# Books You Read Because You Heard There Were Sex Parts: A Middle School Reminiscence **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 23, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144 "2010-02-23T17:56:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/1 "2010-02-23T17:56:43Z")
[ul] [li]_Flowers in the Attic_ by VC Andrews-- sex style: creepy, raunchy, incestuous[/li][li]_Forever_ by Judy Bloom – sex style: wholesome, racy[/li][li]_A House Like a Lotus_ by Madeleine L’Engle – sex style: steamy yet arty (the actual sex scene is a little prose poem)[/li][li]_Valley the Horses_ by Jean M. Auel-- sex style: nonstop marathon (I still can’t say “pleasures” without snickering.)[/li][li]_DragonRiders of Pern_ by Ann McCaffrey (original unedited version) – sex style: compulsive (the characters are uncontrollably drawn to have sex when their dragons mate. Ya rly.)[/li][/ul] There must be others I’m forgetting. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/2 "2010-02-23T18:10:59Z")
A _bunch_ of books by somebody named “Anonymous” who wrote like they lived in Victorian times. Never figured out who that person was, either. 😉 Introduced me to a lot of words, like “guamahache” or something like that. Those wacky brits! ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/3 "2010-02-23T18:12:33Z")
_The Godfather_. Page 26 if I recall. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/4 "2010-02-23T18:14:51Z")
_Fear of Flying_, by Erica Jong. Slogged my way through it during “silent sustained reading” periods in high school, hoping for the juicy parts. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/5 "2010-02-23T18:17:50Z")
Harold Robbins, _The Lonely Lady_ ---
**Author:** ![smaje1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47774/32.png) [@smaje1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smaje1)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/6 "2010-02-23T18:30:42Z")
Flowers in the Attic and all of the Jean M. Auel books I could sneak out of my parents’ library. I bought a “Letters to Penthouse Forum” collection a while back - it’s nice to be able to read an entire book o’ smut and not just have to re-read the same couple of paragraphs over and over! ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/7 "2010-02-23T18:32:28Z")
I never did that with books- but I bought a few Ohio Players albums I didn’t like that much, just for the covers. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/8 "2010-02-23T18:36:59Z")
“Forever” ! Ha! They put a picture of me poring over it in my eighth grade yearbook. What a great capture of the zeitgeist of 1980. "The Story of O " was pretty damn saucy for a twelve year old. Heck, it’s pretty saucy for anyone. I tried to read “Portnoy’s Complaint” but couldn’t get inot it. ---
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/9 "2010-02-23T18:49:38Z")
Jaws. I must have been about eleven or twelve and picked it up free at a garage sale or something. It had a _naked lady_ on the cover! But it was like 300 pages of crap I didn’t care about, and maybe 3/4 of a page of a sex scene. Not a terribly hot one, either, but I was 11! I didn’t know the difference. It lived under my bed for some time before I eventually donated to the library in a book drive. ---
**Author:** ![Staver808](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@Staver808](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staver808)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/10 "2010-02-23T18:53:45Z")
Heh, for the life of me, I can’t remember the title, but I recall an all white cover with one of those heart lockets that opens up and you can see two small pictures in it. I remember my girlfriend at the time telling me to read this. I had completely orgotten about this, and now I think I might have completely blown an opportunity. _sigh_ I think I remember telling her it was “Okay”. Not to sound like a grumpy old man (too late) but kids have it so easy now days with their porn. Back in the old days, when we wanted porn we had to sneak around, or READ and use our imaginations! Bah! Since we’re walking down memory lane, not to highjack or anything, but did anyone else sit in complete darkness in the middle of the night watching scrambled cable? If you watched long enough, you’d get a brief glimpse of what was on the screen. You never knew what you were looking at since it was on the screen for a split second. Heck, you might be looking at a knee, or an elbow, but really, back then, they all looked like breasts to me. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/11 "2010-02-23T18:54:48Z")
Dean Koontz was always good for a sex scene or two - I remember the one in Watchers quite fondly… ---
