# Books You Read When Younger For "Dirty Bits" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 8, 2005, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732 "2005-09-08T22:35:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/1 "2005-09-08T22:35:34Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/2 "2005-09-08T22:39:59Z")
Pretty much anything by Harold Robbins. ---
**Author:** ![Ghanima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/3 "2005-09-08T22:41:05Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/4 "2005-09-08T22:49:30Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/5 "2005-09-08T22:53:34Z")
I put it best [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6387675&postcount=30) ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/6 "2005-09-08T22:55:18Z")
Those Mandingo books by Kyle Onstott :eek: :eek: :eek: ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/7 "2005-09-08T22:58:13Z")
and of course I was a fan of Isaac Asimov, so I discovered in the library, “The Sensuous Dirty Old Man”. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/8 "2005-09-08T22:58:23Z")
The Clan of the Cave Bear books, and some early Ann Rice stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/9 "2005-09-08T22:59:07Z")
> [@ouryL](#): > > Those Mandingo books by Kyle Onstott :eek: :eek: :eek: Ooh! I forgot those. One of my aunts had a boatload of them. ---
**Author:** ![TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/51bf81/32.png) [@TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/10 "2005-09-08T23:17:38Z")
**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. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/11 "2005-09-08T23:26:29Z")
My mom always had a bunch of trashy harlequin-esque romance novels lying around. Those were always amusing to my friends and I in our tween years. ---
**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:** [September 8, 2005, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/12 "2005-09-08T23:27:50Z")
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… ---
**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:** [September 8, 2005, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/13 "2005-09-08T23:29:39Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > 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. Now I have a headache. ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/14 "2005-09-08T23:33:02Z")
Another vote for Judy Blume and _any_ of the sex in all the Stephen King’s. Since it was horror, no one really cared. 😃 Oh, and of course there was the cartoonish “Sex to Sexty” lying around. Besides that, does National Geographic count? ---
**Author:** ![Leviosaurus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Leviosaurus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leviosaurus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/15 "2005-09-08T23:44:08Z")
**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. ---
**Author:** ![parthenokinesis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/cc9497/32.png) [@parthenokinesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/parthenokinesis)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/16 "2005-09-08T23:44:38Z")
> [@faithfool](#): > > …and _any_ of the sex in all the Stephen King’s. Since it was horror, no one really cared. 😃 Oh, yeah. The bathtub scene from Pet Sematary was directly responsible for my first (self induced, natch) orgasm. In fact, if you’ll excuse me… ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/17 "2005-09-08T23:46:39Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/18 "2005-09-08T23:49:05Z")
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?} ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/19 "2005-09-08T23:58:31Z")
_Sexus_ by Henry Miller - I followed that with one of the _bTropics…_ I heard that Faulkners _Sanctuary_ had some racy parts but I wasn’t impressed. There was always the _Oxford English Dictionary_ in the public library with all the underlined words. Perhaps the most titilating was Voltaire’s _Candida_, and, of course, Southern’s _Candy_. Then there was _Brave New World_ where the savage’s mother was, let us say, loose. TV ---
**Author:** ![Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilvert_s_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732/20 "2005-09-09T00:11:09Z")
The wedding day scene in **The Godfather**. I’m pushing 50 now, and I think I still remember it being on page 38. 😃 **The Sensuous Man** by “M”. The gratuitous lesbian sexual references in Heinlien’s **Friday**. No wait… I was in my 20’s then… And OMFG, I about died when I got hold of a copy of **Portnoy’s Complaint**. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-younger-for-dirty-bits/320732.md?page=2)