History of Porn, With Subtitles

David Allyn's contribution to the growing shelves of the history of sexuality section in the bookstore, Make Love, Not War, boldly claims to be "the first serious treatment of the events, ideas, and personalities that drove the sexual revolution." Yet sex is a subject almost impossible to keep within the bounds of strict academic discourse. Allyn falls victim to loose scholarship and resorts to anecdotes as proof for unfounded social theories. His thesis, which purports that the sexual revolution of the '60s and '70s was unique, is simple and unoriginal. Nonetheless, Make Love Not War is an interesting compilation of stories about sex in the 60's and 70's, which ought to intrigue any healthy college student, but the book fails to provide any genuine scholarship on an oft-mythologized period in American culture.

Allyn attempts to give an entire history of American sexuality in a brief chapter, as if to acquaint the reader with all of the legends and values the sexual revolution attempts to destroy. While rhetorically intelligent, Allyn's pseudo-academic style makes his statements appear utterly ridiculous. Among the fine points of his introduction are such highly stylized claims as, "The sexual revolutionaries of the sixties and seventies were the truest of leaders. They made people realize that the future does not have to look like the past." The entire book is replete with sweeping claims about American society; one cannot read a chapter without a chuckle.

His tendency to make these claims reveals the book's flaw-Make Love, Not War is too ambitious. Allyn cannot hope to answer every claim about the sexual revolution, nor can he describe every movement. Yet he believes he can. The punishment for this inflated sense of purpose is these claims, too humorous to ishment for this inflated sense of purpose is these claims, too humorous to actually enliven the book. One especially tasty bit of stupidity reads, "American nudists had long been fighting their own actually enliven the book. One especially tasty bit of stupidity reads, "American nudists had long been fighting their own battles against persecution. For decades American nudists had attempted to create camps...but they were inevitably hounded by unsympathetic authorities." Poor nudists! Allyn attempts to provoke a sense of history as well as an emotive response from his readers, but he fails miserably.

Nonetheless, after reading some of the inevitably dry books on reading lists, Allyn makes liberal use of favorite four letter words, includes personal accounts of different people having sex in different positions, and speaks of the evolution of masturbation. Allyn is verbally pornographic at times; in his frequent allusions to D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, one gets the sense that Allyn wishes us to see him as the next Laurence, crusader in literature of the sexually explicit. He includes such passages as: "There were people fucking and thrashing all over. They'd sort of roll over on you, and sometimes you found yourself spread over more than one person...they were all moving up and down, rolling around." Allyn's accounts of college sex-life, where orgies and group sex were not only the norm but were expected, surely make the most baccanalic Harvard party appear entirely inadequate.

However, Allyn is at times intellectually dangerous, especially if one reads the book without an understanding of American history and a decent command of the history of western civilization. Allyn also tells us that St. Augustine's sexual repression is the cause of the Catholic Church's current birth control policy. Allyn attributes the reform movements in the 1830s and 1840s to a crusade against sexuality in society. Allyn claims the actual intention of the graham cracker was to "soak up men's sexual desires," giving an entirely different interpretation of smores. Shockingly, Allyn claims the only cause of abolition was a deep-seated fear of miscegenation.

Allyn distorts important cultural and constitutional events, from undermining Broadway's creative period of the '60s and '70s to distorting Supreme Court cases. He claims that Hair, the Broadway show, existed only to test the limits of censorship. He also corrupts important historical events, such as the introduction of the Pill and Roe v. Wade. He never mentions the feminist critique of the Pill, as a pharmaceutical example of male control of the reproductive nature of women, and claims that Roe never knew that she could not have an abortion after the third trimester, a fallacy according to the legal history of the case.

Still, to his credit, Allyn gives some important background on movements that receive little historical attention from mainstream readers. He gives a thorough discussion of the gay liberation movement, explaining its hypocrisy with regard to lesbians, who failed to feel included until years after the Stonewall raid. He also addresses sexuality within political movements-including a discussion of male Black Panthers and their desire to "fuck as many white women as possible." His most academic discussion in the book discusses the hypocrisy of the feminist movement. While his critiques of the movement are not original, his summary view of problems within the movement gives a clear understanding of the difference between "bull-dyke feminism" and Betty Friedan Feminist Mystique feminism.

One finds random facts about the history of sex, which are not useless because they involve sex. Allyn explains the evolution of the bra-burner myth, explains the history of nudist colonies in the United States, and gives a detailed account of group marriages, a popular trend of the late '70s. He explores the story behind Hugh Heffner's rise and fall, what the acronym PRIDE actually signifies, and describes what Deep Throat, perhaps the most recognized porn-flick title, really involved. These random facts are all the more interesting when Allyn writes about sex in college. Among his many stories include the tale of a 15-year-old girl who would simply walk around Yale dorms offering oral sex. Tantalizing details about the evolution of co-ed housing await anyone who chooses to peruse Allyn's work.

Posing as a cultural and historical work, Make Love, Not War is entertainment reading. The book is intellectually amusing, and is full of pre-game stories to retell before going out on the weekend. For those missing some sexual experience, for the moment Allyn's book has important details, from what most sexual acts look like to post-orgasm accounts of experiences from participants. If looking to develop a more informed database of sex facts and dirty stories, Make Love, Not War is the perfect read. However, if in search of a more detached, academic account of the sexual revolution, this time parents may have a better answer.