Gay Talese’s Fantastic Journey

Gay Talese’s Fantastic Journey

Even by today’s standards, Gay Talese’s Thy Neighbor’s Wife remains a remarkably bold book. Although its title comes from the Old Testament book of Exodus—“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor”—the book’s subject matter is, of course, closely tied to the idea of the “neighbor’s wife.” And once one learns about the background behind the writing of the book, it becomes even more astonishing.

Put simply, Thy Neighbor’s Wife recounts the course of the sexual liberation movement in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. It covers topics such as the founding of adult magazines like Playboy and the lives of their creators, the rise and disintegration of sex-liberation communities, and the government’s legislative investigations into obscenity, along with representative legal cases. Writing in the voice of a journalist, Talese gives a detailed and vivid account of an important period of social transformation in America. His narrative style shifts between the sweeping and the delicate, often creating the feeling of watching a documentary. In a curious way, it shares a familiar stylistic resonance with The Glory and the Dream. In terms of both period and subject matter, it also works well as a companion to that book, since both depict different facets of the same historical era.

It is not hard to imagine the criticism and even contempt Talese faced after publishing this book in the early 1980s. It was, in a sense, the natural reaction of a public whose fig leaf had suddenly been torn away. Even today, our society still tends to treat sex as a taboo subject, something rarely addressed openly or discussed directly. Yet the success of Playboy and other adult works made people realize that ordinary human desires cannot simply be ignored, and that such instinctive desires carry enormous commercial value in human society. At the same time, a civilized society cannot allow these instincts to develop without restraint. It must confront them directly and establish rules to regulate them. In the decades since Thy Neighbor’s Wife was published, global civilization has continued to evolve. In China, although discussion of sex remains limited for reasons including traditional attitudes, the very fact that Thy Neighbor’s Wife could be published is itself a sign of progress. In the United States, meanwhile, the book has gone from being despised and dismissed to being recognized as a classic of its era. Its descriptions, analysis, and exploration deserve broad attention and reflection from society as a whole.

The writing of this book was also, in a sense, Talese’s own fantastical erotic journey. In order to obtain firsthand material, he personally immersed himself in the sexual liberation movement, lived in nude communities, and developed close contact with figures including the founder of Playboy. From the standpoint of journalistic dedication, this was certainly admirable. But in the eyes of many of his contemporaries, it became: “You have sunk to this level yourself, and now you want to write a book to lead others into depravity.” Because of this book, Talese too became the target of criticism and scorn. Yet the person who stood firmly by his side at the time was, of all people, his wife. She stepped forward to explain to the public the professional spirit behind Talese’s work as a journalist. It may be difficult to understand, but it is undeniably worthy of admiration.

On a more personal level, this book does not offer much direct benefit or guidance for an individual’s own views on sex. If it provokes anything, it is reflection prompted by the transformation of sexual attitudes in American society. By contrast, when it comes to books specifically about sex, Alain de Botton’s How to Think More About Sex is more useful in that it analyzes love and desire from the individual perspective, and is by no means without insight.