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This is the second revised American edition of a work which has gone through 25 editions in England since 1935. Such sale testifies to its popularity as a basic book for general sex education in marriage counseling practice. It is intended primarily as a pre-marital guide to be given to clients, but this intent is somewhat confused in the last pages where all sorts of clinics and counseling information is given that might be better used by a counsellor himself.
The text covers the usual material, including anatomy and physiology, a discussion of emotions on a fairly superficial level, and problems of engaged persons. A long chapter is given over to contraceptives, and the work of the Planned Parenthood Federation. The author next takes up problems of sex relations with a reasonably frank presentation of technique, and then there is a long chapter on sex communion which includes a comprehensive discussion of the need for emotional build-up prior to intercourse itself. Chapters on spacing children, abortion, male sexual problems and sterility give the client some knowledge of these situations should they occur, and the book concludes with a discussion of the need for sex education, a discussion of marriage counseling and a long list of Planned Parenthood clinics, with street addresses, etc.
The text seems reasonably accurate and while superficial, is probably sufficient for the average lay person. It should be used in conjunction with adequate individual conferences to iron out the errors in thinking generated by the author's fairly dogmatic writing methods. It represents a useful sort of thing to hand a patient who needs a book to reinforce his therapeutic sessions.