June 1, 2005
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Image Bank/ Getty Images; Illustration by The New York Times
May 29, 2005
More Sex, Less ‘Joy’
By RUTH LA FERLA
AT the Barnes & Noble on Union Square in Manhattan, just a few steps across the aisle from Self-Improvement and Relationships, the bookshelves groan with that venerable publishing genre, the sex manual. But to pull a recent example from its perch is to enter a world of steamy provocation that readers of a previous generation could not have imagined. There is, for instance, “The Lowdown on Going Down,” with a sharp-focus photograph of a naked woman on the cover, thighs raised suggestively. Between the covers are 144 pages of explicit instructions for oral gymnastics.
“Lowdown” is a title from Broadway Books, a subsidiary of the publishing giant Random House. The book, by Marcy Michaels and Marie DeSalle, is one of dozens of new entries published in the last year in the growing and increasingly racy genre of how-to sex books, which employ provocative titles and slang – sometimes vulgar – to capture new readers. Vying for space on the same shelves are “Hot Monogamy,” “The Wild Guide to Sex” and “Mind-Blowing Sex.”
At least since 1972, when “The Joy of Sex” by Dr. Alex Comfort was published, with its self-consciously literary tone and section headings like “Mouth Music” and “Playtime,” sex books – or marriage manuals, as they were once euphemistically called – have spiced up their contents to keep pace with the times.
Now the old textbookish tomes like “Joy of Sex,” which invited readers to expand their horizons beyond the face-to face missionary position have been replaced by shiny paperbacks extolling the excitement that could come from oral sex, anal sex, fetishism and S&M. Couples who were formerly portrayed in a modest embrace are now shown to reveal full penetration. Careful, scholarly, sometimes clinical language has been replaced by chatty girlfriend-speak that might have been ghostwritten by Samantha Jones, the outspoken and sexually ravenous publicist of “Sex and the City.”
Those in the business of publishing such books say the evolution has accelerated, fueled by the need to seem relevant in an increasingly sexualized culture. “The generation we’re publishing for today is much more open about terminology and much more forthright,” said Bryce Willett, the sales marketing manager of Ulysses Press in Berkley, Calif., which publishes “The Little Bit Naughty Book of Sex Positions” and the “Wild Guide to Sex and Loving.”
“They’re used to hearing ‘Sex and the City’ dialogue and aren’t scared or squeamish about language and topics that in an earlier era would have caused them to drop their voices or switch to a really careful tone,” Mr. Willett said.
Even “The Joy of Sex,” an indisputable franchise, which spent years on the New York Times best-seller list after it was published and was so racy for its time that it was banned in libraries in some cities, has had to adapt. While the current edition, fully revised in 2002 by Crown Publishers, still retains the allusions to Darwin and Freud originally written by Dr. Comfort (a trained biologist), some references to the female anatomy are now rendered as slang. In addition the charcoal drawings of intertwined couples are more erotically charged.
“People are a lot more accepting of a broader range of sexual vernacular now,” said Steve Ross, the publisher of Crown, about the updated version, which he said was edited to be more colloquial and direct than the original.
The revival and boomlet of sex guides owes a debt in part to Judith Regan of ReganBooks, the publisher of “How to Have a XXX Sex Life,” “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star” and “She Comes First” (2004), a sprightly treatise on cunnilingus, which has been successful enough to spawn a sequel, “He Comes Next,” due out in February.
“She’s gone out and found edgy people and had them write more mainstream stuff,” said Charlotte Abbott, the book news editor of Publishers Weekly. “She opened the door to a more explicit kind of sex book.” Ms. Regan, describing an earlier generation of sex manuals as “tame and antiseptic,” decided to do better. The latest books, while still providing much the same information as their forebears, she said, are “more outrageous and candid and at the same time more fun and friendly, like Las Vegas.”
Thanks to the anonymous nature of Internet shopping, publishers say, the latest sex how-to books have found an expanding readership. “Sex guides are the subject of perennial and reliable interest,” Mr. Ross noted “But now that consumers can buy them without the traditional embarrassment, their growth has been explosive.” He said that “203 Ways to Drive a Man Wild in Bed,” for instance, has sold 325,000 copies.
Women are the primary consumers of the new manuals, which, like “She Comes First,” emphasize their enjoyment. “A lot of these books are about evening the score,” Ms. Regan said. “They’re saying, ‘Hey guys, we need pleasure too.’ ” Publishers say there is no specific target demographic for the books, although feedback suggests that readers range from their 20′s to their 60′s.
And though the books are written by both men and women, the women who write them tend to see a cause in what they are doing. Debra McLeod, co-author with her husband, Don, of “The French Maid: And 21 More Naughty Sex Fantasies to Surprise and Arouse Your Man” (Broadway), a collection of erotic fantasies published this year, said she wrote it mainly for women “because sex is now the domain of women,” adding, “It is a woman’s role to ensure a couple’s sex life remains satisfying.”
Despite contents that seem to be ever pushing taboos – even including bestiality, in some volumes – publishers maintain that these are service books at heart, maybe even beneficial. “We’re not publishing to shock,” said Kristine Poupolo, a senior editor at Doubleday Broadway, whose current hits include “The Many Joys of Sex Toys” by Anne Semans. “I like to think we’re improving peoples’ lives.”
Some experts are skeptical. “You can promise the greatest sex in the history of the world, but that is not what most people want,” said Dr. Marty Klein, a marriage and family counselor and a sex therapist in Palo Alto, Calif. Most couples, Dr. Klein continued, would happily settle for the simpler pleasures of closeness and affection. “A book called ‘How to Get Your Wife to Hug You a Little Bit More’ or ‘How to Get Your Husband to Slow Down and Caress Your Hair and Love Doing It,’ now those are books that would change people’s lives.”
But the new sex manuals give relatively short shrift to intimacy and lasting connection. While “The Joy of Sex” includes an introduction asserting that it is above all about love, and also has a section on tenderness, its descendants stress experimentation and proficiency. “Try going through each others’ wardrobes; why not see what you’d look like in each other’s clothes,” suggests Paul Scott, the author of “Mind-Blowing Sex.” Then there are certain calisthenics for the mouth that seem to require as much practice as learning to play the oboe.
One manual from Ulysses Press, whose title itself is vulgar, inducts readers into the arcana of sadomasochistic games, complete with props like paddles, handcuffs and video cameras. “If you want to make a Victorian porn film, simply turn the dial to sepia,” the author, Flic Everett, suggests.
Little is known about whether the new sex books have altered attitudes and approaches to human sexuality. “With the earlier manuals there was some research,” said Dr. Julia Heiman, the director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. “We had some evidence at least that they effected changes in sexual functioning.” Dr. Heiman added that no similar studies have recently appeared. “But that’s what deserves to happen if we are to figure out whether these things have a positive impact on sexual health.” she said.
To some readers sexual health may be beside the point. Mr. Willett of Ulysses Press said that titles like “The Wild Guide to Sex and Loving” sold better in the Bible Belt than in markets like New York. The books are “explicit but not pornographic,” he said. “In areas where people have a limited access to pornography these books satisfy a need.”
As the sex books become ever more steamy, some publishers, even the more venturesome, are already thinking of backing away. “There are still places you can go with these books,” Ms. Regan suggested, “but I don’t want to go there.”
“Social regulation, courtship, flowers, romance, those are things that seem newer right now,” she added, “Maybe the only place to go is to get prudish again.”
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