Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do

Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do is a collection of essays written by E. B. White and James Thurber, first published in 1929.[1]

The book is a spoof of the many popular books on Freudian sexual theories published in the 1920s. In a preface for the 1950 edition, White recalled, "Thurber and I were neither more, nor less, interested in the subject of love and marriage than anybody else of our age in that era. I recall that we were both profoundly interested in earning a living, and I think we somehow managed, simultaneously, to arrive at the conclusion that. . . the heavy writers had got sex down and were breaking its arm. We were determined that sex should maintain its high spirits."[2]

White and Thurber wrote alternate chapters, then compared them for overlap. They invented numerous pseudo-sexual terms, including Diversion Subterfuge, Osculatory Justification, and Schmalhausen Trouble. They also fabricated the names of psychologists and sex researchers, including Dr. Karl Zaner and Dr. Walter Titheridge.[3]

White and Thurber held little hope of publication but Harper's, which had published White's first book of poetry, came out with a small printing of 2,500 copies in November 1929. The book became a bestseller and launched the publishing careers of both Thurber and White. A critic for the Saturday Review of Literature called the book, "One of the silliest books in years, and perfectly lovely. It left this reviewer partially paralyzed, with a written face streaming with tears."[2] The book also introduced readers to Thurber's spare cartoons, which soon became a regular feature in The New Yorker.

The 75th anniversary edition published in 2004 includes a foreword by John Updike.[4]

References
  1. Root, Robert L. (1999-04-01). E.B. White: the emergence of an essayist. University of Iowa Press. pp. 13–. ISBN 978-0-87745-667-4. Retrieved 19 February 2012.
  2. "Is Sex Necessary?". The Attic. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
  3. Kinney, Harrison; Thurber, Rosemary A. (2007-11-01). The Thurber Letters: The Wit, Wisdom and Surprising Life of James Thurber. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780743226219.
  4. Thurber, James; White, E. B. (2004). Is Sex Necessary? or, Why You Feel the Way You Do (1st Perennial ed., 75th anniversary ed.). New York: Perennial. ISBN 978-0060733148. OCLC 55870926.


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