Synopses & Reviews
Why is pleasure "doubled" when it's "shared"?... Do you really have to cut pleasure in two so that it'll exist? I mean, if it's doubled when there are two of you, then it must be tripled when there are three, quadrupled when there are four, centupled when there are a hundred, right? Is it O.K. for a hundred to share? And if I get used to trying it all alone, why is it that I'll never love anyone again? Is it that good alone and that awful with others? ;from Good Sex IllustratedFirst published in France in 1973, Good Sex Illustrated gleefully deciphers the subtext of a popular sex education manual for children produced during that period. In so doing, Duvert mounts a scabrous and scathing critique of how deftly the "sex-positive" ethos was harnessed to promote the ideal of the nuclear family. Like Michel Houllebecq, Duvert is highly attuned to all the hypocrisies of late twentieth century western "sexual liberation" mass movements. As Bruce Benderson notes in his introduction, Good Sex Illustrated shows that, "in our sexual order, orgasm follows the patterns of any other kind of capital... 'good sex' is a voracious profit machine." But unlike Houllebecq, Duvert writes from a passionate belief in the integrity of unpoliced sex and of pleasure. Even more controversially now than when the book was first published, Duvert asserts the child's right to his or her own playful, unproductive sexuality. Bruce Benderson's translation will belatedly introduce English-speaking audiences to the most infamous gay French writer since Jean Gênet.
Review
"A writer criminally undertranslated and consequently barely known in the primarily English-speaking areas of the world.... Duvert is one of the more significant and idiosyncratic contemporary French fiction writers. He"s also one of the most mysterious."Dennis Cooper Semiotext(e)
Synopsis
A scathing view of sex manuals for children and society's hypocrisy of over sex that argues for the rights of children to their own bodies and their own sexuality.
Why is pleasure "doubled" when it's "shared"?... Do you really have to cut pleasure in two so that it'll exist? I mean, if it's doubled when there are two of you, then it must be tripled when there are three, quadrupled when there are four, centupled when there are a hundred, right? Is it O.K. for a hundred to share? And if I get used to trying it all alone, why is it that I'll never love anyone again? Is it that good alone and that awful with others?; from Good Sex Illustrated First published in France in 1973, Good Sex Illustrated gleefully deciphers the subtext of a popular sex education manual for children produced during that period. In so doing, Duvert mounts a scabrous and scathing critique of how deftly the "sex-positive" ethos was harnessed to promote the ideal of the nuclear family. Like Michel Houllebecq, Duvert is highly attuned to all the hypocrisies of late twentieth century western "sexual liberation" mass movements. As Bruce Benderson notes in his introduction, Good Sex Illustrated shows that, "in our sexual order, orgasm follows the patterns of any other kind of capital... 'good sex' is a voracious profit machine." But unlike Houllebecq, Duvert writes from a passionate belief in the integrity of unpoliced sex and of pleasure. Even more controversially now than when the book was first published, Duvert asserts the child's right to his or her own playful, unproductive sexuality. Bruce Benderson's translation will belatedly introduce English-speaking audiences to the most infamous gay French writer since Jean Genet.
Synopsis
Why is pleasure andquot;doubledandquot; when it's andquot;sharedandquot;? ... Do you really have to cut pleasure in two so that it'll exist? I mean, if it's doubled when there are two of you, then it must be tripled when there are three, quadrupled when there are four, centupled when there are a hundred, right? Is it O.K. for a hundred to share? And if I get used to trying it all alone, why is it that I'll never love anyone again? Is it that good alone and that awful with others?
--from Good Sex Illustrated
Written in the wake of May 1968 and Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, Tony Duvert's Good Sex Illustrated (Le bon sexe illustrandeacute;) was part of the miraculous moment when sexuality could turn the world upside down and reveal social hypocrisy for what it was. Bitterly funny and unabashedly anarchistic, Good Sex Illustrated openly declares war on mothers, family, psychoanalysis, morality, and the entire social construct, through a close reading of sex manuals for children. Published in 1973, one year after Duvert won the prestigious Prix Mandeacute;dicis, it proved that accolades had not tempered his scathing wit or his approach to such taboo topics as pedophilia. This translation, by award-winning author Bruce Benderson, will belatedly introduce English-speaking audiences to the most infamous gay writer from France since Jean Gandecirc;net first hit the scene in the 1940s.
Synopsis
A scathing view of sex manuals for children and society's hypocrisy of over sex that argues for the rights of children to their own bodies and their own sexuality.
About the Author
Tony Duvert (1945--2008) is the author of fourteen books of fiction and nonfiction. His fifth novel, Paysage de fantaisie ( Strange Landscape), won the prestigious Prix Médicis in 1973. Other books translated into English include the novel When Jonathan Died, and the scathing critique of sex and society Good Sex Illustrated (Semiotext(e), 2007).Novelist, translator, and essayist Bruce Benderson is the author of a memoir, The Romanian: Story of an Obsession, winner of France's prestigious Prix de Flore in French translation, and Pacific Agony (Semiotext(e), 2009.)Novelist, translator, and essayist Bruce Benderson is the author of a memoir, The Romanian: Story of an Obsession, winner of France's prestigious Prix de Flore in French translation, and Pacific Agony (Semiotext(e), 2009.)