Though “The Joy of Sex” may seem phallocentric and a little lecherous to pore over these days, when it was released in 1972, Dr. Alex Comfort’s book was considered radical — in a good way.

The famous guide to the act and art of lovemaking — written using French cuisine as an underlying metaphor — was not only the product of a social and sexual revolution, but also one of the catalysts that caused the zeitgeist to shift.

Now, at what might be a new dawn of sexuality (for better or worse), the book has been revised for another generation.

English author and relationship psychologist Susan Quilliam was given the task of bringing Comfort’s book into the 21st century. I spoke with her over the phone from the United Kingdom about the old and new versions.

Q. Do you remember picking up the Joy of Sex as a child or teenager?

A. I must say you’re very sweet for thinking I could have been a child at the time. I do indeed remember. I was actually 22 the year the book came out. My boyfriend and I at the time were spending the weekend in his flat, and his flat mate was away. And we found the book on the flat mate’s bedside table. We read through it, and disappeared into our bedroom and had and a very nice time, thank you.

Q. Along with “Our bodies, Ourselves” The Joy of Sex is said to be responsible for a kind of sexual awakening and a removing of taboos.

A. When the book came out it was about a decade after the pill had changed the place of sex in society. With the pill came the possibility of sex without pregnancy, therefore the possibility of sex without commitment. So people were having more sex, but they were having it without more information. One of the reasons Dr. Comfort wrote the book was that his patients were coming in with all sorts of questions. He wrote the book to teach them, but he also wrote the book to inspire them.

Q. And that was unique at the time?

A. Perhaps it was. You mentioned “Our bodies, Ourselves”, which is a fantastic book. It really complemented “The Joy of Sex” because it came from a woman’s perspective. And it had a lot of very useful and helpful health information. But “The Joy of Sex” was, again, significant from a values perspective, in that it showed sex is play and that you can use it to learn about yourself.

Q. What immediately struck you as needing an update?

A. The thing that didn’t need changing largely were the values. They weren’t so far removed from our values today. Some of them were a little off. There was a lot more emphasis on free love and openness, with no mention of jealousy or the consequences. Certainly, we know that open relationships and open sexuality can work and be appropriate and beneficial, but we also know it involves careful emotional handling.

There was also a lot more emphasis on male sexuality. It was a book written by a man for men. Which is part of the reason I was happy to edit the new version. The science was also outdated. A whole raft of things were missing, like the Internet of course.

Q. What about things that needed to be changed or taken out?

A. The one we often quote is sex on a motorcycle, because it’s now illegal unless you wear a helmet. There was a chapter on the chastity belt, too. Yeah, it’s interesting, but I had to cut something in order to meet the word limit. And what was written was a little misogynistic anyway. There was a section called the goldfish, which was about a group sex situation where you tied people together and they had sex while people were watching. Yes, it could happen and probably does, but it’s at the far end of things.

Q. What about Comfort’s famous advice to women, “Don’t get yourself raped”?

A. Almost all the things where Comfort was criticized end up in some way being a reflection of the times or the era in which he wrote the book. There was a great feeling in the late ’60s and early ’70s, where a woman would lead a man on and suffer because of her actions. There was also a statement in the book where a man should never suffer from a lack of erection, “so long as he has a young and beautiful partner.” The implication is that men who suffer from erectile dysfunction should be trading in their old partner for a new young one. Yes, it happens, but do we really want to advise it? No.

Q. In the sexualized culture of today, what can we learn from The New Joy of Sex?

A. There are two things. Because we live in such a sexualized culture, the information available is often inaccurate. If you look on any Internet porn site, you’re getting information that is unhelpful to healthy sex lives. Women with huge breasts, men with huge penises, and sex that is an animal rather than human act. Now that we are a sexualized society, we’ve somehow lost the joy of sex, because there’s so much fear — fears about jealousy, about rape. Sex has become quite a scary thing. The book makes a strong statement that’s sex can be fun. It’s very powerful, but it can be happy.

A hairy issue

The only book I ever read that was intended to elucidate the nature and inner workings of sex was “Where Did I Come From?” And I was forced to do so, so all I remember was that the man looked disconcertingly like a naked cartoon version of my father.

For many people, “The Joy of Sex” is a book they will always remember for a similarly distasteful reason — the images of a creepy illustrated dude making love to an angelic illustrated woman. One just can’t help but notice the long-hair and scraggly beard.

A writer at The New Yorker likened this hirsute fellow to “a werewolf with a hangover.” A friend of mine said you could scrawl a swastika on his forehead and he would look exactly like Charles Manson. My wife was simply afraid of the guy. I asked Quilliam about the new version’s illustrations.

The guy in the original illustrations looks pretty frightening. You decided to go a new way?

The bearded man was in some way representative of the times. My boyfriend had a beard and long hair, and the flat mate with the bedside table whose copy of the book we read had a beard and long hair. All the people in the flat had a beard and long hair, actually, except the womennowadays.

That man isn’t the only change. The woman now has no underarm hair, and trimmed pubic hair. Did you consult with the new illustrator?

I gave a brief, but I wasn’t involved in the pictures or the drawings directly. There have been mixed reviews for the drawings, but they are based on photographs, exactly as they were in the original. (In the original, Comfort and a sex partner had photos taken of themselves, and an illustrator used those photos as the basis for the drawings — but Comfort did not have long hair and a beard. That was creative license.)

So was it simply assumed that the woman of today would be more manicured?

It was absolutely assumed that the female model would be more or less hairless. In the same way as Alex Comfort was speaking from his time advised against hair trimming and perfume, in general now we like to be well washed, well trimmed and smelling nice.