British gerontologist Comfort, who died in 2000 aged 80, wrote a book that proved revolutionary for people's sex lives around the world in 1972.
Alex Comfort became a household name in the 1970s over groundbreaking book. READ MORE:Growing up as the son in a middle class family in Barnet, few could have predicted Alex Comfort, who had a striking fascination with molluscs, would have gone on to bring about a sexual awakening for millions around the world - but there were certainly signs of fire in the young teen's personality.
Comfort's book, a manual to having better sex which featured groundbreaking illustrations of the positions in which he made love to Jane, has sold more than 12 million copies and been translated into 30 languages. The Joy of Sex, published in 1972, became a revolutionary manual for couples around the world to improve their sex lives
'Dad told me later there were quite a few gerontologists at Sandstone. He said all of them had a chronic fear of their own mortality which made them want to enjoy life more.' Bearded Charles, one of the artists on the book , and German-born Edeltraud, volunteered to recreate Comfort and Henderson's sex life 'and she got him through the positions with Teutonic efficiency', said Nick.
Modelled on a cookery book. Its sub-title was A Gourmet Guide and the section titles were Starters, Main Courses and so on.The gerontologist met his wife Ruth at Cambridge University; before engaging in an affair with her university friend Jane decades later - inspiring him to write the book 'In fact I think she found Dad's intellectual explosiveness and high-octane mind difficult to live with and, although she was hurt, in some way not having him around gave her a chance to recover.Indeed, he had found a way to divide himself between the two women by spending Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with Henderson to carry out is 'practical research', and the rest of the time he was with his wife.
Comfort also tried to put some distance between himself and the publication by claiming he was the editor rather than the writer. They had begun to explore polyamory in the late 1960s when they invited friends to swingers parties in their Mulholland Drive home, before going on to found Sandstone. Nick was 17 and a boarder at Highgate School in North London when Dr Comfort announced, daringly, on a radio broadcast — this was 1963 — that no responsible teenage boy should go to a party without a condom in his pocket.Comfort came to believe sex was the antidote to war, as a strident pacifist who had been arrested and jailed in the 1960s for his activity with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Not only did he understand the need for safe sex between lovers; but according to Nicholas, his father would be disappointed by the rise of 'unfeeling sex' in the modern age.'He felt it was something you'd come to in your own time and in your own way. He welcomed the fact that more people were enjoying it and he wanted them to be properly educated about it,' he said.
Later in the 1990s, Comfort had another stroke which left him in a nursing home until his death. He was paralysed, but remained largely cognisant.'He was a great believer that sex had its place as part of a caring relationship; not as something purely mechanical. He felt that people's feelings should not be exploited,' says Nick.
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