Let Us Enjoy

Sir: Wasn't it Samuel Butler who said, about a century ago, that man is the only animal who doesn't realize that the purpose of life is to enjoy it? Somewhere beneath the crush of fears, inhibitions, traumas and guilt complexes in all of us, there's probably a basic being who knows full weil that's why he's here but doesn't know how to utilize the realization.

Thanks to those in Masters and Johnson's profession [May 25], who dedicate themselves full time to helping make life more pleasurable for humanity. May they rip the puritanical curtain and let the sunshine in. Let us all enjoy!

(MRS.) LIZ SCHENK

Lake Oswego, Ore.

Sir: It seems to me that Masters and Johnson create more problems then they solve. As a laywoman (no pun intended), I studiously avoid all that Masterly advice on sex. So much analysis and technical information could ruin a perfectly enjoyable relationship.

MARY RITA SMALLEY

Springfield, Ill.

Sir: When I retrieved TIME from the backyard, where I'd been reading, the birds and the bees were laughing their little heads off.

The rabbits were absolutely hysterical.

ANNA M.R. STONE

Weirton, W. Va.

Sir: Masters and Johnson are rediscovering a few things about sex that Freud could have enlightened them about 80 years ago. For one thing, they are finding out that man's sexual problems have very little to do with physiology, but a great deal with the hypocrisies to which we subject our children. Being a thoroughly honest man, Freud also realized that little was to be gained from physical examinations, medical treatment or lectures. People need to learn about their fouled-up feelings, attitudes and beliefs; they do not need a course in gymnastics.

HANS H. STRUPP Professor, Department of Psychology

Vanderbilt University Nashville, Tenn.

Sir: The subject sex has rarely been approached with thicker rubber gloves and longer forceps than in your article. Nearest to it might be the Boy Scout manual of 1936 (page 399).

BARTON G. WEST

Park Ridge, Ill.

Sir: I find the current preoccupation with sex quite unnecessary. As every psychologist knows, sex is an instinctive drive, like that for taking food when hungry. One would never think of giving courses to improve the desire to take food. But this, precisely, is what your two masters of somatic intimacy are doing with sex.

As every man sooner or later discovers, sex is largely a waste of time. Remember what Lord Chesterfield said about it: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.

PHILIP EIBEL, M.D.

Montreal

Sir: After 15 years of marriage (four children), I thought the line from "Bedroom Athletics" to "move your pelvis and be hind as if they were loaded with ball bearings" would bring a chuckle from my wife. To my amazement she leaped from her chair and began to demonstrate her golf swing while muttering, "That must be the trouble."

Whether sex is more akin to golf than pro football, I leave to Miss Garrity, but it's all too funny to be real.

CHARLES A. HORNELL

Elkhart, Ind.

Waiting for an Excuse

Sir: Congratulations to the New York construction workers [May 25], the best thing that's happened in this country for a long time. I would advise some of the academic community and some other persons of less than mediocre common sense to help maintain order and to encourage political action instead of demonstrations, mobs, arson and destruction. A lot of us working people, military people and law enforcement people are waiting for enough excuse to join the construction workers.

BOB AMACHER Attorney

Downey, Calif.

Sir: The recent display by New York hardhats with their Gestapo-type invasion of a peace rally was disgusting! As a 28-year-old college student, ex-paratrooper and active participant in peace demonstrations, I was enraged at their actions.

It is actions like theirs that will lead to a violent revolution in this country.

RICHARD FOSTER

Gainesville, Fla.

Sir: At last someone in this nation of sheep has the guts to stand up against the spoiled college brats. These wet-behind-the-ears babies overran their parents, and their school administrators, and now they are after the President and the United States of America.

(MRS.) ANNA ZADINS

Penfield, N.Y.

