The Bible.
Two books with dirty bits (my mother had taken them out of the library and left them in the bathroom) that kept me going in adolescence:
Chances by Jackie Collins, and
Sunset Bomber by David Kincaid (a pseudonym, I believe). This book contains a lesbian scene so hot, I could still get a hard-on thinking about it.
Jeez, I must have been a real perv, I recall reading so many of these suggestions over the years. (Must have been?)
In 7th grade, I discovered a sci-fi anthology in the library that had the novella “A Boy and His Dog”, by Harlan Ellison. Later made into the movie with Don Johnson. Trust me, the book is racier – far, far racier. Jesus, that story woke me up in a big way. Heady stuff for a naive 12 year-old.
Come to think of it, I don’t think I have a copy in my library. Hmmm. Time to hit Ebay, methinks…
Yes, that was always a faithful standby at school. There were also some surprisingly risqué bits in various Latin and Greek texts. The teachers usually avoided them in class but we students managed to track them down via the English translation e.g Suetonius’ *Twelve Caesars * and its description of the Emperor Tiberius and his “activities” while swimming with little boys was rather eye-opening.
• Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)
• The Happy Hooker by Xaviera Hollander
• The publshed screenplay to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (the scene where Sundance has Etta strip for him).
The Betsy by Harold Robbins. The bit where the old fellow gets the French maid to help him change his collar stud, and utters the immortal line: “You’re French, aren’t you? Then, French it!”
Oh, I’d stand by the hair-brushing, too. I can certainly see how a hard-drive within viewing range of a wife or boss would be…problematic. It was just this
made it sound like you could expect a visit from the Feds, which sounded a bit excessive.
As to his “toning it down” in later years, I don’t think he ever did. He has retired from publishing, however. I saw a copy of his last book go for around $1,000 on Ebay.
(Fan? Me? Discovered him while a lonely college freshman–me, not him–and was enchanted. Beautiful stuff, IMO. Hooked me on collecting photography in general.)
The Clan of the Cave Bear series (apart from the first book) had more than a few dirty parts. Let’s just say that certain chapters were read quite enthusiastically.
Lace, the bondage scene especially.
Various women’s magazines at my grandmother’s house. It was from one of those I found out women can orgasm. It still took me years to accomplish one, but I tried harder after readin that.
Later, my mother had a copy of Men in Love by Nancy Friday. She found it; it had been left in a hotel room, probably because of the large blood stain. I found it desparate for something to read, not necessarily something sexual. There was a dirth of reading material in our house. That really shaped my fantasies, especially the castration and bondage fantasies. It also helped me understand quite young, that just because you fantasize about something, it doesn’t mean you want that to happen.
Valley of the Dolls. The first time Leon and Anne “did it.” WHOO HOO!! :eek:
The Diary of Ann Frank …I even masturbated to it once…I’m sure I’m going to hell.
The Goats - which is a book about two teenagers who are left stranded and naked on an island…I can’t believe this was actually a unit in my 7th grade English class!
Fair enough. I’m really not looking for a fight over the merits of David Hamilton. I did a search on TradeMe {the local equivalent of E-Bay}, and his out-of-print stuff is really going for the big bucks, so there’s definitely a market out there. His socio-political merits aside, it was definitely an eye-opener for a ten year old who was just reaching the conclusion that maybe girls didn’t have goobies after all.
*Wifey * looms large in my adolescence as well. I remember one of my friends saying that oral sex was disgusting and we were all going to hell for reading this book. At 14 I was thinking that hell just might be worth it.
Also, *Endless Love * was big. And anything by Rosemary Rogers.
Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living, by H.W. Long, M.D., written 1919, 1937 edition. Subtitled Some Things that All Sane People Ought to Know About Sex Nature and Sex Functioning; Its Place in the Economy of Life, Its Proper Training and Righteous Exercise". No kidding.
I found this book hidden away in the basement around the time of my puberty. According to the name in the front of the book, it was owned by my uncle and was probably his “Christian” marriage manual.
