3 is not a Crowd

(There has been one exception. For Tricks of the Trade, in which nine call girls were interviewed to create a “hooker’s handbook of sexual technique,” I had no choice but to pay the girls rather handsomely for their time. But they, after all, were professionals, and their credo that time is money operates whatever use is made of that time.)

The most obvious explanation — that a great many persons are inclined to be genuinely cooperative — is certainly true. Swingers are especially generous in this respect, and have often expressed the thought that wider dissemination of information on the sexual underground will open more people to the possibilities of the life and will make their own lot in society less potentially troublesome. Many enthusiastic swingers are sincerely evangelistic; they often mention that they first became interested through books on the subject, and welcome a chance to contribute to this educational process.

For others, particularly those with ambivalent feelings about the lives they are leading, the interviewer furnishes an extra ear similar in certain ways to that of a priest or psychiatrist. The confessional impulse transcends religion, and serving as the subject of an in-depth interview concerning sexual matters provides the chance to justify oneself to oneself, to obtain absolution for what one regards as sinful, and, finally, to clarify one’s thoughts by using the interviewer as a sounding board. Time after time subjects have followed general or personal observations with the notation that they have never had this particular thought before, and I don’t doubt that the interview situation does afford good opportunities for self-analysis.

In A Married Couple, a cinéma vérité filmmaker moved his camera into the apartment of a Canadian couple and filmed several weeks of their life together, producing ultimately a remarkable ninety minutes of brutally revelatory film. At the same time, his presence served to crystallize the attitudes of the man and wife toward each other and toward their marriage. In much the same fashion, I have occasionally found myself playing a catalyst’s role in a relationship. This was particularly true in the extended, almost painfully incisive interviews which saw print as The Wife Swap Report.

Exhibitionistic impulses also prompt some interviews to a greater or lesser extent. Of the correspondence which I receive, a certain amount invariably consists of calculatedly obscene letters detailing sexual experiences, the majority of which are clearly identifiable as fantasy or invention. In other cases, cooperative subjects are often aware of their own interest as exhibitionists. “If factual experiences such as these are of interest to you,” a Midwesterner wrote at the conclusion of a detailed record of incestuous practices, “I would be glad to give you details and, truthfully, get a lot of pleasure doing it.” While such self-awareness is exceptional, the exhibitionistic impulse in this regard is not.

All of the above serves as a lengthy preface to the observations that, in the case of Bob and Carol Fessenden, I was frequently made aware that our interviews provided them with a pleasurable means of reliving highly satisfactory sexual experiences. They spent a great deal of time discussing various sexual partners of theirs, much in the manner of their discussion of Frannie reported above. Frannie herself was discussed at greater length than I have reproduced, and with a luxury of detail which, if printed here, could only serve to embarrass Frannie, myself, and my publisher’s legal department.

For a time I interpreted this as simple exhibitionism, but further reflection convinced me that it was something rather different. Bob and Carol were sharing Frannie in conversation as they had earlier enjoyed sharing her in the flesh, and no doubt for similar reasons. Their conversational interplay, the avidness with which they passed words back and forth, echoed their earlier physical relationship with the girl.

BOB: I remember one girl we met who was different from the usual run. Her name was Linda and she lived in Philadelphia, which is a long way to travel for a night. This wasn’t that unusual, though, because we often get letters from as far away as the West Coast.

CAROL: I don’t think most people expect anything to come of it when they answer someone that far away. As a matter of fact, I think some people purposely write to faraway places so that they’ll have the excuse of being unable to travel. A lot of people just want correspondence without any meeting — you can usually spot their letters quickly enough after you get the hang of it.

BOB: Linda wasn’t in that class. She told us that she wrote to us because she was very strongly attracted to the pictures published with our ad, and also because the wording of the ad suggested to her that we might be safe.

CAROL: She was a virgin.