More Sex, Less
'Joy'
By RUTH LA FERLA (NYT)
Published: May 29, 2005
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the face-to face missionary position have been replaced by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clinical language has been replaced by chatty girlfriend-speak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.''
