When I was about 12 or so, there was a copy of 1984 being passed around the classroom: not for a precocious glimpse of Orwell’s dystopian critique of totalitarianism, no, nothing so worthy. What excited this sweaty-palmed interest was the, ahem, frank and open depiction of adult relations therein: to wit, Winston and Julia rooting.
Pretty tame stuff in retrospect, but you have to remember that this was in 1979, and feelthy feelthy books and pictures were scarce then for those on the cusp of adolescence - oh, there was the odd Mayfair surrepititiously purloined from Dad’s sock drawer and furtively circulated, but for the most part it was a more innocent age, and we took our guilty pleasures where we could find them.
Anyone else scour books, serious or otherwise, for “dirty bits” when they were younger?
My mom kept her copy of “Wifey” by Judy Blume in this cupboard in the laundry room. I read certain parts of that book many many times.
I also remember some horror book that my mom had that had a girl get raped by an invisible ghost. I read that one quite a bit too, although it was vague enough that I really couldn’t tell what was happening. I just knew I found it VERY INTERESTING.
I got a big box of mixed paperbacks at an estate sale once that had some real eye-openers, including the above-mentioned Harold Robbins. I was also usually able to find a copy of one of the fashionable sex how-to books (The Sensuous Woman was big with divorced moms) or a Playboy at houses where I babysat.
Jaws by Peter Benchley. I read it because I loved the movie, but I wasn’t prepared for the incredibly torrid affair between Hooper and Brody’s wife! I re-read that part quite a bit.
My first discovery of literary sex: Some short story in one of my mother’s Cosmopolitans. That was VERY interesting to a 12-year-old in 1983.
After that I found my parents’ guide to Catholic Matrimony. Wouldn’t rate a “meh” today, but for a 13-year-old well before the Web existed, it was useful.
Then I hit the motherlode: some trashy little novel about a horribly repressed housewife who was held in her home and raped repeatedly (with increasingly less resistance and more cooperation) by her hugely hung black sex-addicted chauffeur, under my parents’ mattress. O.O That one took me through almost to the point where I could legally buy real porn…
I just wanted to clarify that the housewife wasn’t being raped under my parents’ mattress, the book was hidden there…
Although I guess in an existential sense, since the housewife was being raped in the book, and the book was hidden under the mattress, the housewife was actually being raped under the mattress.
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. It served to set some pretty unrealistic expectations
It did teach me some pretty interesting ways of thinking, though. I reread it a couple years back and thought to myself "This book should be called ‘Objectivism for Beginners’ " but when I was 10, it was profound. The dirty parts were fun, too.
Man, mine’s embarrassing. OMNI Magazine. My brother had a big collection of them from the late 70’s-early 80’s, and every one had a story with some really messed-up sexual undertone to it.
Not exactly reading material, but in the “finding” books category, a mate once proudly showed me his dad’s stash of David Hamilton books: titles like “Tender Blossoms”, and soft-focus photos of naked, pubescent and vaguely Edwardian girls combing each other’s hair in front of mirrors - the kind of stuff that you really wouldn’t want found on your hard drive. Strange times, the late 70’s: I remember Mr Hamilton’s books being sold openly in reputable stores.
{NB: A Google search reveals he has a website, but I haven’t opened it, I’m not linking to it and I would strongly advise not looking for it at work unless you feel like having your desk cleared. He’s probably toned his act down in the intervening years, but why take the chance?}
