Good Sex Illustrated

by Duvert, Tony

• ISBN13: 9781584350439
• ISBN10: 1584350431
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-11-30
• Publisher: Semiotext

Summary

Why is pleasure "doubled" when it's "shared"? ... Do you really have to cut pleasure in two so that it'll exist? I mean, if it's doubled when there are two of you, then it must be tripled when there are three, quadrupled when there are four, centupled when there are a hundred, right? Is it O.K. for a hundred to share? And if I get used to trying it all alone, why is it that I'll never love anyone again? Is it that good alone and that awful with others? --from Good Sex Illustrated Written in the wake of May 1968 and Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus,Tony Duvert's Good Sex Illustrated(Le bon sexe illustré) was part of the miraculous moment when sexuality could turn the world upside down and reveal social hypocrisy for what it was. Bitterly funny and unabashedly anarchistic, Good Sex Illustratedopenly declares war on mothers, family, psychoanalysis, morality, and the entire social construct, through a close reading of sex manuals for children. Published in 1973, one year after Duvert won the prestigious Prix Médicis, it proved that accolades had not tempered his scathing wit or his approach to such taboo topics as pedophilia. This translation, by award-winning author Bruce Benderson, will belatedly introduce English-speaking audiences to the most infamous gay writer from France since Jean Gênet first hit the scene in the 1940s.

Author Biography

Tony Duvert (1945–2008) is the author of fourteen books of fiction and nonfiction. His fifth novel, Strange Landscape, won the prestigious Prix Médicis in 1973. Other books translated into English include the novels When Jonathan Died and Diary of an Innocent as well as the essay Good Sex Illustrated, the last two both available from Semiotext(e).

Novelist, translator, and essayist Bruce Benderson is the author of a memoir, The Romanian: Story of an Obsession, winner of France's prestigious Prix de Flore in French translation, and Pacific Agony (Semiotext(e), 2009.)

Novelist, translator, and essayist Bruce Benderson is the author of a memoir, The Romanian: Story of an Obsession, winner of France's prestigious Prix de Flore in French translation, and Pacific Agony (Semiotext(e), 2009.)