Sex In Prison front cover

By Sandor Siegel
Published in 1967 by New Library Books

Following the standard case study format that was typical of its time, Sex in Prison is divided into two books: “Women without Men” and “Men without Women.  The bulk of the chapters consist of an “interview” with a prisoner conducted by the “psychologist” author, though there is additional text to spice up the text.  Taken as a whole, the studies serve to reinforce all the stereotypes of prisoners (and prison sex) while entertainingly adding a few new wrinkles to the standard views of prison-sex.

“Women without Men” contains three case studies.  The first case presented is Mona, a prostitute who willingly has sex with other inmates before being forced to have sex with the prison’s matron.  Next we meet Marian, a lesbian. Categorized as a juvenile delinquent, Marian grew up a neglected child and is imprisoned for the murder of her rapist.  Since this tome is devoted to prurient interests, the reader is treated to great detail of all of Marian’s trials and tribulations.  Finally, we meet Kitty, a straight nymphomaniac who reluctantly engages in lesbianism to sate her desires.

“Men without Women” begins with another juvenile delinquent, Phil.  As Phil’s tale unfolds we learn that he discovered that his sister was in a lesbian relationship with Linda.  Seeing his sister and Linda, Phil is so consumed with lust that he does the only thing logical: he begins an incestuous relationship with his sister.  Later, Phil and other members of his gang rape Linda.  Phil ultimately murders Linda because she began to talk about Phil’s relationship with his sister during the course of the rape.  What does all of this have to do with prison sex? Not much, so the chapter concludes with an aside that relieve his sexual urges during his incarceration, Phil has turned to onanism (masturbation.)

The next chapter introduces us to Albert and is probably the book’s saddest when viewed from a contemporary standpoint.  Albert is gay, the “crime” for which he is imprisoned.  As a effeminate gay man in prison, Albert endures ceaseless indignities during his imprisonment.

Charlie is presented as a misogynistic and unrepentant serial rapist.  Charlie grows up in an extraordinarily dysfunctional family.  His mother is a prostitute who and his father an alcoholic who is dependent on his wife’s income for booze.  Charlie often witnesses his mother plying her trade which fuels his hatred of women.  Charlie denies that he has any need to relieve his sexual urges, but as the chapter concludes, we learn Charlie’s and the prison donkey share a special bond the true nature of which I will leave to the reader’s imagination.

The book concludes on a rather disturbing note with the case history of Rudy.

Though the bulk of Sex in Prison has little to do with actual prison sex, the book is a interesting trip back in time and an excellent example of the faux psychology subgenre of sleaze.

Sin-A-Rama front cover

Edited by  Brittany A. Daley, Hedi El Kholti, Earl Kemp, Miriam Linna, and Adam Parfrey
Published in 2005 by Feral House

Subtitled “Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties,” the bulk of the coverage in Sin-A-Rama is concerned with the sex paperbacks published in the early to mid-1960s, before the relaxation of obscenity laws.

The first section consists essays by and about many of the people responsible for creating the sex paperback industry.  Highlights of this section include Robert Silverberg’s “My Life as a Pornographer”, Stephen Gertz’s “West Coast Blue”, and Brittany Daley’s “The Lost Artists.” Unfortunately, the essays are scattershot and fail to construct a clear narrative.

The second section consists of cover galleries divided into various themes.  The covers are wonderfully reproduced in bright colors on bright paper.

The final section of the book is a bibliography of publishers including their active years, cover artists, authors, and sample titles.  There is also a listing of  various authors and their pseudonyms.   Despite its short length, this section is the jewel of the book for paperback collectors.

As a devoted fan of sex paperbacks from the 60s, I had high expectations for Sin-A-Rama.  While I was disappointed with the first section’s lack of cohesiveness, the cover galleries and reference materials in the back make this book an indispensible reference that I will consult for years to come.

A Switch Hitter Follows the Ads: A Sex Odyssey front cover

by Jill Baker Boyle
Published in 1969 by Ram Classics

This book is the “autobiographical” account of Jill’s travels across the U.S. as she meets men and women that she has met through adult personal ads.