Sir: The article on the hardhats has caused me to think about what this country has given to me and other students. I came to the conclusion that it has given us too much. This younger generation, which I am not sure I am proud to be a part of, is spoiled. The world is so simple to live in today, and we students have no challenges to face. Students who are spoiled in this way do not wish to work within any system, so they protest and expect what they demand to be handed to them on a silver platter. The colleges are in a sad state when they do not expel students who burn everything from flags to buildings, strike the classes and disrupt the learning process.

PAMELA PARRISH

Deerfield, Ill.

Charlie in a Bind

Sir: As I sit here thinking of the many objects I would like to thrust into the mouth of the protester on your cover [May 18], I say good for Mr. Nixon. In the short time since U.S. forces entered Cambodia, all of us here in Bien Hoa can see the good results. All of the supplies, i.e., weapons, ammo, rice, rockets, that have been found in "the City" and other places in Cambodia help us here Activity in our area has dropped. The V.C. gets his weapons at the store in Cambodia, and if the store is closed, he can't get the goods. And that, my fellow Americans, puts Charlie in a bind. He is now running. (How about a size 9 1/2 tropical combat boot in that mouth?)

JOHN J. SPILLANE Captain, U.S.A.

APO San Francisco

Sir: President Nixon's commitment in Cambodia makes as much sense as a man avidly pursuing a woman when he has no desire to marry her, sleep with her, or even be seen with her. If the game requires us not to win, then why try harder?

CHARLES A. ROGERS

Fairless Hills, Pa.

Rock-Salt Solution

Sir: Re "How to Keep Order Without Killing" [May 25]: Some years ago as a youth, I was a member of raiding parties. The object of our raids was not banks, schools or such, but outlying watermelon patches. The "Pigs," in those days, were grizzled farmers armed with their trusty 12-gaugers loaded with rock salt. Never heard of anyone getting killed, but it was several days before some of us could sit down comfortably. Anyway, such tactics effectively protected valuable property and maintained law and order.

GEORGE R. WILSON

Santa Barbara, Calif.

Measured by the Can

Sir: John Gardner's famous undelivered speech [May 25] contains an inconsistency in thought common to most politicians.

Gardner laudably appeals for "immediate and far-reaching moves" to save the environment, but he follows this with a call for "sustained economic growth." Since said growth is largely responsible for the plunder of natural resources, this is like trying to repair, maintain, and fuel a car while pressing the accelerator to the floor. Good ecology is incompatible with ancient economic dogmas that wealth is something measured in beer cans per consumer.

PIERCE BUTLER

La Crescenta, Calif.

Sage of the Age

Sir: I read the frankly ridiculous letter of Miss Linda Eldredge [May 11]. What broken promises, which worthless agreements, and just which reforms is she referring to? And what does she know about world politics, strategy, history, social patterns? And just how are things "getting worse each day"? Did she ever take the time to find out just how much better a place the world is today for just how many more people than it was a mere 50 years ago? What progress there has been in countless fields from medicine to farming to justice? I doubt it. But she wants the world ruled and remodeled to fit her requirements.

I have to agree with Professor K. Ross Toole, of the University of Montana, who wrote: "By virtue of what right, by what accomplishment, should thousands of teenagers, wet behind the ears and utterly without the benefit of having lived long enough to have either judgment or wisdom, become the sages of our time?"

(MRS.) AMY M. VARDALA

Bronxville, N.Y.

Now for a Nest Egg

Sir: In accord with the rash of egg throwing currently breaking out in England, per "An Eggalitarian Education" [May 18], a fellow student and I took it upon ourselves to test the evidence presented to the public in TIME in order to corroborate the validity of the article. Consequently, we announced to the student body of our small high school that I would throw ten eggs a maximum distance onto the school's luxuriantly soft lawn. Naturally, as this was a sporting event, we could not resist taking a few modest bets from various other students who challenged our claim that six of the ten eggs would remain unbroken.

Rest assured that we still have an ample amount of faith in TIME, and as soon as we conclude the bankruptcy proceedings, we plan to reincorporate and try again.

DAVID OSBORNE CASEY MAN DEL

Tacoma, Wash.

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