The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior

Explicit, detailed and authoritative, it challenges sexual myths by presenting revealing details about aspects of American sex, separating facts from fiction and anxiety. Nine years of research, interviews and mass questionnaire results document how the influence of education, age, sex, religion, politics, marital status, income and regions of the country affect sexual practices and attitudes.

Stuffed with formidable tables but leavened by first-person confessions, this dryly written, informative and often startling survey is an impressive contribution to understanding human sexuality and Americans' wide spectrum of erotic behavior in the age of AIDS. The Januses (he is a psychology professor at New York Medical College; she is a physician) analyzed 2765 questionnaires and follow-up interviews nationwide. This husband-wife team found that young people are commencing intercourse much earlier than in any previous era and that nearly half of the elderly respondents had an active sex life. One-third of those who consider themselves "very religious" have had extramarital sex at least once. Political ultraconservatives rated sadomasochism an acceptable practice far more often than did either independents or ultraliberals. The authors' claim that Americans are enjoying a "Second Sexual Revolution," with more freedom than ever to explore their sexual selves, is not substantiated by the evidence. First serial to Redbook and Playboy; author tour.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Purported to be the first national study on sex life since Masters and Johnson, this volume's suspect methodology undermines the authors' claims that their findings are applicable to the entire United States. Based on nearly 3000 responses to anonymous questionnaires and 125 in-depth interviews (excerpted throughout the text) from 1983 to 1992, the wordy narrative serves more to reiterate than to analyze the results presented in the statistical tables. Filled with subjective misinformation, specious reasoning, inconsistencies, and redundancy, this poorly organized title is not a necessary purchase. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/92.
- James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.