This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
60 61
special report special report
tHe sHoot was during tHe
Miners’ strike wHen electricity
was rationed. we would be in
tHe studio witH cHarlie
rayMond Mid-Flow and tHe
power would just cut out. we
could Have all been arrested.
The cigarette-holed, worn pages of The Joy of Sex were my
introduction to sex. It belonged to my dad and, as with many copies
of this book at that time, it was tucked away out of sight, its thumbed
cover hiding a world of wonders.
It was an ocular adventure, swapping the familiarity of Mowgli in my treasured
copy of The Jungle Book with the two crayon-rendered bottoms. The awkward
words didn’t make sense to me at the time but the engaging drawings were all
it took to convey the message.
The Joy of Sex was originally published in 1972. Its author, the
doctor and scientist Alex Comfort, created a sexual adventure for
the world to share, basing the template of the book on a cookbook
offering up an erotic menu. More than one hundred sensitive
illustrations by former Penthouse illustrator Christopher Foss and
traditional painter Charles Raymond greatly assisted in making
the book such a success. Its cover featured the couple illustrated
throughout the book—the gentleman, nicknamed ‘Bearded
Man’, is now an icon the world over.
The concept of The Joy of Sex captured the mood of the world in a sexual
revolution. Despite receiving many written complaints, it sold more than ten
million copies before the end of the decade, outselling the Bible, and was
the toast of the town. The following year came More Joy of Sex, after which
followed other editions and versions including an updated text by Comfort
amending his belief in free love to monogamy after the outbreak of AIDS.
In 2002 a rather more academic, thirtieth-anniversary edition was released
by Comfort’s son Nicholas.
The text has now been reworked again by author and psychologist
Susan Quilliam. The New Joy of Sex, “the thinking person’s guide
to sex”, will be released this month. “I was in my early twenties when
the original Joy of Sex came out. It was such a seminal book that
amazed me so much, so when Mitchell Beazley asked me to reinvent
it as a woman it was one of those wonderful moments of serendipity,”
smiles Quilliam.
Alex Comfort proposed his original, pioneering text to Mitchell Beazley
Publishers in the early 1970s as a more intimate take on the sex academia
that was available at that time. The fifty-one-year-old doctor and Cambridge
graduate had experienced a strict upbringing in the sexually inexperienced
1930s: with his tweed suit, rimmed spectacles and cigar he seemed an unlikely
expert on such matters. The publishers were amused by his ideas and by the
unfolding sexual encounters between a scientist (Comfort) and a librarian (his
mistress, later to be his second wife) that are at the core of the text. Comfort’s
original handwritten notebook slowly evolved into a concise manual and the
touching guide is now a classic.
“It turned one’s world upside down. We were very worried it would
be banned or that we would get into trouble with the press… that
we would get typed as a pornographic publisher,” stated Peter
Kindersley, art director of The Joy of Sex in a television documentary
on the book in 2001.
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94
Produced with Yudu - www.yudu.com