For Boys Only was a book my parents got me when I was about thirteen in lieu of talking about sex. (The series also included For Boys Only and For Teen-Agers Only. The first two are from 1952 and are still in print, as a curiosity and an example of cluelessness.)
I’ll never forget reading its description of petting, which had the author saying something like, “…fondling the girl’s breasts above or under her bra.” The book had described masturbation and I had to masturbate when I read that. I believe it was the first time I ever masturbated. I still get horny when I think of it, 50 years later.
Yes, I learned to masturbate from a book, and when I first came that first time, I don’t believe I had any come.
I learned to masturbate from a book as well. :)
Heh. I went directly to ‘my secret garden’ and ‘the illustrated encyclopedia of love and sex’ for my education on that topic when I was a kid.
When ur self-taught, you always love ur teacher!
Heh. My poor grandfather wrote that book! And the corresponding “For Girls Only.” The socially conservative (ok, and self-imposed) constraints he worked under were grueling but in a way it worked best where it was needed most: it was sold mostly in religious bookstores. :-)
The copyright on all his work was evidently never renewed. No one in the family knows who decided to republish it, let alone republish it in the humor category.
That said, some of the advice really is now hilarious. Even though, as Sara said in the previous post, “sex education” in the era pretty much began and ended with “After the wedding he’s going to want to do something. Let him.” Which would also be hilarious if it wasn’t so completely, eye-burning horrifying.
By the way, I take our reactions today as a nice object lesson in how dowdy our writing is likely to seem 50 years from now.
figleaf
figleaf
Are you serious? I had no idea! That is amazing.
Completely serious!
Awesome!
Check out this post at Figleaf’s Real Adult Sex for more information, including a picture of the books in question.