Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Paperback 371: The Love Clinic / Gil Hara (Softcover Library S95277)

Paperback 371: Softcover Library S95277 (PBO, 1966)

Title: The Love Clinic
Author: Gil Hara
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $8

SCLS95277.LoveClinic

Best things about this cover:

  • Her eyeshadow. Dang.
  • Why can't I get Neil Sedaka's "Having My Baby" out of my head!?!?
  • "You know ... *those* girls. What's up with them?"
  • One of scads of Kinsey-inspired softcore paperback offerings that populated racks in the '50s and '60s, although this one is more about labs studying the physiology of sex than surveys studying the sexual habits of a population. Whatever, the "how can it be science when it turns me on?" issue still applies.

SCLS95277bc.LoveClin

Best things about this back cover:

  • Ugh. Text.
  • This book goes from mere description ("...girls are observed during climax") to judgmental sensationalism ("...men bare perverse lusts") without even blinking.
  • And, once again, we lead with rape. Yeesh.
  • "These volunteers must really be perverted, right? Right? Can you believe the shamelessness of these perverts? You better buy this book and furtively peep into their lives while you masturbate ... because that is *not* perverted. Not at all."
  • I love how this book barely ever indicates that it's fiction (I think "novel" is the only word, front or back, that signals fiction). Nothing on the front cover suggests "fiction." Even the photo cover suggests a documentary approach.

Page 123~

She used to think it worthwhile to serve such a brilliant man. But now he was methodically tearing the clothes off her.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

2 comments:

Deb said...

Sorry Rex, your youth is showing: Paul Anka, not Neil Sedaka, did "Having My Baby." Neil Sedaka did "Laughter in the Rain," which is almost as schmaltzy.

borky said...

The guy looks like he's dozed off and dreaming of Glenn Campbell, but she looks like she's so bored she's thinking, "I wonder if he'll notice if I pull those hairs out his nipples?"