Daily Sex
365 Positions and Activities
For a Year of Great Sex!
Jane Seddon
(Warner)

It quite wears you out to think of it, but being the sporting type, I brought Daily Sex to the little lady and she took one look at it and suggested we give it to the Salvation Army or the Lompoc Prison Book Drive. "I think the lifers would find it quite diverting," she muttered.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Look what Ms. Seddon writes: 'Daily sex is more than just physical pleasure. Daily sex also helps form a special bond for a couple.'" I read.

"I think I feel a headache coming on," she said.

"Aw, cummon." I quoted: "'Sex is a pleasure, not a punishment.'"

"Leave the whips out of it, Jack," she said. "I'm going to bed. Alone."

§     §     §

Each day listed here has a title and a generic date: "Snake in the Grass" appears on Month 1, Day 20. "Knock Her Socks Off" is Month 5, Day 23. "Armchair Quarterback" falls on Month 7, Day 21. This last begins, "It's first and ten. Get into the huddle with your partner and work out the play. We don't want a false start or pass interference tonight."

"Early Bird Gets the Worm" (Month 3, Day 25) enthuses, "Ladies, get out your lip balm. This is a fellatio position, so your lips need to be nice and soft!" "Finger Painting" (Month 4, Day 24) begins in didactic fashion, "Guys, this is a position where you get to manually stimulate your partner."

"Taking Care of Business," (Month 5, Day 19) moves us into the economic world of Adam Smith (and, possibly, the Invisible Hand): "This is a business transaction that will be very profitable for both of you!"

Then there is the nuts and bolts approach in "Trusty Mechanic," (Month 6, Day 7). "Time for a tune-up!" Month 12, Day 29 is "Hard Up." Here we get a bit ribald, some fun-punning, too: "Guys, this is no time for playing hard to get!"

Each entry shows a little thermometer off to the side, with "Cold," "Warm," "Hot" and "Sizzling." Unfortunately, there is no Ache-o-Meter on the facing page for those of us on the dark side of the half-century mark, those of us who might not be able to manage "Head Over Heels" or "Flagpole Sitting" without a visit from the Jaws-of-Life.

Some readers might find this "Guys!" business a bit much. Not "Men!" Not "Studs!" Not "Hunks!" Just "Guys." As in "Watch out, guys!" or "Okay, guys. Do you remember how much you enjoyed the Popsicle activity in month one?" (Yeah, it left me with chilblains of the upper jaw.) After a few pages of this, I was feeling down in the mouth. In fact I browsed around the contents page looking for "Down in the Mouth." It seemed a natural.

This neo-soft fun-porn clambake also left us musing on Judge Charles Woolsey. He's the one who wrote the decision opening the door for Ulysses to be distributed in this country, in 1932. It pretty much guaranteed books freedom from the feds (in those days, the force of comstockery lay with the U. S. Postal Service).

His decision kept the postal inspectors from rummaging through the mail and ferreting out "scandalous" literature. But sometimes this all-American go-for-it rough-and-tumble clambake sex makes us long for the good old days. It also might even send the good judge a-spinning in his grave. I looked around for "A-Spinning in the Grave" but alas, it was nowhere to be found.

The 365 drawings offered in Daily Sex are pretty ghastly. I pulled the one above from a book about Vichy France, if you'll believe it. I did it just to show that in a book about war there can still be a touch of art. If Ms. Seddon's publishers had bothered to search for it, they might have been able to plant a bit of love here, too.

--- George Bell Ball