WITH its forthright prose, little-before-discussed-in-the-suburbs erotic advice and amusing pictures of an ardent naked person known popularly as the Hairy Man, “The Joy of Sex” was a revolution in its time. Published in 1972, when sex was still supposed to take place in the dark and under the sheets, the book thrust itself into public consciousness with all the subtlety of a gigolo at a convention of bishops. It was also stunningly popular, a well-thumbed fixture of bedside tables across America that spent 343 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.
The book has undergone various tweaks and expansions over the years, and six years ago the Hairy Man and his somewhat less hairy female partner were relegated to wherever old hippies go to retire. But now comes a completely revised version of the book, written, for the first time, for women as much as for men. It tackles an array of modern topics unheard of in the 1970s, like Internet pornography, AIDS and Viagra, and features photographs (and drawings, when things get too graphic) of a suitably buff 21st-century couple.
But still. In a society where, if anything, people talk and think far too much about sex already, what is the point of reading anything else about it? Is there really anything new to say?
Yes, indeed, said Susan Quilliam, a British sexologist, advice columnist and relationship counselor who extensively revised the book, which will make its American debut next month (the British version came out in September). People desperately need help in negotiating the culture’s bewildering sexual messages, she said.
“Because we are more sexualized, we need something that is credible, accurate and authoritative,” Ms. Quilliam said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/fashion/18joy.html?th&emc=th
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