Sunday, August 07, 2011

Robert Benchley Wants No More Sex

In the November 29, 1930 issue of The New Yorker, Robert Benchley concluded his weekly theatre column with this:
I am now definitely ready to announce that Sex, as a theatrical property, is as tiresome as the Old Mortgage, and that I don't want to hear it mentioned ever again. I am sick of little Southern girls who want "to live." I am sick of hearting fathers and mothers talk to little girls, Southern or otherwise, about "what lies before them." I am sick of rebellious Youth and I am sick of Victorian parents, and I don't care if all the little girls in all sections of the United States get ruined or want to get ruined or keep from getting ruined. All I ask is: don't write plays about it and ask me to sit through them.

I assume that Benchley was soon to get his wish.

1 comment:

Gary said...

Interesting quote. Two of his contemporaries at The New Yorker, E. B. White and James Thurber, teamed to write "Is Sex Necessary" - a spoof of the psychological treatment on the subject.

Was this quote a reaction to that 1929 book?