being only "of interest" to the medical community for their HIV risk left me seeing red.

Comments

[gromm.livejournal.com]

I agree totally. I actually *grew up* on the original Joy of Sex, and it was wonderful. When The New Joy of Sex came out, I was terribly disappointed in it. Apparently, the update was all about making it HIV-aware. The edition that I had read (probably the first) still had the section on anal sex, but it had been reduced to "Anal sex is the best way to spread HIV. Don't do it." I was flabbergasted. So what, anal sex isn't something you can do to your monogamous partner of 20 years because it causes AIDS or something? I also suspect that the sections on threesomes and moresomes was dropped because they cause AIDS too.

I do disagree with your assessment of the original about bisexuality. I remember a line in particular that said "We're all at least capable of being bisexual" and that men would probably be more likely to be if they'd just get over their hangups.

I *wanted* to buy a copy for *my* kids, but the new version is just so full of crap that I couldn't bear it.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

A bit more than a decade, surely? Wikipedia dates New Jopy of Sex as 1992 and the Amazon entry says it's a 1994 edition. Isn't that when HIV was still pretty much untreatable?

I have a dreadful feeling that we're all older than we think.

[(Anonymous)]

Anyone else notice it hints that aids is an issue especially huge in the US? As a non-US individual I find that hugely narrow minded, Britain and I'm sure other countries have just as many issues with it too. Not only is that pig headed it is downright dangerous "Oh I'm not in the US I'm safe"

[amythis.livejournal.com]

Yes, I also hated the section on bisexuality. Not very joyous.

I still remember reading Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) at 14 and learning such gems as "All female prostitutes are lesbians," or words to that effect.

[(Anonymous)]

Original commenter here. That's interesting.... I remembered the original as being pretty good, but that may just be by comparison to the other material that was around at the time -- it's been at least a couple of decades, probably more, and I was just a pup. I thought it was cool that it discussed kinkiness at all, much less in such a positive way (again, by comparison with the other stuff I'd seen at the time).

I'm sorry to hear that it's gotten worse rather than better.

Hey, Elf... why don't you write a sex manual? You have the requisite writing skilz and knowledge. If you couldn't find a publisher with enough bravery to touch it, you could always put it on lulu.com or something.

too late...

[(Anonymous)]

"Hey, Elf... why don't you write a sex manual? "

At this point, I'm pretty sure the Journal Entries qualifies....