It was almost always there if you looked hard enough, usually in a cubbyhole of the water-bed headboards of the day: a 7-by-10-inch paperback, with a plain yellow or white cover, red lettering, and inside, everything you didn't want to know about sex, everything you wouldn't even dream of asking. So long, childhood mystery; hello, Mr. and Mrs. Fleetwood Macrame Neanderthal.
There's
a new edition of
The Joy of Sex. I remember discovering it on the shelf in a friend's basement ca. 1985. His parents were Catholics, but didn't mind discussing flavored body creams at the dinner table. I wasn't Catholic, and did mind.