The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex and Other True Stories by Pagan Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page A

gyrations to pretend he was only the editor, that subterfuge evaporated after the book came out. The press called him “Dr. Sex.” Ruth coped with this disaster by pretending it wasn’t happening. According to Nick, “my mother never discussed [ Joy ] at all.” When she absolutely had to allude to her husband’s bestseller, she called it “that book.” The marriage, which had survived so many betrayals, now crumbled.
    In early 1973, Alex negotiated a divorce from Ruth. A few months later, he and Jane married in a quiet ceremony in London. Nick—and many old friends—were not invited. Then the couple jetted off to their new home in California. The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, a liberal think tank in Santa Barbara, had offered Alex a sun-drenched office near the beach. He’d take it.
    GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
    â€œHere we have a new genre: the coffee-table book that should be kept out of the reach of the children. Higher coffee tables would seem to be the answer,” John Updike joked in the 1970s, about The Joy of Sex. But the coffee tables stayed low, and the book splayed its pages suggestively in living rooms across the nation. It matched the Danish Modern furniture; the understated cover was all white space, the epitome of space-age minimalism. The book became a fashion accessory, a symbol of the New Good Life. Along with a waterbed, a hot tub, and a high-end stereo, this was a toy for adults at play.
    And suddenly, so many were at play: in 1970, California adopted the first no-fault divorce law, and by the end of the decade splitting up had become easy. Now, entire consumer empires catered to the single and middle-aged: these swingers needed fern bars, sports cars outfitted with quadrophonic 8-track tape machines, amusing drinks (Harvey Wallbanger, Harvey’s Bristol Cream), aftershaves, designer jeans, beachside condos, shag rugs, silver coke spoons.
    Alex Comfort had never meant to create a faddish product or storm the consumer market. Just the opposite: he dreamed of a utopia where tribes of people shared their bodies, where greed
dissolved. In such a world, talking about money would be the ultimate gauchery. Examine the illustrations in Joy, and you catch a glimpse of what heaven might have looked like in Comfort’s mind. The lovers float in the freedom of white space; seemingly they own few possessions beyond pillows and a mattress. They need nothing but their erogenous zones. In the sequel, More Joy, their friends come over, and now the foursome copulates on some hazy surface. (The floor? A bed?) The reader of Joy steps into a demimonde something like Sandstone in the early years—just men, women, and mattresses. Pleasure belonged to everyone. Didn’t it?
    The last thing Alex Comfort had expected was for his guidebook to become a status symbol. The book made a fortune for its publisher and became a must-have furnishing for the vacation house or bachelor pad. It both promoted Alex Comfort’s utopia and undercut its essential message: in Joy, he exhorted readers to get beyond all the pre-packaged ideas about sex, and to fully inhabit their own minds and bodies. “Play it your own way,” he lectured readers. Once “you have tried all your own creative sexual fantasies, you won’t need books.” Ah, but his readers did need the book; they bought it by the millions; they wanted the cool white cover; they longed for an artifact.

    Likewise, his beloved Sandstone became an upscale consumer product in the late 1970s. Its original owners, bankrupted by a lawsuit, had no choice but to sell the place. The new proprietor, an ex-Marine, instituted a $740 initiation fee for members, which made the club as expensive as a Hawaiian vacation or a share in a yacht. Once Sandstone turned into a money mill, Alex divorced himself from the place. By all accounts, he gave up on group sex entirely around that time.
    MONOGAMY
    But wait!