Sex Maniacs

 

Does any phrase bring to mind the atmosphere, the aroma, of the British 1970s better than "sex maniac"?

Not a rhetorical question - I genuinely am curious if there's a more evocative word or phrase.

I mean, there's "secondary picket". 

The ad above is from 1976.  The Sex Maniac's Diary launched in 1972, which surely proves its echt-Seventiesness. ("Kinky" would be the much cooler 1960s precursor I should think) (In fact, the Diary has a Kink of the Week listed).. 

It reminds me of this forgotten book that I actually got for Christmas that year, I'm really not sure why, given that I was about 13 at the time.

A sort of spoof on Superwoman -  a 1975 best-selling guide to achieving female omni-competence by Shirley Conran - but also a genuine guide for the modern gentleman. Apparently it too was a best-seller.

The only things I can remember from it are Willie Rushton's advice on sex: a gentleman always says "thank you" afterwards. And also that prior to intimacy, a man should always undress top down - shirt first, then trousers and socks. Trousers removed while the shirt is still on, he considered an undignified look that would blow your image of suave savoir faire in the boudoir.   

Back to the Sex Maniac's Diary - someone I knew at Melody Maker, a freelancer, one of those interesting oddball characters who found their way into the inkie press, actually worked for  Tuppy Owens, the female entrepreneur-activist behind the "Sex Maniac's" brand (there were Sex Maniacs Balls and the Erotic Awards and all kinds of other products - this chap was involved in all of that). This would be late '80s, very early '90s, when you would have thought that the "sex maniac" concept would seem frightfully dated. 

Actually looking into her life, Tuppy Owens seems to have been a genuinely progressive figure.  And she died earlier this year in fact. 

The concept of "sex maniac" always makes me think of the wonderful trailer for this classic of softcore smut, a/k/a "funography"

I love the husky elation of the woman singing the theme song: "this is your life, Timmy Lee!"

I say "classic", but I still haven't watched the whole film, even though it's out there

There's also a film called Confessions of a Sex Maniac, but not sure if this is from the actual official series of Confessions... books / films, which always stipulated a profession or occupation or line of employment, that happened to lend itself to sex-mania

1974, need you ask... 

A rip off of the Confessions template 

Although there was a Confessions of A Plumber's Mate book.... 

Another rip-off of the Confessions template

                                                            Also from the 1970s, natch

Possible convergence of "sex maniac" and "secondary pickets", ahoy

"Shop Steward" - another '70s-scented phrase

Ooh, something much much earlier - 1934!

However I think it was originally just called Maniac and then repackaged as Sex Maniac and repositioned for the porno market. In the '70s or '80s 

Not sure if any of the following have any relation to Tuppy Owens's brand

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A serious thought - the journey from "sex maniac" to "sex addiction" tells a story about our times. From permissiveness and libidinal liberation to a medicalized era and the idea of appetite-as-affliction

Mind you I suppose - as jocular as an expression as "sex maniac" was, it did contain the idea of psychopathology

What is the literature of sex mania? 

Portnoy's Complaint. 

The early creepy short stories of Ian McEwan (Ian Macabre as he was nicknamed) have an angle on the souring of Sixties liberation-drive into something seedy, sordid, and depressive-hedonist. There's one involving some blokes who work in a sex shop in Soho... and another about an all-nude singing-dancing-fornicating West End theatre production...  and then there's the ones about incest, child molestation (two of those, very different) and Los Angeles as where erotic politics slackens into nullifying decadence.

There's at least a couple of porn film called Sex Maniac and Sex Maniacs - both from the 1970s

But probably the place where the concept lived largest was TV comedy. Everyone is being accused of being one, or claiming to be one. 

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I actually know a sex maniac.... Always on the pull, always going on sex holidays. 

This lad's like a characterological throwback to the 1970s - men with eyeballs popping out on stalks and necks that swivel every time a curvy young lady walks by...  panting... sweat popping off the forehead and damping up the hairy palms...  slavering for a glimpse of knickers... 

Like a young, very good looking Benny Hill with ultra-hip music taste

A dirty young man, in fact...

1970s-throwback too insofar as he doesn't use the apps, he's a chat up merchant, always getting girl's numbers in the street.

Funny thing is that he is of the generation that is supposed to have gone off sex, to be doing it markedly less than previous generations...   either dissatisfied by or deflected from the Real Thing by their porn addictions... or paradoxically turned off sex because of  its insta-availability through Tinder etc... in exactly the same way that streaming can create musical anhedonia, a wilting and atrophy of the urge... 

Not him though

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