Playboy Interview: Helen Gurley Brown

Within the past year, a Los Angeles advertising woman who used to spend most of her time tub-thumping bras and pancake make-up has metamorphosed into a pundit for millions of lonely and bewildered American women. With the publication of "Sex and the Single Girl," Helen Gurley Brown became the first in a new school of lovelorn literati to parlay sexually candid advice into a hefty bank account. Her little Baedeker of bedmanship, 267 pages of beauty hints, recipes and pithy exploration of male-female relationships, has sold 150,000 hard-cover copies. Warner Brothers paid $200,000 for the right to transform this grab bag into a Technicolor, career-girls-in New York film, the second highest price Hollywood has ever delivered for a work of nonfiction. An LP titled "Lessons in Love," with the 40-year-old author reciting breathless homilies on how to love a girl and how to love a man, was one of the Christmas season's heavier sellers. Her new syndicated newspaper column, "Woman Alone," dissects sex for spinsters in the boondocks. Her happy husband quit his film-producer job to counsel and advise her. She, in turn, left the ad agency to write more books. The next in line, "Sex and the Office," appears in the fall. Pocket Books shelled out $125,000 for its reprint rights after seeing a bare, 20-page outline.

In a series of interviews conducted in her Hollywood-and-Vine office and her expansive Pacific Palisades home, Playboy captured Mrs. Brown's more outspoken personal views on pregnancy, abortion, affairs, fame and matrimony.

[Q] Playboy: How did you happen to write Sex and the Single Girl?

[A] Brown: My husband thought up the idea. He used to be editor-in-chief of Liberty and Cosmopolitan. I was out of town visiting my mother and sister and David found some old letters of mine, letters I wrote to an old boyfriend. I always kept carbon copies of those letters. He sat down and read them from beginning to end. And when I got home he said: "You really have a delightful writing style. I'd like to think of something for you to write." This was the spring of 1960. We were talking again about something I might be able to write a few months later and he said: "I had an idea the other day about how a single girl goes about having an affair, how she clears the decks for action. What does she do with the guy she's already seeing? What's the best place for her to consummate this affair? What's her life like? What kind of person is she?" I said: "My God, that's my book, that's my book!" When I got into writing the book, it became much more serious and sincere than we ever thought it would be. It got to be not tongue in cheek, but quite sincere -- with a little light touch.

[Q] Playboy: What was the thinking behind the book's sincere little title?

[A] Brown: Originally it was called Sex for the Single Girl, which I liked better. It was my husband's title. The publishers felt that it was too racy, that it sounded like we were advocating sex for all single girls. So they changed for to and. I suppose it's faintly misleading; however I think if we said Sex and the Single Woman, without justifying it, it might indicate it was a sex tome dealing with sex life of the unmarried female in America. The fact that we called a girl a girl was one justification for the title. Another, every single chapter always refers to sex. In the chapter on money, it says that being solvent is sexy and there's nothing less sexy than a girl who has the shorts. And it's sexy to be able to balance a checkbook and not to spend a boy blind. We made sure that all the chapters did tie back in. I don't think of sex as the act of sex exclusively. I don't think sex appeal exists only between two people who are lovers. Therefore, I would consider part of a single girl's arsenal of sex appeal her apartment and her clothes and the fact that she can give an intimate little dinner.

[Q] Playboy: Have you received much mail from readers of the book?

[A] Brown: Yes, and the preponderance of mail is very happy stuff, The large proportion of it comes from single women who say: "Thank you, Helen Gurley Brown" or "You're what we've needed" or "You've changed my life and now I can hold my head up" or "I've stopped seeing my psychiatrist." I feel very happy about these letters because that's whom the book was for. The negative letters complain that I'm suggesting single girls should be doing something that's immoral. I didn't suggest anybody do anything. I qualify it 92 times in the book. I just said this is how it is. I'm always careful to say that I'm not for promiscuity. What business is it of mine to be for it or against it? I just know what goes on. And I know it isn't the end of the world when a girl has an affair. Other letters say: "Aren't you just trying to justify the kind of life you lead?" Real snotty ones. It hurts me because far from trying to write something not uplifting for single girls, I'm so sincere about them. I suppose critics complain on the grounds that this kind of writing is available to young people, and yet there's all the erotica in the world available to any young person who wants it in the public library. But most of my mail seems to be from people who love me.

[Q] Playboy: Has there been any "I want to meet you, baby" mail?

