Shotgun sex

Press, 31 October 1981, Page 17

Shotgun sex

Thy Neighbour’s Wife. By Gay Talese. Pan, 1981. 497 pp. $5.95 (paperback).

This book was first published in a hardback edition (and reviewed in “The Press”) about two years ago. The author has done intensive fieldwork in massage parlours, partner-swapping communes, and with leaders of the sexual revolution in the United States, using himself as both an eager sampling instrument and an observer. He has attempted to write a full history of the pioneers of liberalised sex up to the present time. The account shows the constant repetition of the pattern of individuals being ahead of their climate of morality and the opposition this evokes, as well as the converts who plunge into a newly discovered philosophy with religious zeal. Eventually, however, in each case the leader becomes enshrined as a reborn messiah who finally collapses under the weight of his or her own creation.

Simultaneously, this book attempts to be a history of the attitudes in the American community towards pornography and sexual openness in general. All this is far too much for one work, and with Mr Talese’s tendency to give full biographies of every character that wanders across the panorama, the book ends up as a shotgun scattering exercise, rather than a careful evolutionary study of a fascinating subject. — Ralf Unger.