With chapters covering everything from “Frigidity” to “Aphrodisiacs” to “September Sex” and sample questions including: “Isn’t it sort of indecent for old people to have sex?” Reuben’s most enlightening insights concern the topic of male homosexuality. Within his Q&A format, the good doctor is a veritable fountain of knowledge on this then-taboo subject. For example:
Q
Couldn’t homosexuals just be born that way?
AA lot of homosexuals would like to think so. They prefer to consider their problem the equivalent of a clubfoot or a birthmark; just something to struggle through life with.
A clubfoot? Why, that’s brilliant! That must be what all those activists mean when they say people are born gay — it’s like being born with a clubfoot. Thanks, Doc, for clearing that one up. Reuben informs his readers that one need not stay queer and malformed forever. Gays too can be happy so long as they renounce their homosexuality and find a proper psychiatrist to get them back on the straight and narrow.
Throughout the chapter, Reuben continues to provide sage advice about gay habits and techniques, discussing the frequency of hollow homo promiscuity and talking shop about how gay men “haunt” rest stops and bowling alleys — homo hot spots, if you will. According to Reuben, “A homosexual walks into the men’s washroom and spots another homosexual. One drops to his knees, the other unzips his pants, and a few moments later, it’s all over. No names, no faces, no emotions.... Random and reckless selection of partners is the trademark.... This is the core of homosexuality.”
Never before has a sweeter bit of prose than
"parade of penises" been uttered in the English language.
His greatest stroke of genius, however, may come in his discussion of “attempted” monogamy between gay men: “The bitterest argument between husband and wife is a passionate love sonnet by comparison with a dialogue between a butch and his queen. Live together? Yes. Happily? Hardly.... They may set up housekeeping together, but the parade of penises usually continue unabated.”
Never before has a sweeter bit of prose than “parade of penises” been uttered in the English language (take that Chaucer!). But there is just one problem with Reuben’s assessment of what it means to be a gay man in America: He was wrong.
In 1999, the Doctor published a revision to his masterwork, telling CNN in February of that year that he had updated 96 percent of its content and saying, among other things, that, “Homosexuality isn’t what it used to be.” Unfortunately for Reuben, he still didn’t get it right for the new millennium. Homosexuality is exactly what it used to be. It’s how people perceive homosexuality that has changed over the past four decades.
On April 10, 2007, The New York Times published a special section on desire, which explored advances in scientific research on sexuality. One article, written by Nicholas Wade titled “Pas de Deux of Sexuality is Written in the Genes,” details the increasingly supported argument that sexual orientation is dictated by genetics. “Desire between sexes is not a matter of choice,” he says. “Straight men, it seems, have neural circuits that prompt them to seek out women; gay men have those prompting them to seek other men.” Wade goes on to interview researchers and scientists from UCLA, Rutgers University, Northwestern University, and others — all of whom have conducted studies yielding research in favor of the genetic claim.
Marc Breedlove, a neuroscientist at Michigan State University, says, “I think most scientists working on these questions are convinced that the antecedents of sexual orientation in males are happening early in life, probably before birth.” In other words, it’s not a clubfoot.
According to the 1999 CNN interview, more than a hundred million people read Reuben’s original book. It was a best seller in fifty-one countries. Most of it contained helpful information about a subject normally off limits to well-mannered society. It did wonders to liberalize sex education in classrooms nationwide. It also just so happened to propagate damaging generalizations about an already-persecuted fraction of society.
Ironically, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) made its debut the same year as the New York City Stonewall Riots.
From Greenwich Village to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the public perception of “gay in America” has changed a lot over the course of thirty-eight years. And, like all struggles for social acceptance, progress cannot be expected to happen overnight. Thus, we turn back now to the great Dr. David Reuben for wisdom: “Homosexuality is here to stay ... It’s important for everyone — parents, children, teachers, and government officials — to learn about it and understand it.” Well said Doc — finally.
