Sex in the U.S.

Sir: I will be anxiously awaiting the reader response you will receive from your cover story on sex in the U.S. [Jan. 24]. I can imagine the multitude of approvals, smiles, smirks and smolderings of the American public with which you will be bombarded. (MRS.) CAROL K. STABLEIN St. Clair, Mich.

Sir: Timely, frank, comprehensive and, as usual, well written. Here at "old Veri-tas," girls came whooping out of their rooms, waving the new TIME, happily quoting Durant and your concluding paragraph. JOAN MARTIN Radcliffe '66 Cambridge, Mass.

Sir: Hear! Hear! DAWN-MARIE DRISCOLL Framingham, Mass.

Sir: We, as college students, would like to thank you for the frank, sincere and thought-provoking article. BARBARA M. BULLINGTON BUNNY Jo MYERS MOLLY J. TASKER Florida State University Tallahassee, -Fla.

Sir: The finest piece of literature I've ever read in TIME Magazine. DAVID A. OLENIK School of Medicine St. Louis University St. Louis, Mo.

Sir: Sane and comprehensive. J. MICHAEL DONOGHUE Williston Academy Easthampton, Mass.

Sir: I cannot help but agree with the facts you exposed. JOANN GAWORSKI College of St. Francis Joliet, 111.

Sir: I was fascinated. It was a brave effort to call attention to an existing evil. I appreciate the wealth of fact. E. W. TREUENFELS Pacific Palisades, Calif.

Sir: This article should give encouragement to genuinely responsible adults. (MRS.) EDYTHE K. ARAAS Sheridan, Wyo.

Sir: Lucid, informative and long overdue. EARLE M. WILDER, M.D. Baltimore

Sir: Shock gave way to applause. It was monumental, inevitable, bitter, honest, necessary and ultimately wholesome. ALLAN LAKE RICE Collegeville, Pa.

Sir: I usually feel that TIME is probably the only publication in the world that should be banned. But I must say the enormity of the redemption in your article on current sex-saturation is overwhelming. I think it truly a superb contribution to our national health. Congratulations and thank you. LORRAINE HANSBERRY New York City

Sir: Thank you for your thought-provoking article. The description of the paradox of a society at once sex-saturated and sex-starved (when it comes to understanding the real meaning and purpose of sex) is clearly delineated.

Your recognition that "living by a lesser code can be difficult too," should stimulate a thoughtful evaluation of codes--and motives--rather than a rebellious rejection of all codes.

What I missed in your otherwise excellent article was the awakened concern of the churches to do a better job of sex education to help prevent the tragedies of meaningless or distorted sex.

All three major faiths have active programs of education and publication to help children, youth and adults accept their sexuality as a good gift from God and to enjoy it with reverence.

WILLIAM H. GENNE Executive Director National Council of the Churches of Christ New York City

Messieur: Un vrai bijou! Vous avez aborde un sujet fort difficile avec une main de maitre. Mes plus sinceres felicitations. PAUL DUCHASTEL Quebec

"I Hate You! I Hate You!" Sir: This week even the city newsstand was embarrassed. The entire stack of Jan. 24 TIME was upside down. HELEN BOOTH Lafayette, Ind.

Sir: Egad, what a shocker! MARGARET O'CONNOR Clarendon Hills, 111.

Sir: Very offensive to myself and anyone else of a teenage level. DENIS E. KELLMAN Springfield Gardens, N.Y.

Sir: Disgusts me, as I am sure it must all decent citizens. B. T. SPENCER Assistant Vice President Newport National Bank Newport, R.I.

Sir: Nauseating, depressing, heartbreaking; such are the after effects of our article on sex. ARTURO GUERRA-MONDRAGON President Consumidores Unidos San Juan, P.R.

Sir: The article destroys loyalties to God, family and country. MARY DOMKE Elk Grove Village, 111.

Sir: Who can estimate the damage done to adolescents who read this article? C. P. McCORMICK Lutherville, Md.

Sir: As a Roman Catholic, a decent, educated American adult with a decent, 15-year-old son, I feel you owe us as well as all the other Catholic and decent readers of your magazine an apology for printing such filth and a retraction of the disgraceful, sordid, repugnant principles you have either glorified or approved, especially free sex and birth control. (MRS.) LORETTA FABRICANT Lynbrook, N.Y.

Sir: I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! Weekly News Magazine! This feature is news? I feel that you have betrayed a trust. Having been subscribers over 17 years, we encourage our young daughters to read TIME--and this report now comes into our home. TIME--I hate you! I hate you! MRS. K. RECHNITZER Spokane, Wash.

Sir: I want no part in furthering the cause of Negroes and filth in this country. Cancel my subscription. The only thing I will miss is the ritual we had each week--a party which featured the burning of your magazine. PAULINE STEVENSON St. Augustine, Fla.

