30 Years Later, the Subject Is Still Sex

Between Howard Stern on the radio, Jerry Springer on TV and Bill Clinton in the Oval Office, is there anything about sex we don’t know?

And, if there is, is there anybody left in America who is afraid to ask about it?

Apparently the answer on both counts is yes, according to physician and psychiatrist David Reuben, who has updated his 1969 bestseller, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask” (HarperCollins).

Packaged in the same familiar, bright-yellow book jacket, Reuben’s book covers the same old favorites, like sexual intercourse, prostitution and sexual perversion, as his original. And he employs the same breezy, tongue-in-cheek Q&A; format about the topics that have undergone the most change in 30 years--birth control, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases.

“When my first book came out, abortion was illegal, you couldn’t buy condoms in the supermarket, and there were only about three or four [sexually transmitted diseases],” Reuben, 65, said. “Today, there are more STDs than there are signs of the zodiac.”

It’s more than mere law and medicine that have changed in between Reuben’s books. America’s puritanical heart and other bodily parts have loosened considerably as well.

Few know this better than Reuben, who, during a 1969 interview with Johnny Carson, became the first person to utter the word “masturbation” on network television. It didn’t happen without a fierce fight, recalls Reuben, but network censors relented after they were assured the word would only be used in the proper context.

Since then, the pace of sexual utterances has picked up ferociously.

“Today, you turn on the television and you can say just about anything,” said Reuben, speaking from his Costa Rica home, where he lives with his family several months of the year. “Of course, talking freely about sex is a step in the right direction, it’s a big advance. But it doesn’t mean we have it all worked out yet either.”

Indeed, despite the flood of sexual images and talk that we all wade through daily, many Americans still seem overwhelmed and unsettled by it all. “Most men still don’t have a clear idea of what the woman’s sexual equipment looks like,” Reuben said.

Part of the reason for the lack of knowledge is as old as sex itself: human pride. “People are afraid to demonstrate that they don’t know everything about sex,” Reuben said. “They are afraid of being tagged as ignorant. Of course, they shouldn’t be, but they are.

“Sex is the most fun you can have,” he said. “But it’s also the most complicated thing two people can do. To understand it from a medical point of view, you’d have to know anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, pathology, internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology--to name a few.”

To break down the barriers of pride, shame or embarrassment, Reuben once again makes full use of his sexual sense of humor. For instance, he jokes that an impotent man trying to have sex is like “trying to open a lock with a wet noodle.”

About a woman’s hymen, he writes that it is a “structure that gets attention all out of proportion to its function, which is--nothing. For centuries it has been regarded as the Barometer of Chastity, Guardian of Purity, Sentinel at the Gates of Venus. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Some critics don’t find Reuben amusing and never have. On his first book, they knocked him for his controversial views on homosexuality, which stated: “If a homosexual who wants to renounce homosexuality finds a psychiatrist who knows how to cure homosexuality, he has every chance of becoming a happy, well-adjusted heterosexual.”

Reuben did not repeat this in the updated book, but he still refers to homosexuality as a “condition.” In the chapter, he describes in graphic detail some of the sexual practices and habits of homosexuals.

“Homosexuals are human beings, and I have sympathy and understanding for them. I have a great many patients who are homosexual,” Reuben said. “To judge them on the basis of this single aspect is unfair.”

Reuben has also been blasted for his chapter on sexually transmitted diseases, which critics contend could lead to alarmist reactions about AIDS. In the chapter, Reuben states that nearly half a dozen common insects can theoretically transmit the deadly virus to humans.

Leading public health officials, however, say Reuben is completely wrong and fear that his claim will only serve to cause needless worry.

He acknowledges that insects have not been linked to any known AIDS cases, but he maintains that such transmission--though only an extremely remote possibility--is nevertheless still a possibility. “Political correctness has really taken over a lot of these issues,” he said.

Reuben hopes readers will, instead, focus on the message of his book, which is quite simply how to better enjoy their sex lives. “Our challenges are exactly the same today as they were 30 years ago, as they were 30,000 years ago,” he said. “How do we find sexual satisfaction and sexual fulfillment?”