MINISKIRTS AND BOOGALOO
Secret Sex Desires of Male and Female – Dr Walter P Clayton, with Stephan Gregory
People: I was so jealous of Kev getting to read a Dr Clayton book that I trolled myself with one – Secret Sex Desires of Male and Female, published in 1968.
You’ll recall that Kev covered Religion and the Sexual Life last post, concluding that Walt’s erotic-hypnotic-hijinks are definitely fiction.
I’d previously reviewed Hypnosis and the Sexual Life – our first foray into the far-out world of Clayton & Co – and I sooo wanted to believe it was fact and not just fantasy.
Time to find out!
After a tense discussion as to who should read this book, I started it in bed last Sunday morning while Kev did sudokus and jealously read the opening pages over my shoulder.
The first thing that struck me is that the back page and front matter have done away with any pretence that this is therapy, as per previous books. We’ve just got titillating extracts from ‘client’ confessions – and the cover is, well, pretty clear as to what we can expect!
Our alleged novelist editor, Stephan Gregory, introduces the book. It’s partly a facts-and-stats-filled manifesto for tackling sexual dysfunction; but also an ode to the sufferings of The Writer.
Next up is Walter’s foreword, which implies Walt is the sex hypnotherapist, on a par with medical doctors. “Nobody will dispute a doctor’s ethics in setting a broken leg, or removing a cancerous growth, or applying electro-shock treatments to a psychopath.” Ergo, Walt knows best when it comes to this sex stuff..? It’s a jarring, ambitious, weird attempt to prepare and reassure the reader – in a good way! – and I can only imagine what kind of wild ride he’s geeing us up for.
There’s also a note that Walt and Stephan have changed the format for this book. Each client case study ends with a Q&A between the pair. Interesting.
Finally, we’re off with our first case! Janie is a 20-year-old who’s exposing herself at work. As Walt explains, she’s trapped between outdated attitudes towards sex and sexuality, and the “age of miniskirts and the Boogaloo”.
Janie’s story is mildly titillating, with Clayton’s therapising extracting the juicy details. Hypnosis, however, doesn’t really feature aside from being the reason that people confess their deepest, darkest desires and experiences.
The case ends with a lengthy Q&A between Walt and Stephan on why women have rape fantasies. This hasn’t aged well, but is long, philosophical and nuanced, and is what I can only describe as progressive for its time. What is going on here?! Is this porn or a genius plan to shake up the 1960s American psyche and society?!
I exclaim as such to Kev and he is determined to prove to me that this is fiction.
Thanks to his superior and more persistent googling skills, he tracks down the publisher’s list of the books in this series (worth a look for the crazy covers!) and we spot a new name: Don Pendleton.
Don Pendleton, 1927-1995, was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA, and signed up to join the US Navy days before his 15th birthday in 1942. He served as a radioman throughout World War II until 1947, returning to active service in 1952 for two more years during the Korean conflict. In civilian life, Pendleton worked as a railroad telegrapher and as an air-traffic-control specialist before moving into aerospace engineering, even working on NASA’s Apollo Moonshot programme. But then, aged 40, Pendleton became a full-time author following the publishing success of a short story and novel in earlier years.
And, boy, was he prolific! Here are the other Clayton capers we can look forwards to:
How to Achieve Sexual Ecstasy
The Sexually Insatiable Female
Society and the Sexual Life
Sex and the Supernatural
ESP and the Sex Mystic
Dialogues on Human Sexuality
The Sexuality Gap
Hypnosis and the Free Female
Kev got busy on eBay while I read the rest of the book.
In classic Walt style, it’s a real bag of snakes – from basic bedroom misunderstandings between young couples incapable of communication, to a trucker who’s tricked into becoming a thruple, as well as some downright disturbing cases. It all ends in a spectacular sex-party orgy. (“[E]licited under the most gruelling techniques of hypno-analysis”, using “[e]very dirty trick in the hypnotist’s book”, and heroically spliced together by Stephan from 14 transcribed sessions – 60% of which are, alas, unpublishable.)
Pendleton is also described as a “metaphysical scholar”, and I’m fascinated at the intent of the Q&As with this in mind… They mix deep questioning of identity, sexuality and society as constructs, and progressive (for the time) statements on homosexuality and different ways of living, being, expressing and loving, with… detailed guidance on oral sex and, um, jokes.
In conclusion: change minds and change the world – by writing a hypno-porno! Duly noted.
