Terry Southern - Now Dig This: The Unspeakable Writings of Terry Southern, 1950-1995

FOR TERRY

LEE SERVER: Terry, lets begin with that grandest and most admirable of your creations, a certain Candy Christian. Girodias and Hoffenberg have given their accounts of how she came to be; whats the real story?

TERRY SOUTHERN: God only knows whats been said about the genesis of Candy, but the true account is as follows: Theres a certain kind of uniquely American girl who comes from the Midwest to Greenwich Villagecute as a button, pert derriere, full wet lips, nips in eternal distention, etc., etc.and so full of compassion that shell cry at card tricks if you tell her theyre sad. Anyway, I wrote a short story about such a girlhow she befriended a humpback weirthe to the extent of wanting him to hurt me the way they hurt you! Everybody who read the story, loved the girlall the guys wanted to fuck her, and the girls wanted to be herand they all said: Yea Candy! Let her have more adventures! So I put her in a few more sexually vulnerable situationswith her professor, with the gardener, with her uncle, with her spiritual guru, and so on. And this friend of mine, Mason Hoffenberg, read it and said, Why dont you have her get involved with a Jewish shrink? And I said, Why dont you write that part? So the great Doc Irving Krankeit (and his doting mum) were born.

Candys escapades were the talk of the Quarter. Gid Girodias demanded to see the manuscript pronto; and, mistaking Quality Lit erotic-humor-allegory for porn trash, he agreed to publish it.

L.S.: This was in Paris, the mid-50s, when such books were taboo in the States, right? Can you fill us in on Girodiass set-up at that time?

T.S.: Well sir, Mr. Maury Girodias had what you might call a house o porn operation extraordinaire. A man of infinite charm, savoir-vivre, and varying guises, he was able to entice impressionable young American expatriates, such as a certain yours truly, to churn out this muck by convincing us we were writing Quality Lit! Not only did the Hemingway types succumb to his wily persuasions, but (would you believe it?) young American girl-authors as well! Cute as buttons they were too! Darling blue saucer-eyes and fabulous knockers with nips in distention! Marvelous pert derrires and full wet tremulous lips, the kind that quiver and then respond but I digress.

L.S.: Girodias and Olympia Press did root out quite a few great works, though.

T.S.: Oh, his operation turned up some first-rate stuffLolita, The Ginger Man, things by Beckett, Ionesco, Henry Miller, and, of course, that veritable crown jewel of Contemp Lit, Naked Lunch.

L.S.: The pay for writing Candy was pretty low, I believe. Five hundred dollars, for all rights?

T.S.: I dont recall the fee involved, but it was hardly enough to get us laid.

L.S.: Reading Candy as a kid, Ill confess to you, played a definite part in my growing into manhoodI dont intend to go into details. What would you read for erotic purposes as a youngster?

T.S.: When I was young, they had what were called little fuck-bookswhich featured characters taken from the comics. Most of them were absurd and grotesque, but there were one or two of genuine erotic interest; Blonthe comes to mind, as do Dale and Flash Gordon and darling Ella Cinders.

For a while, convinced there was more than met the eye, I tried to read between the lines in the famous Nancy Drew books, searching for some deep secret insinuation of erotica so powerful and pervasive as to account for the extraordinary popularity of these books, but alas, was able to garner no mileage (J.O. wise) from this innocuous, and seemingly endless, series.

L.S.: You grew up in Texas. Can you talk a little about what sort of sex life a young man growing up in that region was likely to have in those days?

T.S.: Texas is part of the car culture of the great American Southwest, where all social events revolve around the car. Every high school boy either has his own car or has the use of the family car for dates. In those days, the dating scenario was well established. It consisted of taking the girl to a movie, to the school dance, or to a roadhouse which had a band and a dance floor. Afterwards, there would be a stop for food, then the all-important period of parking and necking. This was an accepted part of the ritual, and the guy was given about fifteen minutes in which to make out.

There were several degrees of making out. The first was tongue. Did you get tongue? was a question frequently heard after a first date with an extremely nice, honor-student-type girl. Next was knocker. Did you get knocker? they would ask. There was a big difference, of course, between getting knocker and getting bare knocker. Getting bare knocker implied getting nip as well, but there was also the distinction of kissing nip, which was considered to be quite a scoreespecially on the first date. Next in order of significant intimacy was getting silk, which meant touching panty-crotch, and then for the more successful, getting pube. The ultimate achievementaside, of course, from puss itselfwas to get wet-finger, also referred to (by the more knowledgeable) as getting clit. It was almost axiomatic that, under normal circumstances, to get wet-finger meant that the girls defenses would crumble as she was swept away on a tide of sheer physical excitementand vaginal penetration would be unresisted and imminent.

But this was the era, alas, of the damnable panty girdle, especially for semi-formal occasions, where stockings were worn. It was well nigh impossible to achieve full-vage-pen by breeching aside the crotch panel of this snug-fitting garment. There was, however, a techniqueone would take a pair of kindergarten paper-scissors, the harmless kind with rounded ends. These scissors are ordinarily so dull they will cut only the softest of paper, but they may be given an edgeand a keen one! so that during the height of the necking session, the precious girl, feeling quite secure in her sturdy garment, might permit certain fondling libertiessuch as vage under silkexcept this time the caressing hand would also carry the keen-edged paper scissors and snip, the outrageous barrier was undone!

This was also the era of forcible seduction, which is perhaps only different from actual rape in that the girl, despite a frenzied resistance, would invariably end up oohing and aahing ecstatically, and in the immortal words of the Bard, begging for more.

Since all is fair in love and/or forcible seduction, another keystone element in the dating scenario was to try to get her drunk. The potion of choice in this regard was vodka and grapefruit juicepresumably because the darling girl would not be able to taste the copious amount of vod in the astringent mixtureand so, in the (false) security of her panty girdle, and slightly whacko on vod, she might just relax her defenses long enough for the absorbent panty-panel (by now, of course, sopping with the nectar of her passion!) to know the keenness of your scisseaux denfant!

Golden days, now that I think back on themand I do think back on them quite often.

L.S.: We mentioned in regard to Candy that you were living in Paris in the 50s, making the expatriate, starving artist scene. What are your memories of the period?