Tidings Of Comfort and Joy

By Jesse Birnbaum

As tumult unfolds in the U.S.S.R., it is good to remember an earlier < upheaval of great moment. After years of oppression, thousands of angry and impatient Americans threw off the yoke of tyranny and declared themselves once and for all free -- to fornicate. Thus began the youth revolution of the '60s and '70s. The battle cry was "Gimme an S! . . . Gimme an E! . . . Gimme an X!," though frequently the word in question was spelled differently -- with four letters. So the rebels got plenty of sex, not to mention herpes.

But not all were ignorant or incautious. The smart ones had a textbook. It was The Joy of Sex, a 1972 how-to "gourmet guide," written in breezy language by British physician Alex Comfort, who persuaded his readers that with a little imagination and a sense of adventure, lovemaking could be more fun than sex. Comfort was widely derided as a flaky guru who took the mystery out of sex by describing it with the exactitude of a cookbook recipe. But he had it right: The Joy of Sex, witty, fanciful and mercifully free of moralizing, sold more than 8 million copies.

Now the sexual revolution is history. The rebels have kids of their own, and they must learn that sex in the age of AIDS is hazardous. That is reason enough for Comfort to publish a timely reconsideration -- The New Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide to Lovemaking for the Nineties (Crown; $30). Comfort's message is that you can still have a lot of fun in bed, but you had better be careful. Casual coupling -- one-night stands, sex with strangers, group sex, sex without adequate precautions -- can be fatal.

Like the old Joy, the revised volume is illustrated with alarmingly explicit drawings, though these are newly done. In place of the hirsute hippie male (de rigueur in the '70s) and his female counterpart are an ordinary-looking beardless youth who might pass for a stockbroker and a female partner who could be your lawyer. Gone too is the collection of superfluous erotic Japanese prints depicting contortions of improbable physicality; in their place is a portfolio of "art" photos, which are at least fathomable.

What is significantly new about New Joy is a foreword: "The Implications of AIDS" (which "totally alters the sexual landscape") and a revised, thoroughgoing chapter on health, which the reader ought to study and absorb before moving on to the rest of the text. In blunt fashion, Comfort describes the ways in which people can become infected with AIDS and discusses methods of avoidance (none of which are without their dangers). Comfort's keynote: / "If your newly found love won't use a condom, you are in bed with a witless, irresponsible and uncaring person."

Once your partner has been established as witful, responsible and caring, writes Comfort, "the whole joy of sex-with-love is that there are no rules, so long as you enjoy, and the choice is practically unlimited." For devotees of the old Joy, all this is familiar. Like a dinner menu, sexual activity is divided into ingredients, appetizers, main courses and sauces, which, taken together, suggest that the French really did invent sex. You have your pattes d'araignee, your diligence de Lyon, your flanquette, your paresseuse, your postillionage, your negresse, your croupade, your pompoir, your cuissade, your ligottage and your florentine, none of which will bear elaboration here without provoking the wrath of Jesse Helms, even if his French is rusty.

It may be that much of this information is old hat to the jaded 10-year-olds of the '90s, but New Joy is strictly an adult's book. Wait till the kids are 12 or 13 before asking if they have read it.

With reporting by Sophfronia Scott Gregory/New York