Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (book)

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For the film, see Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (film).
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)
Everythingsex.jpg
AuthorDavid Reuben
Cover artistLawrence Ratzkin
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectSex
GenreNon-fiction
PublisherMcKay[1]
Publication date
June 1969
Media typePrint
Pages368 pp.
ISBN0-06-019267-4
OCLC30542
306.7 21
LC ClassHQ31 .R436 1999

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) is a book (1969, updated 1999) by California psychiatrist[2] David Reuben. It was one of the first sex manuals that entered mainstream culture in the 1960s, and had a profound effect on sex education and in liberalizing attitudes towards sex.[3] It was "among the top 20 all-time best sellers of the 20th century in the United States".[4]

History

The book was a Number 1 best-seller in 51 countries and reached more than 100 million readers.[3] In 1972, it was parodied by Woody Allen in the comedy film of the same name and received a favorable response from movie critics.[5]

The book had a significant impact. It was favorably reviewed by The New York Times[citation needed] and Life Magazine, and, after a massive book tour, would go on to be #1 on The New York Times bestseller list for 55 weeks. Reuben became a celebrity, guesting, a dozen times,[6] on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

As popular as the book was, it attracted critics in both the clinical world, and the public. The LGBT community objected to negative descriptions of homosexuality in the book (for example, Reuben wrote that gay men were "trying to solve the problem with only half the pieces"; lesbianism was relegated to a brief discussion in a section about prostitution). It was negatively reviewed, with "anti-Semitic overtones",[7][8] by Gore Vidal,[9] in The New York Review of Books, for its homophobia. In 1972, Playboy magazine published an article purporting to expose 100 errors in the book.[10]

Reuben wrote an updated version ("he says he has altered 96 percent of his first edition"[3]) which was published 30 years later, in 1999 and 2000.[11] In particular, his views on homosexuality, abortion, and pornography were updated.[12] Andrew Tobias reviewed the book, in 1999, for The Advocate.[13][14] It was reviewed by The Los Angeles Times,[15] The Baltimore Sun,[16] The Chicago Tribune, and others.

Meme

Its curiosity-arousing title and its question-and-answer format has inspired hundreds of similarly titled and formatted research papers.[17]

Jack Benny's "Everything you always wanted to know about Jack Benny, but were afraid to ask" featured Reuben.[18]

Further reading

References

  1. ^ "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)". Los Angeles Free Press. 1969-11-14. p. 11. Volume 6, Issue 278 Part Two
  2. ^ "Nutrition Book Has Its Ups And Downs". The Daily Courier (Arizona). June 30, 1985. Retrieved 5 July 2022. The book is written to sell, sell. It amazes me how an M.D. can know "every thing" about medicine ( he's a psychiatrist), "everything" about sex (Remember Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask?)
  3. ^ a b c Allen, Jamie (February 5, 1999). "Sex doctor David Reuben is back with some new advice". CNN. Archived from the original on August 23, 2000. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
  4. ^ Luebering, J.E. "best seller". Britannica. Retrieved 5 July 2022. The taboo against sexual explicitness that earlier resulted in censorship or moral disapproval had disappeared by the second half of the 20th century, so that Jacqueline Susann’s novel Valley of the Dolls (1966) and David Reuben’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask (1969) were both among the top 20 all-time best sellers of the 20th century in the United States.
  5. ^ "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, Movie Reviews". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on December 24, 2011. Retrieved January 23, 2012.
  6. ^ Diamond, Susan J. (1 February 1993). "SEQUEL / 'PHENOMENON' AUTHORS : Singular Sensations : Richard Bach, Marabel Morgan and David R. Reuben each wrote one bestseller. Then, despite subsequent efforts, each slipped from the limelight". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
  7. ^ Jochnowitz, George. "To the Editors: Tribal Sex War". nybooks. Retrieved 5 July 2022. In response to: 'Number One' from the June 4, 1970 issue
  8. ^ "November 29: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex". Jewish Currents. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
  9. ^ Vidal, Gore (June 4, 1970). "Doc Reuben". The New York Review of Books. Archived from the original on 16 April 2011. Retrieved 5 July 2022. via Gore Vidal Pages
  10. ^ "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Dr. David Reuben*". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on 2019-12-16. Retrieved 2020-02-19.
  11. ^ Riippa, Karole (August 14, 2000). Riippa, Laurele (ed.). "Fall 2000 Mass Market Paperback List". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 5 July 2022. ST. MARTIN'S...Reprints: ... (Oct.): ...Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex... ($7.99) by David Reuben, M.D.;
  12. ^ Vinciguerra, Thomas (21 March 1999). "Word for Word / A Sex Manual, Then and Now; Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Changing With the Times*". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 29 January 2019. Retrieved 19 February 2020.
  13. ^ Tobias, Andrew (July 20, 1999). "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask". The Advocate. Archived from the original on June 3, 2013. Retrieved 5 July 2022 – via The Free Library.
  14. ^ nicole (October 12, 2009). "Four Books That Will Mess Up Your Children". Vice Blog. vice.com. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
  15. ^ "30 Years Later, the Subject Is Still Sex". The Los Angeles Times. 17 February 1999. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
  16. ^ Lavin, Cheryl (March 8, 1999). "When 'sex book' ceased to be something dirty; Publishing: Everything you always wanted to know about 'Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex'". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on 23 June 2021. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
  17. ^ Shultz, David (23 April 2017). "Everything you always wanted to know about dolphin sex—but were afraid to ask". Science. doi:10.1126/science.aal1091.
  18. ^ "Psychiatry Good For Audition". The Prescott Courier. March 4, 1971. p. 23. Retrieved 5 July 2022 – via google books.

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