The Joy of ...WTF?!!! Pt 2: Pillars of Manhood and other propaganda

In the previous installment of The Joy of ...WTF?!!! I commented on the rather...interesting... conclusions that Alex Comfort came to in regards to the vulva in his book, The Joy of Sex. I have to say, that Dr Comfort has well and truly followed in Freud's footsteps in regards to it all being about the penis. While apparently, the vulva is a devourer of manhood and the stuff of children's nightmares, the penis is both aesthetically pleasing and also more magical than Dr. Strange and Merlin combined.

More magical than Ron...

Some of the apparent penis worship:
"More that the essential piece of male equipment, even if it is often and expressively described as a 'tool', the penis has more symbolic importance than any other human organ, as a dominance signal and, by reason of having a will of it's own, generally a 'personality'. No point in reading all this symbolism back here, except to say that lovers will experience it, and find themselves as treating the penis as something very like a third party. At one moment it is like a weapon or a threat, at another something they share, like a child "

I'm going to ignore the reference to the sharing of a child here as it seems a little out of sorts in a paragraph about penises. So between the vulva being some sort of monster and the penis apparently being a weapon, the act of having sex went from being a taboo subject to some sort of bizarre fantasy novel where the monster must be slain in order for male to survive....

Classic erotica?

After that, I'm pretty lure that I don't need to comment any further about that. On to the issues he seems to have with homosexuality.

I'd like to draw people's attention back to Pt 1 for a moment. Consider this statement:

'Luckily, few of these biologically programmed anxieties survive closer acquaintance, but are the origins of most male hangups including homosexuality.'

Now I'll ignore the implication that men have issues with sex because they're afraid of vaginas (as opposed to, oooh I dunno, incompatible personalities?) but I have to ask: did he just claim that homosexuality was a "hangup"? I thought that I'd read too much into that statement until Dr Comfort also commented:

'Straight man-woman sex is the real thing for most people - others need something different but their scope is usually lessened, not greatened, by such needs.'

That particular statement concludes the section marked Bisexuality and seems to imply that if you are not heterosexual, then there is something wrong with you. I understand perfectly that this is a book for heterosexual couples, but every so often it seems that Alex is trying to defend heterosexuality to the reader. Seriously Alex, I don't think it's necessary.

All in all, I can see how The Joy of Sex would have shook the world of 1970's folks, but it is far from the be-all-and-end-all that people claim. There are many other books out there that answer the questions that today's reader wants answered. I'm reserving judgment for the New Joy of Sex until I've read it.