Customer Reviews

Is Sex Necessary?

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You've probably heard of E.B. White--he wrote "Charlotte's Web" after all, quite possibly still required reading in many middle schools (as a lead-in to 2pac Shakur's poetry, I'm sure). James Thurber may be a bit more obscure to some of you, but he was an Ohio State alumnus (go Buckeyes! *cough*), an awesome cartoonist/artist, and an author possessed of a wonderfully ascerbic wit.

The combination of the two in this book is a rather uniquely bizarre experience that I found joyously uplifting.

The subject under discussion is indeed, in a rather obscure and indirect sense, sex. But we never *quite* seem to get there; non sequiturs abound, blank pages, discussions of how to avoid sex, bluebirds, flowers, a section on how children should explain sex to adults, and even a "letters from readers" chapter--but no actual sex. Lots of drawings, but nothing that anyone might find helpful for improving their sex life. (Bowling, yes. Bicycling, definitely. Obscure interpretations of unconscious artwork, absolutely. Sex, no.)

This book wasn't so much a reaction to Freud per se as it was to the wacky influx of psychologists and "sexologists", and their (unfortunately for us, entirely successful) attempts to complexify and obfuscate human behavior. This particular brand of snake oil started in the 20s and hasn't stopped flowing, and we're covered in an ever-growing deluge of how-to relationship manuals, self-help books, and other ludicrous efforts at explaining "the human condition".

White and Thurber's work explains, in the main, nothing. It asks more questions than it answers. The humor is dry and obscure, there are a ton of rather dated references, and if you're under 30 you'll probably need a dictionary. But...

if you need a laugh without a laugh track... you're fed up with "self-help" and "Men are from Saturn, Women are from Liverpool" type books... or you happen to think sex is vastly overrated (it is), give "Is Sex Necessary?" a try. You might be surprised at the answer.

Thurber's and White's text satirizing the hullabaloo that our dearest lunatic, Mr. Sigmund Freud, began takes whatever cake is being handed out for satirical writing. It's universally funny, lucid, and did I mention funny? It's hilarious. One should pull out one's thesaurus at this point to find other such words, and all will be a propos. The book should have been a trilogy.

A parody in classic vaudevillian style of the (then) newly emergent do-it-yourself psychology books. Thurber's drawing on p. 52 (Queen's House edition, 1978) with its accompanying text "This peculiar posture was discovered by Dr. Titbridge in a patient who for thirty years, boy and man, had been unable to tell love from passion and who allowed it to prey on his mind. Drawing from the Titbridge collection of American male postures." is, by itself, worth the price.

Mr. Thurber and Mr. White wrote a very amusing and rich satire on this basic of human conditions. In John Updike's foreword, he is correct in stating that this little gem of a book is quite phallocratic in its assumptions and has misogynistic tendencies. It was created all in good fun by two men in their early thirties and should be viewed as a product of its times (1929). This is very tame stuff in relation to present-day material, but still worth your time if you enjoy witty, nonsensical compositions. There's a good reason this baby is still kicking around eight decades after its initial publication. The book is a quick, light read by two pros.

Is Sex Necessary, Or Why You Feel The Way You Do, James Thurber & E.B. White; Harper & Row Publishers (1st 1929...last 1990)

"From 1800 to 1900...love & marriage & children stood for progress, & progress is - or was - a calm, routine business. `Mrs. Hopkins,' a man would say to the lady of his choice...'Mrs. Hopkins, I am thinking...you & I should get married & have offspring. They are about to build the Union Pacific [railroad], you know, & they will need men.' Because parents can't always have men-children when they want them, this led to almost as many women as men working on the Union Pacific, which in turn led to the greater stature of women in the present Northwest than in any other part of the nation. But that is somewhat beside the point."

"Paranoia: The last stages of what was once a bridegroom."

ISN produced laughter of a sort never experienced before. Having already read a great deal of what E.B. White & James Thurber had written, this was almost unimaginable. But it is true.

The humor is so ethereal, the puns are so subtle, & the writing touch - satiric as it is - is so light, it's almost as if Harper had produced a fragile literary crème brūlée. To react too abruptly to its "flavor" is to endanger the very spell woven by these "quiet" but very creative authors. Skate lightly.

It's been eighty-two years since first publication & the humor still holds up. Given that the "shelf life" of written humor is so notoriously fragile, this places ISN in the ranks of the classics at the same time that you're just having fun reading it. Can't beat that.

The book is a cute idea and a great parody of 'professional' sex ed books that came out around the mid to late 1920's.

I love White and Thurber.

I studied enough psychology to get a kick out of skillful parodies of its (many) excesses.

Nevertheless, this one seems very dated, a little strained, a little thrown together, and only mildly funny, like distant echoes of its authors. (pre-echoes?)

Thurber's line drawings are almost worth the price of admission.

Originally published in 1929 and written by two famous children's books' authors before they were famous children's books' authors, this is a spoof of the then newfangled do-it-yourself psychology books, psychoanalysis in general, and the professional sex education movement. It doesn't actually talk about sex. It's completely tame and dances all around the subject, focusing instead on sex substitutes, types of females, misunderstandings of lilies and bluebirds, the foibles of frigid males with recessive knees, what children should tell their parents, etc. It's light satire, at least by today's standards, and I often found myself somewhat bored, although it did manage to draw forth a few chuckles. Although a classic and worthy of reading for its place in history alone, it's definitely dated, being both misogynistic and ethnocentric.

There's no need to actually read this book if you're a male.

Simply carry it around, and you will find yourself approached by a wide variety of women who are amused and perhaps a bit threatened by the title.

Many of them will be interested in showing you the positive response to the question posed by the book's title.

It's quite astonishing, really. You have to try it to believe the results. Good luck.