**Author:** ![vdgg81](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/3d9bf3/32.png) [@vdgg81](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vdgg81)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/12 "2010-02-23T18:56:38Z")
Ha! I remember doing this a lot when I was in my early teens. I can’t, however, remember a single one of those books. I guess that says a lot about their literary quality. The funny thing is nowadays I’m very often annoyed when I come upon a sex scene, they’re so often boring and have a tendency to stop the plot dead in the tracks. (I do read some erotica, mostly Victorian, from time to time, but that’s different.) ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/13 "2010-02-23T19:05:04Z")
> [@Staver808](#): > > Heh, for the life of me, I can’t remember the title, but I recall an all white cover with one of those heart lockets that opens up and you can see two small pictures in it. Are you sure it wasn’t “Forever?” The old cover: [![](https://www.bookcellarinc.com/calendar/upload/181b_judyblume-forever.jpg) ](https://www.bookcellarinc.com/calendar/upload/181b_judyblume-forever.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/14 "2010-02-23T19:16:03Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > I tried to read “Portnoy’s Complaint” but couldn’t get inot it. Ha! I tried to read this in middle school as well in the pursuit of sexy material, and just didn’t get it. For _years,_ like well into adulthood, I thought Philip Roth wasn’t a very good writer and I could not understand why people always raved about him. I’m trying to think of what else that hasn’t already been mentioned. The hottest books at my middle school have already been covered: _Flowers in the Attic_ et al, _Forever_ and _Wifey_ by Judy Blume, _The Valley of the Clan of Prehistoric Bears_ et al. There was one other one that made the rounds that – I can’t remember the title or too many details, but I know the boy and girl are at summer camp (maybe counselors at a summer camp?) and penis ensues. There was a tattered copy of one of the Nancy Friday books that was passed around a lot in the 7th grade. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/15 "2010-02-23T19:19:06Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > Dean Koontz was always good for a sex scene or two - I remember the one in Watchers quite fondly… I’ve only ever read one Dean Koontz book (“Twilight Eyes”, I think). That was 20+ years ago, and the sex scene was about the only thing I remember of it (up until reading the plot summary on Wikipedia just now). ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/16 "2010-02-23T19:19:41Z")
_[Wifey](http://www.amazon.com/Wifey-Judy-Blume/dp/0425206548/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266952669&sr=8-1)_ by Judy Blume ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/17 "2010-02-23T19:32:59Z")
I remember I brought the unedited “In Search of April Raintree” to school - it’s not sex, it was a rape. One of my best friend’s parents had an extensive library in the basement and we stowed away and read “The Happy Hooker” and “The Sensuous Woman”. I also read a few bodice rippers that I got from a garage sale… ---
**Author:** ![Staver808](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@Staver808](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staver808)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/18 "2010-02-23T19:55:04Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > Are you sure it wasn’t “Forever?” > > The old cover: > [http://www.bookcellarinc.com/calendar/upload/181b\_judyblume-forever.jpg](http://www.bookcellarinc.com/calendar/upload/181b_judyblume-forever.jpg) Yup, that’s the one! Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/19 "2010-02-23T19:56:21Z")
Of those read just for the sex, and while in middle school or younger: _Wifey_, _Peyton Place_, _Lady Chatterly’s Lover_, quite a number of drug-store paperback romances and my dad’s hidden stack of Playboys. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144/20 "2010-02-23T19:57:22Z")
I was a big old Gay Talese sneakreader. He had two books of women’s sexual fantasies and one large book of men’s fantasies. My uncle (who owned the family cornerstore) for some reason had the men’s fantasy book in the back room, and whenever I would help my mom (who worked there) in the summer, I’d spend a lot of time in that back storeroom ostensibly watching tv, but really standing in front of the shelf where that book was and reading it with one ear open to my mother coming back there. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-because-you-heard-there-were-sex-parts-a-middle-school-reminiscence/530144.md?page=2)