I did not catch why Yoshie started this thread but I agree that the title Kulturkampf fits.
There was some fascinating further detail about the significance of Comfort's most famous book, on Channel $ this week. I recommend the programme when it comes to the USA. From the website blurb:
>THE JOY OF SEX 22:00 4 January
>
>In 1972, The Joy of Sex brought the secrets of sensual loving to millions
>of bedrooms across Britain and the world. At the time it was the most
>explicit sex manual ever published - yet it topped the best-seller lists
>and made a star of the 'Hairy Man' - the bearded lover shown in a dazzling
>array of intimate poses with his partner. This documentary is the funny
>and fascinating story of the book that changed bedtime habits forever and
>made its author, Dr Alex Comfort, Britain's most unlikely sex guru.
The programme described him as the super-intelligent child of intellectual parents. One senses that his rebellions, which always took intellectual forms, were stimulated by reaction against the upper class atmosphere of Cambridge university. He is a member of the troubled intelligentsia.
He was carrying out serious research on ageing when his open relationship with a librarian turned from a series of notes about their serious love making for their own convenience, into the possibility of a manual, in an England still under sexual censorship.
There are a number of interesting hints in the programme of a sub-plot that is even more modern - the right of the handcapped to dignity and individuality. A publisher recalls how he would prominently pick his nose with the thumb on his left hand which had lost the fingers in his boyhood explosives experiment.
A person reminiscing about his appearances at Sandstone recalled how he would participate in the collective sex with this thumb. It is interesting therefore that "The big toe, readers learned, could be a powerful erotic instrument." Part of the joy of sex in his relationship with Jane Henderson, once suspects, was effective clitoral stimulation.
His life seems to have been very much affected by his ability to make rational political sense of it. His opposition to mass bombing of Germany remains rational and progressive. He was very closely involved with Bertrand Russell in turning to criminal civil disobedience in the early 60's campaigns against nuclear weapons.
Certainly the message of the book coincided with "Make Love Not War!"
One of the articles quoted by Yoshie noted the hippy message of the drawings. That came about by accident but also probably powerfully contributed to the overtones of the sexual revolution of second half of the 20th century.
The publishers had Comfort's amateur notes and illustrations for his relationship with Jane. Working in Soho, they wondered whether they could cut up photographs from pornographic literature, but the result of splicing various bits together looked wooden. Besides a number of the positions were unknown in Soho. They tried asking prostitutes to model but found the effect lacking in warmth, and more likely to make them vulnerable to censorship on the grounds of pornography.
The solution in desparation was to accept the offer of the artist Charles Raymond, to pose with his much younger German wife, with only the illustrator Christopher Foss taking photographs. It occurred at a time of great class conflict with the government imposing a three day week and frequent electricity cuts in an effort to win a major strike with the miners. They had to get through as many positions as possible before the electricity got cut off again. However Christopher Foss's recollections were that the couple lost themselves frequently in the love making and were only brought back by the wife's Germanic sense of responsibility. (Apologies I did not catch her name). She certainly described herself as very much in love with Charles, and 30 years later they were interviewed together and appeared to be still in a warmly loving relationship.
She interestingly refused to do any bondage scenes and was a little annoyed to see her head imposed on one such scene, which had obviously been reconstructed by the male publishers.
Foss turned most of the photos into line drawings while Charles Raymond turned a minority of them into full illustrations.
The publishers very anxiously limited the first run to only 10,000 copies.
The unexpected success coincided with, or created, other crunch decisions in Comfort's life. While he believed in an open marriage as a matter of principle he had to choose between the two women in his life and went to California with Jane, divorcing Ruth.
In California although Jane participated in the free love, eventually she prevailed in influencing him to return to England.
The programme emphasises how concerned Comfort was about AIDS, and how his message about the joys of group sex was emphatically altered between the first and second editions, despite his initial infatuation with Sandstone.
One suspects that this contributed to an awareness of the political limitations of his message.
Sadly he was severely handicapped by strokes and had to live in a useless body for many years before his death.
Overall the programme gives much information about the powerful but limited effect of the anarchist subculture on the sexual revolution of the 20th century. The likely order of things reasserted themselves, but never quite the same as they would have been if Alex Comfort had never lived.
Late capitalism promotes the idea of total individual freedom and total rights of atomised individuals. This much endures.
It idealises individuals who can present themselves as sexual commodities able to promote the most immediate free gratification with, hopefully, some warm psychological contact thrown in. Youth is the archetype for this and domination is taboo between individuals (unless consensual). It is interesting that Comfort seems to have accepted the comments by women that the book was shaped by men.
It is interesting too that more commercial successors do not promote beards as one of the joys of sex. Nevertheless the beard was part of the particular sincerity of the somewhat anarchistic individuals who broke through British censorship. The Joy of Sex is very much a creation of its time. It would be nice to think its success was not just because of its subject matter but because its genuineness shone through. The subjects of the illustrations of the Joy of Sex remain together after thirty years, although the sexual revolution has generally coincided with a rising divorce rate.
The moral ideal now is not necessarily more than serial monogamy, which fits late capitalism quite satisfactorily. Indeed it creates much more consumer demand (including for sex manuals).
The Comfort' revolution was both more extensive and more limited than it appears.
Chris Burford
London