February 18, 2022
Posted by Jay Livingston
“Climax as Work,” the Gender and Society article I discussed in the previous post, caught my attention for the obvious reason. But I had another immediate reaction, one that I suspect is unique.
What the title called to my mind was another article, one published in the sociology journal Social Problems in 1967, before the authors of “Climax as Work” were born. The title: “Sex as Work” by Lionel Lewis and Dennis Brisset.* It was a content analysis of fifteen “marriage manuals” as they were called at the time, published in the 1950s and early 60s..
The authors start from the observation that “fun” in American culture had become a requirement. Americans judged themselves and others on the basis of what psychologist Martha Wolfenstein dubbed the “fun morality.” The irony is that making something a required part of the Protestant ethic largely takes the fun out of it. (See this post from sixteen years ago on how organizing kids’ sports inevitably crushes the fun.) The authors quote Nelson Foote: "Fun, in its rather unique American form, is grim resolve. . . .We are as determined about the pursuit of fun as a desert-wandering traveler is about the search for water.” As the title of the article implies, when it comes to sex, these marriage manuals see work as an absolutely necessary prerequisite for fun.
The work ethic in these books first of all emphasizes technical skill. The word technique appears frequently in the text, the chapter headings, and one of the book titles — Modern Sex Technique. Learning technique requires work. The books give cautions like, "Sexual relations are something to be worked at and developed.” “Sex is often something to be worked and strained at as an artist works and strains at his painting or sculpture.”
Work to acquire the requisite technique means study and preparation. One book refers to “study, training, and conscious effort.” Another, “If the two of them have through reading acquired a decent vocabulary and a general understanding of the fundamental facts listed above, they will in all likelihood be able to find their way to happiness.” Is this going to be on the midterm?
Like work, sex must proceed on a bureaucratic schedule. This means establishing a specific time for sex. But the manuals also break the sexual encounter into components much like an assembly line or a schedule of work activities, sometimes even specifying the time allotted to each. "Foreplay should never last less than fifteen minutes even though a woman may be sufficiently aroused in five.” Lewis and Brissett don’t mention it, but the scheduling mentality was also the basis for what some of the manuals saw as the ideal product — simultaneous orgasm. The partners here are much like workers who must co-ordinate their separate activities to arrive at the same place at the same time.
Lewis and Brissett also fail to mention other things that now seem obvious. First, these books are “marriage manuals” not “sex manuals.” They imply not only that sex is limited to married couples but that it is an obligation stipulated in the marriage contract.
Second, these books frame sex not just as technical and bureaucratic but as medical. Ten of the fifteen books have authors with M.D. after their name; others have Ph.D. Only three authors are uncredentialed. The M.D. or Ph.D. speaks from a position of authority, authority based on their own technical expertise. This too seems at odds with any notion of fun or pleasure. We rarely think of consulting a doctor as “fun,” perhaps even less so for consulting a Ph.D.
In any case, Lewis and Brissett had spotted the most important aspect of these sex books, one that nobody else seemed to have noticed. The insights of “Sex as Work” pointed to an obvious next step. Or maybe it wasn’t so obvious. If it had been, I might be rich. But I’ll leave that for the next post.
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* The full title of the article is “Sex as Work: A Study of Avocational Counseling.” Social Problems, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer, 1967), pp. 8-18
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