As our tale begins, Jill is home in Los Angeles with her husband, Lance, and her lesbian lover, Elise, preparing to bid them adieu as she departs in her van for a year of carnal adventures.  After a goodbye evening of “triple loving,” Jill discovers her lovers have a surprise for her going away present: a painter has added “Hi-Ways and Bi-Ways” to the back of her customized van.

Jill’s first stop on her adventure is a meeting with a shy young lesbian, Joan, who lives a mere ten miles away.   Inside Hi-Ways and Bi-Ways, Jill introduces Joan to the joys of lesbianism while parked outside the Laundromat.  Before Jill departs, she plays matchmaker for Joan and her landlord.

Pressing forward on her journey, Jill travels to San Francisco to meet Mark.  After a few days of shared passion and a night of drunkenness, Jill and Mark make their way to meet with Mark’s old girlfriend, Cora.  Mark and Cora’s earlier romance ended because Mark was a high class boy and Cora was a girl born on the wrong side of the tracks.  I won’t spoil the action for you, but this tryst contains the book’s best line “Take off that cheap nightie, baby, and let me see those tits of yours.”

Jill’s heads to Denver to meet a young married couple, Kansas City to meet a frumpy librarian with an interest in dildos, on to Chicago to meet with a transvestite named Robert, and finally to Indiana to meet yet another shy young lesbian, Lois.

We learn that Lois lives on a farm with her brother, Tom, and his wife, Wilma.   Tom turns out to be an abusive drunk and Wilma is the object of Lois’ desires.  Eventually, all four of them have an encounter on the farm which culminates in the best visual scene in the book.  I can only describe it thus: garden hose enema.

When Jill tires of fun and frolic at the farm, she and Lois head to New York, the last stop in Jill’s itinerary.   Jill plans to attend a private sex party and the final scene really heats up.  But I won’t spoil it for you, you’ll have to read A Switch Hitter Follows the Ads: A Sex Odyssey to see how it all ends.

The Gang Bangers front cover

by Sean Greene
Published in 1968 by Ram Classics

I’m at a loss to describe this book – this may well be the most disturbing thing I’ve ever read.   It isn’t without its merits I suppose, but frankly I would hope that no one would seek out this book.

While The Gang Bangers promises an expose of devotees of “multiple sex,” instead it delivers a sickening stream of rape, incest, and pedophilia.   Like so many other books of this ilk, “The Gang Bangers” recounts the therapy sessions of our narrator as he counsels a family of “deviates.”  Usually the label “deviate” seems more comical than anything else.  That’s not the case here.

This tale begins with an introduction to Barbara, the daughter.  One by one we meet the son, the mother, and the father.   While the descriptions of their early sexual experiences are designed to titillate, the non-stop stream of what we now recognize as child molestation is anything but erotic.  This lurid tale reaches its apex when Mary, one of the family’s counselors, lets go of her professionalism and succumbs to her own carnal desires.

One of the few interesting moments in this book is when we meet the father.   We read about his earliest sexual experiences which consist of incest and rape.   Just as we think we’ve reached the sickening depth of human perversion, we learn the father has an even more shocking sexual secret – brace yourself for it – the father has had homosexual relations.

This book is a vivid reminder of how much society’s attitudes about child sexual abuse and homosexuality have changed since the 60s. It is difficult to reconcile how Greene can describe child sexual abuse in a matter of fact tone while reacting to the revelation of the father’s homosexual experiences with scorn: “The faggot father – the deviated daddy…” It was enough to make me cringe with nervous laughter.

Tacked onto the end of the preceeding family’s story is a short tale that has nothing to do with the preceeding storyline and isn’t enough to redeem the book. Were we simply presented with the three meat market women and their encounter with the butcher, this scene might have had erotic possibility (Let me just add if you’re going to do that with a sausage, for the love of God, have enough sense to use a condom.). Unfortunately, rather than simply presenting the tale of the erotic shenanigans of the meat market, Greene found it necessary to give us case histories of the three women and we are “treated” to more descriptions of rape and abuse.

Perversion and Beyond front cover

by Robert H. Sheldon
Published in 1968 by Viceroy Books

I approached this book with a bit of trepidation and uncertainty that I’d be able to finish it. Not because I don’t like perversion. Those who know me well would vouch for my deep affinity for perversion. My uncertainty arose because the back cover features the word “incest” in large type and that is one of the few perversions I cannot abide by. However, only the first chapter is devoted to that topic and it is thankfully short.

