Mayflower Manners: Etiquette for Consenting Adults

by Sydney Biddle Barrows, Ellis Weiner

Offers a guide to modern romantic and sexual etiquette--covering topics ranging from good manners in bed to how to ask one's date if he or she has a sexually communicable disease

221 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[tkadlubo · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book is best read as an ethnographic document about the people of its day and age. Annoyingly, it's simply too witty for its own good. It always swerves between trying to make a point and showing off witticisms. Many witty jokes aged poorly and land flat, or maybe were never funny in the first place.

The best thing about this book is that it is a testament to how resilient the author was in the face of a very public scandal in which she found herself. The book shows audacity of the author but at the same time the book is not courageous at all when compared to what e.g. Audre Lordea(also living in NYC!) or bell hooks were writing around the same time. This book is painfully devoid of any critical theory.

In 2005 Courtney Love gave more practical etiquette advice than anything written in this book:

> I’ll get libeled if I say it… If Harvey Weinstein invites you to a private party in the Four Seasons, don’t go.

[Helga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Useful. This covers the situations that happen in real life rather than the proper way to sip soup out of a soup spoon (from the side, do not put entire bowl of soup spoon into your mouth, in case you were wondering). I mean, seriously, which are you more likely to come across, the toothbrush issue or the soup spoon issue?