"You've come a long way, baby": Joy of Sex, redux
Dr. Alex Comfort's '70s-era bestselling sex guide was last relaunched to much fanfare back in 2002, but the Fully Revised & Completely Updated for the 21st Century edition was well, not. In fact, it has been updated four times and sold more than eight million copies in 14 countries since it was originally published in 1972, yet even its most recent incarnation left critics poking fun of how dated and kitchy it was within the context of the 21st century, down to the borderline hirsute hippie models and the antiquated attention to the male penis when the female clitoris was largely ignored. Fast forward to 2009, when the truly revisited Joy of Sex written by British sexpert Susan Quilliam launches in the states (it'll be out in London September 1st). Here's how things have changed a bit:
"Only a few of the original entries have been ditched entirely: sex on a motorbike, the grope suit - Comfort's joke invention of a Scandin-avian garment that prompted continuous orgasm. There are 43 new sections, including phone sex, the internet, sex shops, and sex during pregnancy, and there is more emphasis on relationships.
....She acknowledges another sobering stat: the Kinsey Institute says that contemporary women have less sex than their 1950s counterparts because they have so little uncommitted time.
....'I'm glad I'm not ten years younger because there are an awful lot of pressures on young people: to look fabulous; to have a fabulous sex life,' she says. 'We're living in a world where it's important to achieve and whether we have a good sex life has become one of our measures of personal validity. Alex Comfort took the emphasis off achievement - that is one of the many things he got right.'"--Huffington Post
Besides Brazilians and acknowledgment of female ejaculation (among other things), how else do you think sex has changed over the decades? And while we're at it, with the myriad of sex resources now available in bookstores and online--well, dare I say it?--do we even need a quintessential sex manual?
