In the Eyes of the Beholders
Sir: All right, let's admit sex is great [July 11]! But when it hits you in the eye with belted monotony on the screen, in books, on the stage under the pretentious guise of the "new morality" (i.e., dressed-up smut) I find it quite tiresome. There's nothing funnier than a good dirty joke, and nothing flatter than a poor one. Seems to me, the plethora of poor ones going the rounds these days is all one hears. Who's laughing?
VIRGINIA U. PROUT
Greenwich, Conn.
Sir: How healthy that the subject of sex is now in the open. How sad that the sex act is no longer a private affair between two people.
MARY YARRISH
Hyattsville, Md.
Sir: John Wayne at 62, fully clothed, fat and half blind, is capable of generating more excitement, sexiness, tenderness, courage, humor, honesty, understanding, peace and, in the same breath, revolution in every man, woman or child who watches him on the screen for one performance than all the nudothespians of Hair, Che! and Oh! Calcutta! combined could produce on stage if they were to do their thing from now until the year 2010, when they reach the Grand Duke's age. Hell, they can't even compete with the fig leaf on TIME'S cover, which has more zip, unzippered, than either of the two characters posing behind it. By the way, which one is the good guy?
MRS. LAURENCE ANDREN
Cody, Wyo.
Sir: The enlightening aspect of the present revolution is not only that more pornography and erotic freedom are being allowed, but that, perhaps for the first time, "respectable" females are seeing, hearing or doing, without shame or guilt, what was, before, the privilege of only "bad girls" and men. Can we possibly hope to be witnessing the demise of the double standard?
If sexual revolutions have failed in the past, it may be because half the fighting force has always been left behind the lines, without rank or training. I would be bitter for myself and my female ancestors, but I'm too busy enjoying all this "good clean pornography" and getting rid of hang-ups.
MRS. J. M. JACOBSON
Edmonds, Wash.
Sir: Evangelist Billy Graham's chronicle of his descent into that 42nd Street pornographic Hades was very enlightening. I have always suspected that the Rev. Graham's interest in sex, as he says, ceased at 20; he has always struck me as such a clinically pure young man. And his mother raised him so correctly: I agree wholeheartedly that love can only exist "within the confines of marriage," as Graham says. I adore his word choice. Confine is such a good word. And his logic is still unsurpassed. Everyone knows that Adam and Eve's "rebellion against God" concerned more than the eating of an apple. Sex, I believe, was the issue. His observation is adroitly followed with the comment, "[sex is] something that God gave us." Ah, what a mystery is God—and Dr. Graham, for that matter.
PHIL BALESTRINO
Manhattan