Sex and the Single Girl
Encyclopedia
Sex and the Single Girl was written in 1962 by Helen Gurley Brown
Helen Gurley Brown
Helen Gurley Brown , is an author, publisher, and businesswoman. She was editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine for 32 years.-Personal life and career:...

, as an advice book that encouraged women to become financially independent and experience sexual relationships before or without marriage. The book sold 2 million copies in 3 weeks, was sold in 35 countries and has made The Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...

 lists.

Publication

In 1960, Gurley Brown’s husband, David Brown
David Brown (producer)
David Brown was an American film producer.-Early life and career:Brown was born in New York City, the son of Lillian and Edward Fisher Brown. He was best known as the producing partner of Richard D. Zanuck. They were jointly awarded the Irving G...

, suggested she write a book that discusses “how a single girl goes about having an affair.” The book was rejected by several publishing houses until it was accepted by Bernard Geis of Bernard Geis Associates.

The original title was Sex for the Single Girl, but this was changed because “it sounded like [it] was advocating sex for all single girls.” Gurley Brown had also written a section on contraceptive methods that was omitted from the final publication. The book was advertised through a large scale campaign created by Letty Cottin Pogrebin
Letty Cottin Pogrebin
Letty Cottin Pogrebin is an American writer and journalist. She graduated from Brandeis University and became a writer and feminist advocate in the early 1970s. In 1971, she was one of the founding editors of Ms...

 of Bernard Geis Associates in conjunction with Gurley Brown. The campaign involved print ads as well as television, radio and bookstore appearances; however, Gurley Brown was often barred from saying “sex” during her television appearances. Cottin and Gurley Brown also attempted to have the book censored or banned in the United States as a marketing technique, but they were unsuccessful. The book was also endorsed on the jacket by Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....

 and Gypsy Rose Lee
Gypsy Rose Lee
Gypsy Rose Lee was an American burlesque entertainer famous for her striptease act. She was also an actress, author, and playwright whose 1957 memoir was made into the stage musical and film Gypsy.-Early life:...

 and the 2003 edition is endorsed on the back cover by Sex and the City
Sex and the City
Sex and the City is an American television comedy-drama series created by Darren Star and produced by HBO. Broadcast from 1998 until 2004, the original run of the show had a total of ninety-four episodes...

’s Kim Cattrall
Kim Cattrall
Kim Victoria Cattrall is an English actress. She is known for her role as Samantha Jones in the HBO comedy/romance series Sex and the City, and for her leading roles in the 1980s films Police Academy, Big Trouble in Little China, Mannequin, and Porky's...

. Following the success of Sex and the Single Girl, Gurley Brown became the editor of Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...

in 1965, and went on to publish several other books which include Sex and the Office (1965), Helen Gurley Brown's Single Girl's Cookbook (1969), and Sex and the New Single Girl (1970).

Summary

Introduction (New 2003)

In the 2003 edition, Gurley Brown includes a reintroduction to her book and briefly outlines the static situations and changes that the single woman has faced from the 1960s to 2003.



Chapter 1. Women Alone? Oh Come Now!

The first chapter introduces the single girl to the advantages of her situation, and offers brief advice that will be expanded upon in the following chapters.



Chapter 2. The Availables: The Men in Your Life

Gurley Brown suggests that the single girl make a list of all the men in her life and then slot them into the following categories: “The Eligibles”, “The Eligibles-But-Who-Needs-Them”, “The Don Juans”, “The Married Man”, “The Homosexual”, “The Divorcing Man” and “The Younger Man”. She then proceeds to advise how to handle the men in each category.



Chapter 3. Where to Meet Them

The obstacles the single girl faces, and how to overcome them, when meeting men in such environments such as: “Your Job”, “Friends of Friends”, and “Alcoholics Anonymous”.



Chapter 4. How to be Sexy

Outlines the different styles of sexy and how to achieve a “sexth sense”, and also refers to Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Charles Kinsey was an American biologist and professor of entomology and zoology, who in 1947 founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, as well as producing the Kinsey Reports and the Kinsey...

’s reports.



Chapter 5. Nine to Five

Includes “Mother Brown’s Twelve Rules for Squirming, Worming, Inching, and Pinching Your Way to the Top”.



Chapter 6. Money Money Money

This chapter explains how to stretch your money in areas such as driving and eating, because “nobody likes a poor girl. She is just a drag.”



Chapter 7. The Apartment

Discusses decorating on a budget, hiring a decorator and do it yourself tips such as including “Gobs of Pictures” and how to achieve “A Sexy Kitchen”.



Chapter 8. The Care and Feeding of Everybody

Includes different methods of at home entertaining and recipes for “Three Fabulous Little Dinners and One Semi–Fabulous Brunch”.



Chapter 9. The Shape You’re In

The chapter on how to eat well and stay fit with “Gladys Lindberg’s Serenity Cocktail”, “Ruth West’s Stop Dieting! Start Losing!”, the “Sexercise” chapter in “Bonnie Prudden
Bonnie Prudden
Bonnie Prudden was a leading American rock climber in the 1940s and 1950s, with 30 documented first ascents to her credit in New York's Shawangunks mountains. Along with Hans Kraus, she was a pioneering advocate of physical fitness and later developed a form of trigger point therapy called...

