Perhaps no topic has been more written about, theorized, or worked over, so to speak, than sex, especially as it relates to a couple’s psychological compatibility. Lest we think advice on sex, love, and marriage through the lens of psychology is a relatively recent phenomenon, however, a flood of such material for the general reader was already filling bookshelves by the 1920s. Donald Freedheim, in the Handbook of Psychology (1), describes the 20s as "the decade of popular Psychology."

Among the more astute observers of this trend were authors James Thurber and E. B. White. In the 1920s they shared an office as staff writers at The New Yorker and in 1929 they joined forces to pen Is Sex Necessary?, a gently hilarious spoof of texts which claimed to diagnose both sexes' innate psychological tendencies and identify a raft of elaborate "complexes," all to the betterment of the modern relationship.

And just what were young couples in the 1920s up against? What pop psychology nuggets of wisdom were Thurber and White targeting?

William J. Robinson, who authored Sex Knowledge for Men (1920), asserted in no uncertain terms that a successful conjugal experience lies at the heart of a young bride’s very mental stability because, as experts knew, "a healthy vita sexualis is the remedy for many troubles of the brain." In fact, Robinson declared, "The anabolic energy of woman may be said to desire avidly the catabolic force of man as the completion of being. No argument, no evasion, can destroy this fact of human life."

Experts also proposed "scientific" tests to determine a couple's compatibility, such as the "nervous disorder" test published in the April 1924 issue of Science and Invention by Hugo Gernsback. This called for a gun to be fired into the air unannounced, so the reaction of the male and female could be duly measured. Too intense a reaction from both apparently did not bode well for the union, scientifically speaking.

In short, couples were supposed to acknowledge the primal and essential nature of sex, but simultaneously do their best to control it. Walter Gallichan, in The Psychology of Marriage (1918), did his level best to steel young couples to the swirling maelstrom that is the human psyche:

Good God.

Out of this psycho-quagmire sprang the inspiration for Thurber and White's comic relief. White, recounting in 1950 his and Thurber's approach to the task at hand, said:

Is Sex Necessary?, devoting its pages specifically to the American species of male and female, quickly loads up with faux psychology jargon—which, incidentally, gives birth to a delightful Glossary—and acknowledges a debt to two fictional psychologists, the "deans of American sex," Drs. Walter Tithridge and Karl Zaner.

The book gets right down to business in its Preface, describing the troubling prenuptial rituals of the modern bride-to-be, albeit in a slightly less terrifying manner than, say, Walter Gallichan's:

We are also encouraged to give at least some thought to the male, the half less written about and analyzed, a state of affairs called the “Bridegroom Fallacy”: Thus the male gets a chapter devoted entirely to him ("The Nature of the American Male"), complete with a Case History of one George Smith, who, not to give too much away, gets into serious trouble owing to the Apotheosis Complex with Plurality Fallacy (see Glossary). Women do not get a free pass, however. They are found to be complex enough to require subdivision into types, with special attention devoted to variations of the Quiet Type (or Q.T.). The dangers inherent in psychology field research are made chillingly apparent, as in the following case:

Also, as promised, Thurber and White do take "a quick look at love and passion" by attempting to distinguish one feeling from the other. Perhaps it is for the best that few of us write actual letters these days, as we learn it is during such an activity that "the question of deciding whether a feeling be love or passion" may assert itself and cause some serious vexation:

After "a brief estimate of the comparative beauty of Anne and the girl in the scarf, with the girl in the scarf coming out a half length ahead," there follows a testy dialogue with the self about beauty not being everything:

Thankfully, email is so much less fraught.

Saving some of the best for last, any discussion of Is Sex Necessary? would be incomplete without mentioning its 52 illustrations. They are the unmistakable handiwork of James Thurber, who today may be as well known for his unpolished cartoons of people and animals as he is for his writings. Thurber himself alluded to this in a 1939 Los Angeles Times article:

Among the Thurber fish, dogs, confused men and women, and one lion found in the pages of Is Sex Necessary? there is also, splendidly, a Thurber map, with the accompanying caption:

P.S. If you haven't laughed until you've cried recently, please turn to the discussion of guest towels in Chapter VII ("Claustrophobia, or What Every Young Wife Should Know"), or to the rhapsodizing of the "mollusc" in "Answers to Hard Questions." A box of tissues is mandatory.

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