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The Joy of Sex
Cover of The Joy of Sex
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The Joy of Sex
The Ultimate Revised Edition
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A revised and updated edition of the book famous for helping couples discover how sex can be playful, erotic, passionate, exhilarating, and most of all, pleasurable.
The Joy of Sex revolutionized how we experience our sexuality. An international bestseller since it was first published in 1972, Dr. Alex Comfort's classic work dared to celebrate the joy of human physical intimacy with such authority and candor that a whole generation felt empowered to enjoy sex. Now fully updated, revised, and reillustrated, The Joy of Sex once again sets the standard as the world's most trusted sex manual.
Substantial revisions from sex expert and relationship psychologist Susan Quilliam include new information on:
  • Key scientific discoveries in the fields of psychology, physiology, and sexology
  • The Internet and couple-friendly pornography
  • The importance of sex to our growth as people and partners
  • Maintaining a fulfilling sex life as we get older
    Above all, The Joy of Sex emphasizes the importance of happy and healthy sexuality in our lives.
    • A revised and updated edition of the book famous for helping couples discover how sex can be playful, erotic, passionate, exhilarating, and most of all, pleasurable.
    The Joy of Sex revolutionized how we experience our sexuality. An international bestseller since it was first published in 1972, Dr. Alex Comfort's classic work dared to celebrate the joy of human physical intimacy with such authority and candor that a whole generation felt empowered to enjoy sex. Now fully updated, revised, and reillustrated, The Joy of Sex once again sets the standard as the world's most trusted sex manual.
    Substantial revisions from sex expert and relationship psychologist Susan Quilliam include new information on:
  • Key scientific discoveries in the fields of psychology, physiology, and sexology
  • The Internet and couple-friendly pornography
  • The importance of sex to our growth as people and partners
  • Maintaining a fulfilling sex life as we get older
    Above all, The Joy of Sex emphasizes the importance of happy and healthy sexuality in our lives.
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    • From the book

      On Gourmet Lovemaking All of us, barring any physical limitations, are able to dance and sing -- after a fashion. This, if you think about it, summarizes the justification for learning to make love. Love, in the same way as singing, is something to be taken spontaneously. On the other hand, the difference between Pavlova and the Palais de Danse, or opera and barbershop singing, is much less than the difference between sex as our recent ancestors came to accept it and sex as it can be.
      At least we recognize this now (so that instead of worrying if sex is sinful, most people now worry whether they are "getting satisfaction" -- one can worry about anything, given the determination). And there are now enough books about the basics; we are largely past the point of people worrying about the nor­mality, possibility, and variety of sexual experience. This book is slightly differ­ent, in that there are now enough people who have those basics and want more depth of understanding, solid ideas, and inspiration.
      To draw a parallel, chef-grade cooking doesn't happen naturally: it starts at the point where people know how to prepare and enjoy food, are curious about it and willing to take trouble preparing it, read recipe hints, and find they are helped by one or two techniques. It's hard to make mayonnaise by trial and error, for instance. Gourmet sex, as we define it, is the same -- the extra one can get from comparing notes, using some imagination, trying way-out or new experi­ences, when one already is making satisfying love and wants to go on from there.
      This book will likely attract four sorts of readers. First, there are those who don't fancy it, find it disturbing, and would rather stay the way they are -- these should put it down, accept our apologies, and stay the way they are. Second, there are those who are with the idea, but don't like our choice of techniques -- remember, it's a menu, not a rulebook.
      Third, most people will use our notes as a personal one-couple notebook from which they might get ideas. In this respect we have tried to stay wide open. One of the original aims of this book was to cure the notion, born of non-discussion, that common sex needs are odd or weird; the whole joy of sex-with­love is that there are no rules, so long as you enjoy, and the choice is practically unlimited. We have, however, left out long discussion of very specialized sexual preferences; people who like these know already what they want to try.
      The final group of readers are the hardy experimentalists, bent on trying absolutely everything. They too will do best to read this exactly like a cookbook -- except that sex is safer in this respect, between lovers, in that you can't get obese or atherosclerotic on it, or give yourself ulcers. The worst you can get, given sensible safety precautions, is sore, anxious, or disappointed. However, one needs a steady basic diet of quiet, loving, night-and-morning intercourse to stand this experimentation on, simply because, contrary to popular ideas, the more regular sex a couple has, the higher the deliberately contrived peaks -- just as the more you cook routinely, the better and the more reliable banquets you can stage.
      One specific group of readers deserves special note. If you are disabled in any way, don't stop reading. A physical disability is not an obstacle to fulfilling sex. In counseling disabled people, one repeatedly finds that the real disability isn't a mechanical problem but a mistaken idea that there is only one "right" -- or enjoyable -- way to have sex. The best approach is probably to go through the book with your partner, marking off the things you can...

    About the Author-
    • DR. ALEX COMFORT was one of the world's leading experts in the field of human sexuality and one of the most versatile authors of the twentieth century. He died in March 2000 at the age of eighty.

      SUSAN QUILLIAM is a relationship psychologist and an advice columnist. She writes, broadcasts, and presents internationally on topics surrounding love and sexuality.
    Reviews-
    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 1, 2002
      Physician and acclaimed human sexuality expert Comfort, who died in 2000, covered sexual liberation 30 years ago with his landmark book, The Joy of Sex. In this revised edition, other than titillating illustrations of a post-millennium couple (say goodbye to the bearded satyr of old) and a certain cheeky charm, there's not much new under the bedroom blanket. Although the book offers plenty of graphic suggestions, few will look daring or new to contemporary readers. (There's a lot of harmless, kooky stuff, though: "playing at horses," for example, or the "Viennese oyster" position.) Comfort's comparison of sexual satisfaction to a full-course meal feels a bit like yesterday's leftovers, and he's not shy about pushing his personal taste either: "Armpit. Classical site for kisses. Should on no account be shaved." Comfort issues warnings about sexually transmitted diseases with the usual suggestions for protection, and some surprising cautions: "Never blow into the vagina," he writes. "This trick can cause air embolism and has caused sudden death." If new information is what readers are after, this revision probably won't do the trick, but for anyone whose 1972 copy is getting a little rough around the edges, here's a perfect excuse to get a new one. 20 full-color photographs, 80 line illustrations.

    • Time

      "Witty, fanciful, and mercifully free of moralizing."

    • Desmond Morris, author ofPeople Watching and The Human Sexes: The Natural History of a Man and a Woman "An intelligent sex manual that is serious without being solemn."
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