MOST PEOPLE probably remember 1977 as the year of Star Wars, the Son of Sam slayings, and the death of Elvis, but for many gay men the year’s most notable event was the October publication of The Joy of Gay Sex, by Charles Silverstein and Edmund White. It was the first book from a mainstream publisher that dared to examine the “how” of homosexuality rather than the “why” approach of both psychologists and priests. The book’s explicit descriptions of gay sex practices, fully and beautifully illustrated, rendered it quite controversial: many bookstores in the U.S. kept it hidden under the counter, forcing customers to come out of the closet when asking for it by name.
Subtitled “An intimate guide for gay men to the pleasures of a gay lifestyle,” the book’s contents were forthrightly erotic, but for me the biggest turn-on was the blurb on the back cover proclaiming The Joy of Gay Sex to be “America’s best selling guide to gay lovemaking.” Yes, lovemaking! How often, even in gay circles, has sex between men been acknowledged with such a romantic and respectable word?
With its superb illustrations and positive approach to carnal matters, The Joy of Gay Sex was inspired by Alex Comfort’s 1972 best seller, The Joy of Sex, which celebrated heterosexual relations. But for some gay men, Silverstein and White’s book may have also served as an unofficial response to Dr. David Reuben’s phenomenally successful Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask). Published in 1969, the year of the Stonewall riots, Reuben’s book gave the general (heterosexual) public a sensational and one-sided account of homosexual behavior that reinforced the image of gay men as perverts. In Reuben’s world, gay men were still nelly queens forever looking for sex with strangers in parks and public toilets. The “fairies” that populated the best-selling fiction of Jacqueline Susann and other popular straight authors were equally soulless.Many homosexual men did cruise for sex in tea rooms (some still do), but such behavior, which certainly has its equivalents in the straight world, is scarcely the defining feature of being gay. In contrast to this coldly impersonal image of gay life, Silverstein and White focused on the act of making love—tenderly, passionately, and joyously.
By the 1980’s, when the AIDS epidemic made homosexual acts more controversial than ever, Silverstein and White’s landmark volume went out of print. As one of the titles most often stolen from public libraries, even extant copies were hard to come by. In 1992, Silverstein, in collaboration with Felice Picano, updated the classic as The New Joy of Gay Sex, which included information on safer sex. And recently a “fully revised and expanded 3rd edition” has been published by HarperCollins under the original title.
Times have changed. You may still have to gather your courage to buy the book, but there’s no longer any need to blush, gulp, and ask the clerk behind the counter for a copy. It’s displayed more-or-less openly in the Gay Studies section of your downtown Barnes & Noble. And you may even be able to find it at your local library, where it’s no longer the only title catalogued by the Library of Congress under “Sex Instruction for Gay Men.” Even before the second edition came out, Jack Hart’s outstanding Gay Sex: A Manual for Men Who Love Men helped fill the void, and in the past several years gay men could also turn to Dr. Stephen Goldstone’s clinical but highly entertaining The Ins and Outs of Gay Sex or Dan Anderson’s more irreverent Sex Tips for Gay Guys. For those who have already developed their sexual tastes, there’s The Ultimate Guide to Fellatio, by Violet Blue, and Going Down, by Ben R. Rogers and Joel Perry, a fun and feisty guide to oral sex that gay guys and their straight gal-pals can enjoy together.
But The Joy of Gay Sex remains unique in other respects. Provocative title aside, the new edition draws our attention to more than matters of sex. There are chapters on homophobia, loneliness, spirituality, friendship, politics, and even celibacy, an option for those seeking a “lack of pressure and stress in their life.” It’s a well-rounded, encyclopedic guide to gay life in general and undoubtedly a useful tool for gay men taking those first, tentative steps out of the closet. Above all, The Joy of Gay Sex is an enjoyable, guilt-free journey through the wonderful world of gay love. Dr. Reuben stressed that homosexuals were limited in what they could do sexually, but the 1977 book set him straight on that. Other than the absence of entries under the letters Q, X, Y, and Z, both the original book and its recent incarnation provide a remarkably thorough examination of the variety of sexual experiences that two (or more) men can have together.
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Brian W. Fairbanks is a freelance writer in Ohio.
