The joy of sex, doubled!
Već je četrdesetak godina prošlo od mitske, kultne knjige “The Joy of sex”, doktora Alexa Comforta, koji je nakon svog bestselera prozvan jednostavno – doktor seks. Tako počinje današnji prikaz u Jutarnjem kojeg potpisuje Milana Vuković Runjić. Povod ovom ogledu bi teoretski moglo biti novo izdanje “Radosti seksa” koje je uredila i modernom dobu prilagodila Susan Quillian. Većina je članka ipak posvećena originalu jer reizdanje je traljavo, nezanimljivo i dosadno. Vuković Runjić se potrudila obogatiti članak s pregršt pikanterija, crticama i tračevima iz života autora, opisom društvenog konteksta, čak i usputnim komentarima koji zadiru (možda - treba pitati prof. Štulhofera) u sociologiju seksa. Evo par citata iz članka, tek toliko da dobijete dojam o tekstu: “The Joy of Sex,” which has sold more than twelve million copies worldwide, was an “unanxious account of the full repertoire of human heterosexuality,” according to its author. It was the English answer to Japanese pillow books, illustrated texts designed to show couples where to put what…” He offered readers a creation myth for “The Joy of Sex” on the first page, claiming that the book was based on a manuscript that an anonymous and particularly sexually advanced couple had presented to him in his capacity as a biologist. “I have done little to the original draft apart from expansion to cover more topics,” Comfort wrote. “The authors’ choice of emphases and their light-hearted style have been left alone.” In fact, both the choice of emphases and the lighthearted style were Comfort’s; he wrote every word of “The Joy of Sex,” though his credit on the book says “edited by.” For more than a decade, Comfort had been sleeping with Ruth’s best friend, Jane Henderson. (Comfort met both women at Cambridge.) Comfort and Henderson took dozens of Polaroids of their erotic experiments, which they gave to the publisher Mitchell Beazley along with Comfort’s manuscript—originally titled “Doing Sex Properly.” The woman depicted in these drawings is lovely, and, even nearly forty years later, quite chic. Her gentleman friend, however, looks like a werewolf with a hangover. He is heavily bearded; his hair is long, and, it always seemed, a little greasy. The original drawings have been replaced [misli se, u novom izdanju], with a mixture of modest photographs and impressionistic sketches. The hairiness has been eliminated, and the attractiveness gap between the man and the woman has been bridged. But the people in these pictures do not look as if they were in any kind of sexual ecstasy. Rather, they have the smug smiles of a couple whose 401(k)s have just appreciated. They look as if they were in a Viagra commercial… I tako. Ima još puno, ali nema smisla sad sve nabrajati. Nego, zašto su citati na engleskom? Zato, jer je bolje citirati original. Praktično identičan tekst objavljen je već prije 3 tjedna u New Yorkeru od 5. siječnja o.g. Ista kompozicija članka, iste pikanterije, isti povijesni podaci (Kamasutra i Ming period), iste paralelne reference (Our bodies, ourselves), isti stavovi, sve isto. U Jutarnjem nema reference ne Ariela Levyja i njegov članak u New Yorkeru. Čak i ako uzmemo u obzir najnevjerojatniju mogućnost da Vuković Runjić pod tim pseudonimom objavljuje u New Yorkeru, čini se da su nam i ona i Jutarnji dosta toga dužni objasniti. PS Izgleda da Jutarnji svakog siječnja pada u postblagdansku depresiju. Lani je Butković objavio Intervju, a ove godine nastupila recesija s autorskim pravima. Već su izvještaji o slijetanju aviona u Hudson bili sročeni kao da je Jutarnji glavom i bradom bio na licu mjesta, intervjuirao i fotografirao. A sad još i ovo. Ili je to samo možda novo vrijeme postavilo nova pravila. |