Books in Brief: The Sexual Wilderness

THE SEXUAL WILDERNESS: The Contemporary Upheaval in Male-Female Relationships, by Vance Packard (McKay, $6.95). Mr. Packard has put four years of serious work into 500 pages not cluttered with genital maps, perversion glossaries or firsthand accounts of how I never knew how explosively great It could be until I dated Frank. The questions here are what is distinctive about the sexual attitudes and behavior of our younger generation, and, if things have changed, why. Packard’s primary answers are these: Today’s young people are discovering sex earlier and sharing it with more partners, more often —because of the pill, the female’s desire — for sexual equality, greater social mobility, the decline of religious dogma, the coincident popularity of “situation ethics” and the _ pervasive influence of, well, the good life. When you don’t have to work hard to get — along, you find other ways to fill up your time. Packard is no Puritan, but he has — misgivings about a society increasingly preoccupied with instant gratification. An absorbing study, fit reading for everyone.

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Philip P. Ardery

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THE SEXUAL WILDERNESS: The Contemporary Upheaval in Male-Female Relationships, by Vance Packard (McKay, $6.95). Mr. Packard has put four years of serious work into 500 pages not cluttered with genital maps, perversion glossaries or firsthand accounts of how I never knew how explosively great It could be until I dated Frank. The questions here are what is distinctive about the sexual attitudes and behavior of our younger generation, and, if things have changed, why. Packard’s primary answers are these: Today’s young people are discovering sex earlier and sharing it with more partners, more often —because of the pill, the female’s desire — for sexual equality, greater social mobility, the decline of religious dogma, the coincident popularity of “situation ethics” and the _ pervasive influence of, well, the good life. When you don’t have to work hard to get — along, you find other ways to fill up your time. Packard is no Puritan, but he has — misgivings about a society increasingly preoccupied with instant gratification. An absorbing study, fit reading for everyone.