Customer Reviews

The New Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide to Lovemaking for the Nineties

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Joy of Sex was a best seller back in the 1970's and became an immediate best seller when it was re-released and updated in the early 1990's

This book is a classic and a must read for everyone who wants more "spice" in their relationships.

HAS HELPED ME AND OTHERS. Highly recommended.

As a "30 something", this book has nothing new in it for me. It is tamer than my sex-ed class in high-school but may be good for teens (or anyone) getting ready for their first time. Not that I would recommend buying it for your kid because there are some really backward, outdated views. Kudos for covering safe-sex and the reality of AIDS, but not enough explanation of other STDs. Undertones of racism and homophobia, and suggestion to use hairy armpit odor as an aphrodisiac leave me uninterested in reading the whole book.

This classic guide for intimacy is a beautifully written and illustrated "cookbook" for the bedroom. The late Alex Comfort's almost poetic prose, ably aided by Clare Park's beautiful photography and Christopher Foss' now nearly-legendary color ilustrations, helps readers expand their sexual awareness and enhance their bedroom "playtime" to make their sex, well, more joyful.

While some people might be put off by Comfort's sometimes eclectic musings on various sexual practices, or even take issue with his statememts on bisexuality, this book should be in every couple's private library. This expanded edition was updated for the 1990s, and although much of the original 1970s edition's text was left unchanged, Comfort had to rethink some of his ideas about multiple partners as a result of the AIDS epidemic, something that all of us should still pay attention to.

Despite some use of erudite "History of Sex" material cited by other reviewers, Comfort didn't lapse into overly clinical language, using colloquialisms for male and female genitalia instead of their medical names. Comfort, after all, wasn't writing for doctors in a dry academic tome; he was writing to the rest of us, using words and phrases that we are comfortable using within the confines of our bedrooms.

There are, of course, other "cookbooks" with recipes for great sex, but Comfort's classic was, and still is, among the best of them.

I refer to the original version from the early 70's. I didn't realize there are sequels. Beautiful artwork! Color-penciled renderings of people giving it their best shot. With chapters lke, "Pickles and Relishes", one gets a cook book rush. And there in lies the problem with this manual. Sex is best when spontaneous. Everyone knows that. Here in are recipes for the big "O". How sexy! Perhaps the publication of this handbook was inevitable given the zeitgeist of 1970. But this tome takes itself much too seriously as it purports to tell the reader "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex, But Were Afraid To Ask". Penned by Alex Comfort (you bet!)