The Beautiful & the Banned

Sir: The Metropolitan Detroit Council on Better Literature for Youth wishes to commend you and the members of your staff for the excellent factual report on "Sex in the U.S."

You have performed a great public service in publishing this information, which should do much to awaken the public to our declining morals. CHRISTINE E. WENZEL Grosse Pointe, Mich.

Sir: I am a main figure on an Indecent Literature committee. Be assured that your magazine will be criticized, and the members of the committee will be encouraged to cancel their subscriptions. ALAN BUONPASTORE Jamaica, N.Y.

Sir: Your article about sex couldn't have come at a better time for us here in Arizona, where certain groups are trying to get our house of representatives to approve new and stricter censorship laws on literature.

Perhaps some of our good legislators will read this fine article of yours before trying to vote us back into the Victorian era of Puritanism. CLARENCE GOODALL JR. Phoenix, Ariz.

Sir: Bold, and needed to awaken citizens to a skyrocketing problem that threatens our nation's moral strength. J. MALLORY Loos Chairman

Citizens Advisory Committee on Obscene Literature for Rochester and Monroe County, N.Y. Rochester

Sir: Thank you so very much for putting sex in its proper context. I arrived in this neighborhood when it was right in the middle of a "girlie magazine" witch hunt. TIME has helped clarify more concretely than TV or other transitory media the complexity and greatness of what lies within us as decisionmaking human beings.

I'm checking to see that this copy stays on the high school library shelves until it falls apart from reading and rereading, and then I'll supply a fresh copy. (THE REV.) BRUCE E. BAILEY The Episcopal Rectory Croswell, Mich.

Sir: The cover is outstanding artistically. TAYLOR COLEMAN Sharon, Conn.

Sir: Only one word can describe John Koch's cover painting, Siesta: beautiful. DENNIS EGIGIAN Whittier, Calif.

Sir: I was frankly repelled by the poor taste displayed in the cover. The article was sensible, sane and objective, but the cover was cheap. WALLACE W. WILLIAMS Minister The First Presbyterian Church Santa Maria, Calif.

Sir: Extraordinary cover, but as long as she was up,' couldn't she get that poor exhausted-looking chap a Grant's? KENNETH L. OSTHUS New York City

Sir: Well, this is one cover picture where the subjects won't be invited to the next TIME anniversary party! RACHEL P. WANG Stockton, N.Y.

The Big Ditch

Sir: The cover story on Thomas Mann was excellent [Jan. 31]. During our eleven years of traveling and trade promotion through Latin America, Tom Mann has always stood out as the most capable and knowledgeable specialist in Latin American affairs we have met, an opinion shared by hosts of Latin American leaders whom we know as close friends. FRED POOL Executive Vice President East Texas Chamber of Commerce Galveston, Texas

Sir: Are U.S. Americans, living anywhere, supposed to lower their standards of living and grovel in slums and filth and poverty because others do? Does the U.S. Government, and the nation as a whole, want us to?

I wish you had stressed how the U.S. Government has raised the standard of living for the non-U.S. citizen in its employ here and has furnished thousands of them with their own communities, including housing, schools, libraries, hospitalization and medical care, stores, playgrounds, gymnasiums and swimming pools, not forgetting motion picture theaters--where Hollywood movies are shown. MARION N. GREENE Cristobal, C.Z. Essence of Education

Sir: I am sure that the citizens of Newton are more than pleased with your article on the Newton public schools [Jan 24]. It is amazing how accurately your writer caught the essence of the spirit that determines the quality of education in the Garden City of Newton. HASKELL C. FREEDMAN Chairman The School Committee Newton, Mass.

Sir: There are chinks in the Newton school system's shining, silver-plated armor. Everybody in the system is so involved in "ceaseless meetings and study groups" dreaming up new educational gimmicks, which die about as fast as they are born, that no one has any time to deal with the students, who, not being motivated by the university professors that Chuck hires, get F's in their courses.

Obviously the educational program in Newton is curriculum-centered, not pupil-centered. H. N. RICHARDSON Newton, Mass.

His True Domain

Sir: Any future impatience with your editorial policy will be tempered by my remembering your respectful gesture to T. H. White [Jan. 24]. Thank you for writing so well of one who wrote so well. And thank you for placing him where he truly belonged: The World. ALLISON HILL ROULSTON New York City A Cluck & A Cackle

Sir: Hooray for Dr. Bauemer! [Jan. 24]. Revenge is sweet, but vindication even more so.

For the past year, since moving to a ranch, I have tried to convince my husband, children and friends, that my "ban-ties" talk to me. Hoots of derision and disbelief were the only result.

Now I can show them the article in TIME, which I am tempted to frame. (MRS.) HEARTIE ANNE LOOK Goleta, Calif.

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