Charles Silverstein - The Joy of Gay Sex

This book is dedicated to Mama Albina

Various people advised us on technical aspects of this book. We thank them all, including Joe Arkins, Bill Bartelt, Carlos, Barry Cream, Betty of Boston, Brian King, Tony Neto, Barry Nevins, Robert Padgug, Dan William, M.D., and Les Wright.

CONTENTS

List of Entries

A Brief History of The Joy of Gay Sex

It has now been more than a quarter of a century since the original edition of The Joy of Gay Sex was published. When we (Silverstein and White) first wrote the book, we had no idea it would become the cultural barometer of gay life it has become. Its not that oral sex, say, has changed. Thats probably been the same since cavemen started drawing pictures. What has changed is the place of gay people in society, our relationship to the straight world, and consequently, how we feel about ourselves.

The book was first published in 1977. It was to be the first illustrated gay sex manual published by a mainstream publishing house. We decided to write the kind of book that we would have wanted to read ourselves as adolescents, a guide for men coming out. We also reasoned that the book should have a wider focus than just sex, that it should also advise the reader about life in the gay community and ways of fighting homophobia. Therefore, the majority of passages in the finished book were of a nonsexual nature.

We also agreed that the book should be sexually stimulating. Toward that end we wrote six masturbation stories that we peppered throughout the book. They were the usual porn stories, such as the young athlete in the locker room getting banged by either his teammates or the coach. We also wrote about kinky sex, such as bondage and water sports, and tried to be wise older brothers to teenagers who were struggling with homophobic families.

But the publishers heavily censored the book. It was, after all, 1977, only four years after the American Psychiatric Association had removed homosexuality as a mental disorder, and the straight world was not yet ready to accept an open celebration of gay sex. Most publishers were still terrified that illustrated sex manuals would be removed from bookstore and library shelves, and the owners and librarians arrested for peddling pornography, or what was then called smut. The publishers were worried that the public outcry against gay people created by Anita Bryant would seriously affect sales, and that local police officials and governmental customs would confiscate the books. Attorneys on both sides of the Atlantic, therefore, scrutinized the manuscript and forced the authors to defend their text on many occasions.

Worries about censorship and confiscation of copies led to the removal of all the masturbation fantasies. The lawyers also objected to the word shit, and they went ballistic over the essay on bondage, which they pared down to only one short paragraph.

The editor in chief of Crown Publishers objected to the frequent use of the word cock. He called the authors into his office and asked, Why cant you use the word penis instead?

Because, said one of the authors, your penis is part of your anatomy, but your cock is what you fuck your wife with. The shocked editor in chief relented.

The English publisher requested that we change the entry on teenagers to say that an adult having sex with a teenager is mentally sick, perverse, and belongs in jail. We refused his demand, but the conflict ended by having no entry regarding teenagers at all. We simply believed that omission was better than lies.

The publishers fear of legal troubles over the book was not unfounded. In the United States, chain stores carried the original edition under the counter, so that straight customers wouldnt be offended by it. Some libraries bought the book to a chorus of objections by the religious Right, who often had it removed. (As late as December 1995, the presence of the book in the Clifton, New Jersey, library was challenged by the religious Right.)

In 1977, a French Canadian firm translated the book, titling it Les Plaisirs de LAmour Gai. The publisher sent thousands of copies to Paris, where French customs seized and shredded them. Thousands of copies of the American edition were also imported into Britain, where they were seized by Her Majestys Customs and burned. (The 1977 edition was eventually translated into German, Italian, and Danish.)

The book had a particularly hard time in Canada, where local police and governmental customs tried to suppress it. In Winnipeg in 1980, for instance, a newspaper reported that a woman rushed into a bookstore looking for a copy of The Joy of Cooking. She picked up The Joy of Gay Sex by mistake, or so she claimed. When she got home, she opened the book (to F, in order to make a fricassee?) and was profoundly embarrassed by what she saw. She called the police, who, upon her complaint, raided the store and confiscated all copies of the book. The police had trumped up the whole affair. Fortunately, the court ordered the books returned because homosexuality was legal in Canada.

Two years later, in Hamilton, Ontario, Joy was removed from the McMaster University bookstore and transferred to the medical bookstore, as a result of a complaint by an anthropology professor. Of its illustrations, he said, Ive never seen anything to equal them. They are definitely the most disgusting things Ive ever seen on sale anywhere. Censorship of the book sparked a heated controversy on campus about free speech. The president of the university stepped in and announced that moving the book struck at the very nature of the university as a center for free inquiry. He then ordered that it be kept in the medical bookstore.

Banning books is a complicated matter. When a book is prohibited from being published or distributed in a country, the publisher and the bookstore are both liable for criminal prosecution. Even if a book isnt banned for publication within the country (as Joy wasnt in Canada and England), and homosexuality is legal there, the book can be declared obscene by the customs office. In that case, it cannot be imported into the country.

When Jearld Moldenhauer, owner of the Glad Day Book Shop in Toronto, ordered copies of Joy from the United States, Her Majestys Customs confiscated them, even though homosexuality, including anal intercourse, was legal in Canada. At great financial risk, Moldenhauer sued for the return of the books. Silverstein volunteered to testify at the trial that was held in Toronto in March 1987, where the customs officer testified that pictures and descriptions of anal intercourse were on the prohibited list for entry into Canada. When asked if hed considered the educational or cultural value of the book, he responded, Thats not my business.

In his testimony, Charles gave the history of the book and the reasons for writing it. The Crown pointed out that there were nine pictures of anal intercourse in the book. It was all quite polite, the Canadians not being given to dramatics in the courtroom as we are here. In what must be counted as one of the finest legal decisions for gay people, Judge Hawkins wrote on March 20, 1987: To write about homosexual practices, without dealing with anal intercourse, would be equivalent to writing a history of music and omitting Mozart. The books were ordered returned to the Glad Day Book Shop. You can read Judge Hawkins full decision at: www3.sympatico.ca/toshiya.K.ncl/joy.htm.

Even with these legal wins, a system of de facto censorship existed almost everywhere in the United States. Many gay men were simply too intimidated to ask a clerk for the under-the-counter book.