Epitaph for Eros

The time has come to relax. Sex is here to stay. The age of pioneers is past. The frontier is homesteaded by the suitcase farmers; main street is lined with porcelain fronted stores. Now safely in the hands of the Mickey Jelkes and Mickey Spillanes, sex has eased itself out of a situation in which it was once something to be anguishedly against, feverishly for, or even a particular source of concern.

Unquestionably, it’s a relief. Thought, analysis, and action may I turn to other fields. Sex is no longer the treatment of choice in epatering des bourgeois, a repetitious technique for scratching a ballot of confidence in society as it exists. Four letter words are no longer the passport to both the docks and the doctorate. Even the tired pioneers, retreating from their exposed position in the scouting force, are now willing to admit that even the upper classes have probably been doing very well for themselves, thank you. Other pastimes have elbowed out promiscuity. And those intricate but inherently limited variations on the basic pattern of him and her, once guaranteed conversation pieces, now arouse only a yawn when competing with the attractions of high fidelity and contours d’elegance.

Still, although the shouting may have been excessive, the sexual revolution was both fun and functional. Implausible as it may seem, sexual activities per se have aroused the abhorrence reserved in some societies for eating meat and milk out of the same dish, ne...