’s How to Keep Slender and Fit After Thirty”, and other methods.



Chapter 10. The Wardrobe

A quick guide to understanding fashion, shopping and sewing.



Chapter 11. Kisses and Make-Up

Step-by-step instructions on cosmetic changes such as make-up, facial hair bleaching (includes formula to mix at home), and contact lenses.



Chapter 12. The Affair: From the Beginning to End

A step-by-step guide that should prepare a single girl for what will occur, or should occur during the beginning, middle and end stages of an affair.



Chapter 13. The Rich, Full Life

Includes any advice that did not belong under the previous chapter headings.

Critical analysis

The reviews that followed the publication of Sex and the Single Girl, “were either highly favourable…or highly negative” and often attacked Gurley Brown’s writing style and credibility. While several of Brown’s concepts were “in common with the second-wave feminist arguments she precedes,” other second-wavers such as Betty Friedan “found Brown’s message ‘obscene and horrible.’” When questioned regarding the criticism the book has received, Gurley Brown replied that:


This is how it was for me. This is how I played it. It’s just a pippy-poo little book and people come back with this diatribe about its great social significance. Well it’s just because nobody ever got off his high horse long enough to write to single women in any form they could associate with. If they had, somebody else would be the arbiter for single women at this point instead of me.


Jennifer Scanlon, author of Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown, argues that through Sex and the Single Girl Gurley Brown became “not only one of the founders of second wave feminism but stands as a key antecedent for the third.” Scanlon also argues that with Sex and the Single Girl, Gurley Brown would “cross the line between the fictional and the real,” exploring the real single women that had been previously presented in fictional form in such novels as Peyton Place
Peyton Place (novel)
Peyton Place is a 1956 novel by Grace Metalious. It sold 60,000 copies within the first ten days of its release and remained on the New York Times best seller list for 59 weeks. It was adapted as both a 1957 film and a 1964–69 television series....

and The Best of Everything
The Best of Everything
The Best of Everything is the first novel by Rona Jaffe. It is the story of five young employees of a New York publishing company.-Adaptions:...

.

Julie Berebitsky explores the impact of Sex and the Single Girl on the pink-collar worker
Pink-collar worker
The term, 'pink-collar worker' is in reference to a blue-collar worker, or a white-collar worker. A 'pink-collar worker' performs work said to be stereotypical women's work and are typically in the service industry.- Occupations :...

 of the 1960s
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...

 and Gurley Brown’s blurring of the professional and the personal in a business environment, as she “directed women to seek professional advancement…to use gender, and to varying degrees, sexuality for their own gain.” Berebitsky also contrasts Sex and the Single Girl with The Executive Secretary, a guidebook published in 1959 by Marilyn Burke, secretary to Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnegie
Dale Breckenridge Carnegie was an American writer, lecturer, and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills...

 and Dorothy Carnegie, that cautions against demonstrations of female sexuality in the workforce.

Interpretation

Scanlon suggests that Sex and the City
Sex and the City
Sex and the City is an American television comedy-drama series created by Darren Star and produced by HBO. Broadcast from 1998 until 2004, the original run of the show had a total of ninety-four episodes...

is “the most direct descendent of the sexual politics Helen Gurley Brown introduced in Sex and the Single Girl” and Jane Gerhard argues that “Sex and the City pays direct homage” to Sex and the Single Girl, as both present the “connection between women’s financial independence and their sexual liberation.”

AMC
AMC
AMC may refer to:* AMC , a short-lived British steam car manufactured in London in 1910*AMC Networks, an American media company** AMC , originally American Movie Classics, a cable television channel owned by AMC Networks...

’s Mad Men
Mad Men
Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each...

creator Matthew Weiner
Matthew Weiner
Matthew Weiner is an American writer, director and producer of television drama. He is the creator, executive producer, head writer, and show runner of the AMC television series Mad Men. He is also noted for his work on the HBO series The Sopranos, on which he served as a writer and producer...

 frequently attributes Sex and the Single Girl and The Feminine Mystique
The Feminine Mystique
The Feminine Mystique, published February 19, 1963, by W.W. Norton and Co., is a nonfiction book written by Betty Friedan. It is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States....

as heavily influencing the creation of his characters and scenarios, especially involving the single female office worker.

Film adaptation

Warner Brothers paid $200,000 for the rights to the book that was made into a film
Sex and the Single Girl (film)
Sex and the Single Girl is a 1964 American comedy film directed by Richard Quine and starring Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Henry Fonda, Lauren Bacall, and Mel Ferrer....

 of the same name in 1964 starring Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...

, Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...

, Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...

 and Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...

. The film version follows the main character, Dr. Helen Gurley Brown (Wood), who is based loosely on Gurley Brown, through several comedic situations resulting from the publication of her book Sex and the Single Girl.

External links

  • http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-07-29/books/gurley-talk/1
  • http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/sophiasmith/mnsss142_bioghist.html
  • http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/05/11/090511crbo_books_thurman
  • http://www.salon.com/books/review/2009/04/12/gurley_brown/index1.html
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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