Orgy Time

 Orgy '70.  I bought my copy off eBay, shrink wrapped and ready to be torn open like a . . . well, you get the picture. At the time it was published it was a mere .88 cents. In 1970, which is when this came out, the .88 cents was probably the equivalent of $700 or so. I got it for a few bucks, which I considered a steal. 

The book reported to be a look at the orgy scene in the late '60s courtesy of Dr. Alfredo Rathermann. I somehow doubt that this is the same Dr. Alfredo Rathermann who won a Noble Prize in the fictional book Monsters of the Midway, though maybe the author of that book is actually Rathermann because I don't believe Alfredo is a real doctor or ever really existed. Just his descriptions of females alone (with special attention paid to their breasts) is enough to give that away, but if that doesn't convince you, perhaps the fact that the book is exploitive, adults only, and is part of the Hourglass Library (which is an imprint that put out a lot of sleaze at the time) will do the trick.

Rathermann primarily transcribes conversations with his patients regarding the new orgies plaguing America in the late 1960s. These conversations, where everyone talks the same, go into great detail about electric orgies, LSD orgies, orgies in women's clubs, and orgies in the office. He saves the best and most salacious for last: the high school orgy, where teens and teachers smash bodies and genitals in every way imaginable in the hallways, offices, and bathrooms. Can you dig it? Of course you can. That's why people bought this in the first place.

I love vintage sleaze. I love exploitive sex books. I even like books that are both those things but pretend to be scientific studies (a good way to make it past censors and a cover for "respectable" households where the books may have found their way to the shelves). This one, however, kind of rubbed me the wrong way at times due to its ridiculous premise. When quoting another book by Rathermann's medical colleague, whom I believe is the author using yet another name, mention is made of male teens inserting slices of pizza in female teen's vaginas and then eating the slices of Italian delight (the pizza, not the teen girl). Really? Not pizza rolls, which had not yet surfaced in the freezer section of the neighborhood grocer, but full slices of pizza.  I don't know. I find that rather . . . fiction-like. And if Rathermann is going to transcribe conversations, why does all the different men, women, and teens girls he interviews sound like the same person "talking." I get that the "hip" lingo was commonplace at the time, but there are always going to be variances in dialogue.

All of that adds up to this being poorly written sleaze disguised as something so much more important. Granted, people buying this book, shrink wrapped for their own protection and to provide temptation, were getting it for the sleaze factor, but I cannot help but think they would have wanted it to at least be well-written and believable. Nothing takes one out of the mood faster than trying to picture some physical gymnastics that seem impossible during an orgy scene. And does a 17-year-old girl, who is apparently mortified by the amount of sexual hijinks in her school, not only feel so overtaken with lust that she goes down on her female teacher and tells the unknown guy screwing her from behind that he better continue what he is doing or she will "kill" him? I know that is to indicate just how her sex drive went into overdrive, but it does not match up with how the girl has been conversing up until that point. It simply makes no sense.

In Rathermann's world, all of this and more happens. Wild bisexual women drool over BBC. Men drop LSD into candy bars that then soften them up, roll them into a ball, and insert it into their female partner's holiest of holy places. Love juices flow like Budweiser at a kegger, and everyone is turned on, maaannnn. And, of course, they all tell the "doctor" he just doesn't get it.

I was going to sell my copy back on eBay, and maybe someday I will. For now, though, I'm holding onto it. Every once in a while I will need a reminder of what bad writing looks like, and I will be able to turn to this prime specimen. 

Orgies never took over the country like Rathermann feared (or hoped?), but if they had and they had been like these, it would have been groovy. Just ask the young men and women found between these covers. If they take the time to rip the electrodes from their genitals and come down off the acid, I'm sure they would tell you that it's a "real cool scene, cat."