An ABZ of Love

by Inge Hegeler, Sten Hegeler, Eiler Krag (Illustrator)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: Nonfiction, Relationships, Psychology, Sexuality, Erotica

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

Reviews

[Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully frank text from the era of "Our Bodies...Ourselves" era. The sociological asides comparing Europe and America and 500 years of witch burnings were by themselves worth the reading.

[Bailey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book because it was one of Kurt Vonnegut’s favorite books, and I was curious to read a favorite book of one of my favorite authors. It reads like a sex/love dictionary and has some interesting and valuable passages. I also liked the illustrations throughout.

However, this book was originally published in 1961 in Denmark with its intended audience being married couples in their 30’s (as is stated in the introduction). Both the tear of publication and narrow intended readership make for a pretty exclusive and outdated dictionary on sex/love. For example, it is taken for granted throughout the book that sex is between a man and a woman (besides the passage on “homosexuality”— an outdated and stigmatizing term). There are no entries for “queer”, “non-binary”, or transgender. There is an entry for “transvestism”, which, again, reflects the limited perspective of the time, and also of the cis, hetero authors.

All that being said, it has some interesting insights on hetero romantic love and sex, but should be read more as an interesting/amusing look into an old Danish sex-Ed book for married couples than as a prescription for modern love and sexuality.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, not my normal book but my best man bought me it as a wedding gift. I married a Danish woman and this book, apparently, was a million copy bestseller in Scandinavia back in the day. And I can see why, it is not just the typical A-Z of sex but it is more an open-discussion, philosophical debate about ethical issues ( abortion, amongst others ) and it is all tastefully done.