Colonial sex study wins book award

Press, 2 May 1984, Page 6

Colonial sex study wins book award

PA Wellington Sex and vice in colonial New Zealand are the subject of this year’s winning entry in the' 55000 A. W. Reed Memorial Book Award. The award, made annually to the Reed Methuen Company’s top non-fiction author, was presented in Wellington last evening to the Christchurch historian, Dr Steven Eldred-Grigg for his “Pleasures of the Flesh: Sex and Drugs in New Zealand.” Dr Eldred-Grigg, who has written three other books, is in China. His wife, Dr Lauree Hunter, accepted the award on his behalf. Dr Hunter said her husband believed what happened in people’s families, their beds and what they

spend their money on, was more interesting than politics. Dr Eldred-Grigg concluded in the book that the New Zealand puritan ethic was a myth. He said no more than 25 per cent of the population were church-goers, prohibition never achieved the electoral superiority it did in the United States and women were not as socially restricted as they had been in Britain. The publishers say the sexual and drug-taking habits of colonial New Zealand were best summed up by a visiting Methodist minister in 1942. “Oh, how sin does here abound,” he said. “The swearing, sabbath breaking, drunkenness and whoremongering is most awful.”

The judges, Messrs Henry Smith from Whitcoulls and Paul Bradwell, chose “Pleasures of the Flesh” from a shortlist of four finalists. The other finalists were “Work in New Zealand,” by two Victoria University business administration lecturers, Roy McLennan and David Gilbertson, "Building Your Own House” by the Carrington Technical Institute carpentry head, Dick Wilson, and “Natural Good Cookery for New Zealanders” by an Auckland cook and tutor. Sue Harrison. Reed Methuen’s chairman, Mr Bill Mackie, announced that the award would be expanded next year to include a 52500 prize for the best fiction work suitable for children up to 13 years.