Introduction
Popular historians who enjoy pinning titles like the Gay Nineties and the Roaring Twenties on every recent decade have yet to come up with anything fully satisfactory for the fifties and the sixties-but there are strong indications that they'll settle on the Sexual Seventies for the current ten-year period. From all appearances, this is due to be not only the decade of sex, but also the decade of sexual research.
The groundwork, of course, has already been done by such pioneers as Kinsey and the team of Masters and Johnson, among others. Today, the field is wide open to such mildly tongue-in-cheek popularizers as Dr. David Reuben (Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex ...) and such little-known but indefatigable researchers as James Warren of Hollywood, California.
Warren has over a dozen books to his credit already, but none so far has hit the bestseller lists; some of his research methods have started the more conservative experts in the field, but they give him grudging credit for carrying his fact-finding expeditions into such institutions as orphanages and federal and state prisons. And even the most hidebound of his colleagues will admit that he has become one of the world's most knowledgeable men on the subject of Fellatio.
In a book of that title just published by the Griffon Corporation of Las Vegas, Nevada, Warren demonstrates his erudition and sensitivity on every page. The following quotation is merely one example chosen from among many:
"First, it should be clearly understood that the fellatrice falls into two categories: those females who merely accept fellatio as an act, and those who must perform fellatio. The latter is a truly disturbed person, and she is rare. Her problem lies in a marked oral fixation; furthermore, no matter how desirable she may sound to some of us, she is usually aberrated in other ways which make her a difficult person to be around for long. Her compulsivity usually has more than one outlet. She normally demands climax, and the semen itself plays a role in her acquisition-triumph. She will most often be as accomplished as the most artistic fellator, but like him, it's natural, because it's her business. She has spent her life developing her skill.
"However, our principal concern here is with normal everyday Jane America. We certainly don't want to have her confused with some lady who has fellated a thousand men and who, for sickish reasons, still remains a virgin. Our gal is everywhere, and is either married to or dating Joe America. There is absolutely nothing abnormal about her, and she may be an accomplished fellatrice or not; the same general rules apply.
"The fact that sensual pleasures may accrue to the fellatrice as well as her partner is very interesting. Fellatio as a source of pleasure to the female seems to have received but scant attention from modern sexological writers. It is generally taken for granted that such gratifications as are forthcoming derive in the main from the excitation induced in the other person. It is seldom noted that the physical pleasure could physiologically be expected to at least equal that resulting from 'French-Kissing,' in which the mouth is titillated internally by the tongue of the other person, and where lips and tongue are themselves stimulated."
The insights in these brief paragraphs are many, and it would be worth the reader's while to return to them for lengthier and more careful consideration. At the moment, however, the publishers of Dansk Blue Books must direct attention to the work of a writer on the same subject but in another field: Mildred Thompson and her sometimes shocking but thoroughly researched and educational novel, The Shamed Orphan.
The leading character here is Holly Hollis-ton, orphan ... and fellatrice. Holly's basic problems stem from her being an orphan in the first place. The complicated development of those problems comes about because she is the kind of fellatrice James Warren touches on intimately though obliquely-the compulsive kind. Holly is "a truly disturbed person," and recognizes that fact. She is intelligent enough to seek help from a qualified psychiatrist-and thereby hangs a novel.
In her own way, Mildred Thompson is as dedicated and painstaking a researcher as James Warren. This is her first book, and it has been many months in the writing. The original first draft was short and lacked a good deal of the dramatic pace of the final version, but Dansk's editors worked very closely with Miss Thompson to bring the inherent qualities of the novel to the fore. We have seen few such smooth-working editor-author combinations since Maxwell Perkins brought out the best in Thomas Wolfe. While it would be unrealistic to compare The Shamed Orphan to You Can't Go Home Again or its sequels, we think the result is equally as rewarding in its own way.
The Publishers.