The chapter entitled “The Art of Love” was lengthy, and distinguished mostly by what information was omitted; namely, everything. Most of the the book was devoted to calming fears that reading and talking about sex was sinful and harmful, and it was OK to do such things (as long as you are married, of course). If even cautioned that if you felt your heart racing a bit when reading racy passages (for the time), just set the book down for a while, then come back to it. Don’t be ashamed that you are getting excited, but suppress it until you are clearer-headed.
Also, this was pre-birth control and one chapter was devoted to finding the wife’s “free time” each month. To this day, I am puzzled as to how the author thought the reader could do that without keeping complex calendars, having a bunch of babies, calculating when the conceptions occurred and screwing accordingly. I believe this was written before much of the female reproductive system was known and the rhythm method perfected with thermometers, etc. so it was pretty much a hit-and-miss proposition.
Having an orgasm was “spending.” Other than that, no euphemisms, common or slang terms were used. Much time was devoted to urge the husband to take his time and wait for his wife to catch up so they could “spend” together. Oral sex was not mentioned anywhere in the book, and I imagine anal sex, masturbation and sex toys were too kinky and perverted to even be thought of, let alone discussed.
An amazing treatise on the sex mores of the time. I’m glad I didn’t grow up in the time the book was written; it was bad enough just prior to the sexual revolution.
It may seem odd that I am describing a sex book for the “dirty bits” of entertainment suggested by the OP, but there was nothing else available in my childhood. Romance novels were not in evidence at our house; neither was Playboy. It was absolutely sanitized by my fundie Christian, sexless mother.
I a book titled “The Story of O” on the bookshelf in the study when I was 10 and I thought it was a biography of O. Henry. My God how wrong I was…
That would be I SAW a book… :smack:
There were a few passages from The Thorn Birds that I snuck a peek at a few times.
My friend and I were feeding our neighbor’s cats while they were on vacation, and while snooping around their house one day we found a copy of The Joy of Sex. The old edition with the hairy guy in it.
Lots of Judy Blume. **Wifey, Forever, Deenie, **and some of her later adult novels such as Smart Women and Summer Sisters.
I remember not understanding a lot of Wifey since I couldn’t have been 7 or 8 years old when my mom was reading it. The oral sex stuff kind of grossed me out and I remember thinking, “Why would anyone want to do THAT? I certainly won’t do that with MY husband when I’m grown up.”
It’s been a few years (more than a few, actually), but I don’t remember any sexy bits at all. Not even the parts her father edited out were all that hot.
My brother bought The Mammoth Hunters at a yard sale for $1 when I was about 10 or 11. He never read it, but when I opened it up to a random page to see what it was about, you can bet I was surprised! That one got passed around at school for a while. I didn’t really understand all of the euphemisms, but I got the point!
I didn’t discover the joys of masturbation until the summer when I was 12. I discovered a book my mom had that was a very frank discussion of women’s sexuality. That’s when I learned about the bathtub faucet. I took baths exclusively for two years.
My parents had a copy of Guy Talese’s Thy Neighbor’s Wife in a small bookcase out in the den. I discovered it at the age of eleven or so, and it was very informative reading for a young boy. Of course, I then expected life to be like a '60s California wife-swapping ring, but that was a small price to pay.
In the same room there was a larger bookcase, with glass doors. It had a lock, but was nearly always unlocked. On the shelves were the usual '70s and '80s bestsellers – Arthur Hailey, James Clavell, etc. I didn’t pay much attention to it. And then, one day, I realized the books on one shelf sat slightly farther forward than the others. So, when no one else was home, I looked behind those books and found Anais Nin’s Delta of Venus. It practically scorched my hands, and I dug it out as often as I possibly could.
Those two might be a bit off the subject for this conversation, since they’re nearly all “dirty bits,” but they are the books I remember fondly from my youth. (And also learning where my father kept the Playboys, around the same time.)