SEXIS WRONG

The Virgin Diaries
Victor J. Banis
I was a paperback virgin when first I met Earl Kemp, editor
of big-time erotic-pulp publisher Greenleaf. Well, practically,
anyway. There is a tale that lies therein, too, and it’s not a
pretty one.
My actual deflowering took place in Sioux City, Iowa, which
is itself a sad thing to note, isn’t it? I mean, there’s glamour in
a New York penthouse, luxury in a Beverly Hills mansion, but
what does Sioux City have to offer beyond haystacks?
It was from Brandon House that I heard, however, a Mister
Mel Friedman, who informed me that we had been indicted
and were to meet the following day at the federal building for
arraignment.
Arraignment? Don’t forget, I was a virgin. “Indicted for
what?” I asked.
“Conspiracy to distribute obscene material,” was the answer.
I cashed the check and waited to
hear from the Pulitzer people.
But I am ahead of myself. The foreplay began, in fact, in Hollywood;
no, not the Hollywood of stars and movie studios:
the Hollywood of tawdry paperback bookstores. I strolled
into one of these emporiums in 1963, leafed through a number
of lesbian books—really, faux lesbian, the sort written by
men for men—and thought, “Gosh, I could do this.”
I read a dozen or so of them, after which, enlightened, I wrote
my own, and sent it off to the publisher with the most variety:
Brandon House Books, as it happened. In no time I had a letter
back, saying that it was a bit on the short side (only about
20,000 words, and they needed more like 40,000), but if I
cared to make it bigger, they would be pleased to buy it.
I’d had plenty of practice at making things bigger. I set to
work, sent it off again, newly engorged and, in no time at all, I
had my hot little hands on my first novel, The Affairs of Gloria,
the uninhibited story of a free-loving, free-wheeling nympho
(under the pseudonym “Victor Jay”), with a cover I thought
quite stylish. I cashed the check and waited to hear from the
Pulitzer people.
Despite my virginity, I was not entirely ignorant.
Sex movies weren’t then available at
your neighborhood shoe store, but you could
find them if you knew whom to ask, and little
stories on mimeographed sheets, and comic books with bizarre
imitations of Flash Gordons and L’il Abners cavorting in
sexual gymnastics.
Which, as I saw it, had nothing to do with my Gloria and her
fondness for “manhood.” There was nothing in Gloria that
couldn’t be found in her far less ladylike neighbors on the
racks. Yes, she was frequently in and out of bed, sometimes
with women, sometimes with men, but what was the fuss?
The habitués of Peyton Place did not spend their time quilting
and dancing polkas, and no one was dragging them into
court.
In retrospect, I suppose that my innocence was criminal. I
might point out, though, that I had not bought those initial
paperbacks in plain brown wrappers or in any surreptitious
manner, just strolled into a store in broad daylight, took them
from the racks on the walls, and forked over my money. How
could forking so openly be illegal?
226 EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT SEX IS WRONG