I had hoped the book would take me for a shocking journey into the recesses of the depraved sexual mind. Instead, I journeyed back in time, specifically San Francisco in the 60s at the height of hippie culture.

Having been born after the 60s, and having parents who were anything but counterculture, it’s sometimes hard to relate to the turmoil and confusion of the Vietnam era. While I often hear people who lived through 60s talk about sweeping social revolutions and the incumbent fears that they produced, it usually comes across as self-aggrandizement. Old hippies can claim that they ended the war in Vietnam all they want, but they’re full of shit. I’m certain the Vietcong weren’t sitting around in their tunnels hoping that the next “Love In” was going to be the one that put the peace movement over the top.

But I digress. Good exploitation takes the worst fears of the middle class and puts them on garish display. By that standard, this book is an example great exploitation. (The implied bestiality didn’t hurt matters either.) Most of the tales follow the sexual exploits of outsiders, be they bikers, hippies, the young, blacks, and so on. I can imagine the various exploits of sex and drugs would make the average middle class Midwestern hausfrau flip her wig.

Readers with modern sensitivities may find themselves shocked by some of the racist language in the book. While I learned a new slur “ofay” (a slang term for crackers like myself), it’s not one that I’m likely to ever use. Oh, there’s a lots of uses of the “nigger” thrown in the mix too, and their use is particularly humorous when it’s used immediately before touting someone’s virtues.

If you want an accurate historical document of sexual outsiders, I can’t really recommend Perversion and Beyond, but if you want perversion and/or insight into the fears of the middle class during the end of the 60’s, you can’t go wrong with this book.

The Bisexuals front cover

by George Bishop
Published in 1964 by Century Books

As I read The Bisexuals my depraved thoughts returned obsessively to one thing: typesetting. Why typesetting? Because The Bisexuals is so riddled with typesetting errors that I sometimes wished for a “Rosetta Stone” to help decipher it.

I debated rearranging this review so that it would be as poorly presented as some passages in the book. But since I’m the only one who would get the joke and no one else would realize the errors were intentional, I decided to spare everyone the torment that I suffered through in trying to decipher this book – there are limits to my sadistic streak.

Were this book printed overseas, I could have excused the typesetter on the theory that English wasn’t his native language. Unfortunately, in what is likely the only valid claim in the whole book, the title page says that the book was printed in the USA – shooting in the foot the notion that Americans used to take pride in their work.

Claiming to be “actual sex case histories collected by … the Western Adult Institute in its nationwide study on Sexual Incompatibility,” The Bisexuals crudely attempts to trace bisexuality through time and apply a “scientific” psychoanalytic approach to bisexual “deviation.” But beware, this book is to scientific inquiry what alchemy is to chemistry.

Still, there are a few good things about this book that kept me reading. For one, the prose flows easily and provides the requisite amount of salacious detail.

The chapter devoted to the Succubus was particularly interesting. Whether the tale of Carmen d’Angelo is historically true, I don’t know (a fast internet search turned up nothing), but the image of a repressed young man taking refuge in a cave and tying a leather thong to his cock to keep his sexual urges at bay was quite an entertaining yarn either way. Also interesting is the crime spree of Marcel Bonaventure (again, searching the internet turned up nothing). This passage proved un-arousing, but interesting all the same.

My favorite passage in the book is this quote credited to E. Burns Clarke (another likely fictitious source):

“An extreme form of this perversion (bisexuality) Burns Clarke continues, “is found when the woman watches a man have sexual intercourse with another woman and then, immediately following the orgasm, rushes to orally embrace his partially erect member, thus, in effect, performing the lesbian and heterosexual functions simultaneously by vicariously making love to the woman as well…”

How this man anticipated my fantasies several years before I was born, I don’t know. That he characterizes them as “an extreme form of this perversion” only serves to warm my little twisted heart.

Other highlights (or lowlights depending on your perspective) include bestiality, finger fetishism, and others.

Even though this book suffered from its poor printing quality and is an obvious work of fiction, I still enjoyed it and you may too.