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High School Kama Sutra

MrRING

MrRING

Android Futureman
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Remember in the first American Pie when one of the guys finds out about a hidden book on the school premises, a book that has the collected sexual knowledge of high school seniors for years? The book is passesd on from generation to generation?

Well, is the general idea a real urban legend that goes on at schools, maybe not about sexual knowledge but some other secret information pamplet hidden on the school grounds? Because I feel like I've heard it before, but it may have just been in another story rather than a genuine UL.
 
I definitely recall the underground / word-of-mouth means by which young people were forced to research 'doing it', but I don't recall any stories about a collectively compiled 'book of love' that was passed on from earlier to later youths - either in school or elsewhere.

I do recall fellow boys passing around 'wedding night guides' (i.e., 'pillow books') that they'd obtained from who-knows-where. Some were basically just erotica, some were actually instructional / guide documents, and most were a blend of both. These, however, were published works rather than self-compiled compendia.

The only such youth-generated shared books or compendia I encountered were 'slam books' - typically notebooks with one question per page which each kid was obligated to answer. The questions were mainly personal and / or social in nature, ranging from (e.g.) "What's your favorite ******?" to "What do you think of / Do you like [person X]?}. You couldn't see the slam book unless you filled in your own entries / answers. Sometimes the contributors were clearly identified, but not always.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slam_book
 
EnolaGaia said:
The only such youth-generated shared books or compendia I encountered were 'slam books' - typically notebooks with one question per page which each kid was obligated to answer. The questions were mainly personal and / or social in nature, ranging from (e.g.) "What's your favorite ******?" to "What do you think of / Do you like [person X]?}. You couldn't see the slam book unless you filled in your own entries / answers. Sometimes the contributors were clearly identified, but not always.
Click to expand...

this sounds like it couldve developed into the purity test, which i came across at uea circa 88

purity test on wikipedia
 
I do recall in my earliest years of high school, so we're talking age 11-12 a printed book, in reasonable numbers doing the rounds of the school called 'The Little Red School Book'. It was small in size, like a pocket dictionary, red in colour and was essentially a sex education guide and information on life using language that schoolkids would use. For example instead of ''intercourse'' it used the word ''fuck''. Instead of the correct name for genitalia, it used words like ''cock'' and ''prick'' and ''cunt'' and ''pussy''. We found it both informative and hilarious all at once. I bought a copy for $1 from a guy in the year above me which is how most of my friends also obtained theirs.
Can't recall who wrote it, or even if there was one sole author, however I do seem to recall that it was originally Swedish ( I may be wrong about that).
I've not thought about this for decades, until reading this thread tonight.
 
The Little Red School Book caused quite a stir when it began to proliferate from its Danish origin to other languages and countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Schoolbook

I was already out of high school and heading to college by the time of its arrival (first published in 1969), so I didn't have any first-person experience with it. I do, however, vaguely recall the controversies surrounding its distribution in other countries back in the 1970's.

For the record ... An uncensored 2014 edition of the book can be obtained from - you guessed it - Amazon ...

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Red-Schoolbook-Søren-Hansen/dp/1780661304
 
Lord Lucan said:
I do recall in my earliest years of high school, so we're talking age 11-12 ...
Click to expand...

The pre-teen / 'tween era is also the age range in which I encountered slam books. The first time I saw one was circa age 11 (5th grade), and the last time I recall ever seeing one was circa age 14 (8th grade and transition into secondary / high school).
 
EnolaGaia said:
The Little Red School Book caused quite a stir when it began to proliferate from its Danish origin to other languages and countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Schoolbook

I was already out of high school and heading to college by the time of its arrival (first published in 1969), so I didn't have any first-person experience with it. I do, however, vaguely recall the controversies surrounding its distribution in other countries back in the 1970's.

For the record ... An uncensored 2014 edition of the book can be obtained from - you guessed it - Amazon ...

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Red-Schoolbook-Søren-Hansen/dp/1780661304
Click to expand...

It was 1976 or 77 when I came across it (not literally). I sold my copy on a year or so after buying it. I wonder what an original would be worth these days?
 
No, I've not seen the film. Back in the Sixties I ran across allusions to 'pillow books' in the sense of erotica or sexual manuals. I don't know whether this slang label had anything to do with the famous Japanese work.
 
It's worth digging this film out if you can.

INT21.
 
The movie is actually by Peter Greenaway. It's based on an ancient Japanese book by a lady called Sei Shōnagon. 'Pillow book' came to mean in Japanese a kind of miscellany of musings, a notebook you might keep next to your bed to write whatever you happened to think of in, rather than something specifically sexual.
 
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