[A] Brown: Oh, I got a hysterical one from a chap who said he was a homosexual and a very first-rate homosexual but he also adored women. He heard that I was in New York and he wanted very much to meet me. It was quite a sincere little letter. He felt quite seriously that I would be interested in meeting him. I get a lot of mail about how to keep from having a baby. I wrote a whole section on that and felt very strongly that it should he in the book. My publisher felt we were taking a pretty bold stand about all this stuff anyway without going so far as to tell people how not to have babies. So he took it out. And I fought for it, but it came out anyway. This mail I get is from girls who are quite sincerely interested in knowing. For some reason they feel they can't talk it over with their doctor. My inclination is to tell people exactly what I think they should do: They should get fitted for a diaphragm. What else would you do? I was never pregnant. Nobody has to get pregnant, it's so very silly. I was just as silly a little girl as everybody else was. I was no great brain, I'm still not. Except I always did have the good sense to try not to have a baby. It shouldn't be that much of a problem. As married girls who are trying to have babies know, it's quite difficult. You can only conceive 12--18 hours during a month. Therefore it's not all that simple, although I've had many pregnant girlfriends.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about abortions for these pregnant friends?

[A] Brown: Having an abortion isn't that difficult either. It's really not that dangerous anymore, since penicillin. Now they shoot you full of 95,000 volts of penicillin and you can go back to work on Monday. It was once a very dangerous thing because of infection, because these operations had to be done in the backs of garages or somebody's office. If a girl were able to go to a hospital now, there would be practically no danger to her. There is some chance of becoming barren, but if the operation isn't performed by an idiot, it's quite simple. The only problem with an abortion is finding someone who can perform it. And also, it's hideously expensive. It's like dope. I understand the going rate now in Los Angeles is $500, and it has to be cash and right then. Well, kids don't have that kind of money. Career girls don't, either.

[Q] Playboy: Did your pregnant friends follow your abortion advice?

[A] Brown: I had a roommate who was pregnant and who wouldn't admit she was. It was an immaculate conception. It hadn't happened to her, boy. She was throwing up every morning before she went to work. She was getting as fat as Patty's pig. She said she had a virus. My other roommate and I finally said: "Barbara, don't you think you ought to see a doctor, maybe?" Finally she went to a doctor and wouldn't admit to him that she'd had intercourse. After she was getting fatter and fatter and sicker and sicker he said: "You're pregnant, aren't you?" And she said: "I guess I am." Then she started doing things at home to try to unload this baby. It really was quite touching. Of course, nothing did any good. She was young and healthy. She had an abortion -- the rates were $300 then. The boyfriend got the money and a few months after that they were married. They now have two children.

[Q] Playboy: Well, that's a happy ending. What about American abortion laws?

[A] Brown: The whole thing needs overhauling. It's a shame girls have to go to Mexico or Europe to be operated on. It's outrageous that girls can't be aborted here. I guess the rule as of the moment is that it must endanger the mother's life. But never mind that this little child doesn't have a father. And never mind that its mother is a flibbertigibbet who has no business having a baby. Abortion is just surrounded with all this hush-hush and honor, like insanity used to be. The whole country is going to be overrun by people. Charles Darwin's nephew, who writers on anthropology, says that by the year 2000, we're going to be stacked up on top of each other. So from that anthropological viewpoint alone, it's silly to prevent abortions. One of my good friends was pregnant a couple of years ago, and her own doctor gave her the usual party line: "Marry the guy." I think that's hysterical. It's wrong for a chap to get married when he's not ready to get married, when it's going to louse up everything. I always felt it was my responsibility as a girl having an affair. And I didn't have a diaphragm until I was 33 years old. If you like someone, and he likes you, he's really not interested in getting you pregnant. My God, it's the last thing in the world he wants to do. The few times when somebody just can't wait, you just put your foot down. I'm as highly sexed as the next girl. But it doesn't matter how much of a hurry you're in. You say: "This isn't going to happen until ..." No problem. Girls who get pregnant are careless little jerks.

[Q] Playboy: Your publisher deleted all this from the book?

[A] Brown: Yes, he felt it might hurt sales, that I was going pretty far, anyway, in talking about the sexual life of unmarried women. And if I went so far as to tell a girl how not to have a baby, we would be thrown out of the Authors League, or something. It was a commercial consideration. The publisher didn't want to kibosh the whole thing by making people furious.

[Q] Playboy: Did you run into any additional censorship problems with your publisher?

[A] Brown: There was one line that they cut out in the first chapter. It was exhorting the single girl to be proud of herself and I said: "I think you should have a quietly 'F-- You' attitude about the whole thing." In the galleys my publisher changed it to "Frig You" attitude and I got up as fast as I could and said: "Are you mad? A lady would say 'F-- You' but she would never say that other thing." So he said: "Well, I don't think you ought to say that. It just doesn't sound right." We changed it to "a quietly 'Drop Dead' attitude." We also had a little go-round about the word pushover. In the chapter describing why a girl has affairs, I said there are girls who only feel secure when they're in bed with a man. This is the greatest gift that a man can give them. And they feel uneasy unless they're getting this from a man. And then I said this may not be the clinical definition, but this is my definition of a nymphomaniac. My publisher corrected this and said: "Look, you're not a doctor, you don't know what a nymphomaniac is, so why don't we say this girl obviously is a pushover?" I just hit the roof. I hate that word. I don't think a pushover is a pushover. It's as though she was saying: "No please don't do it to me, please don't, I wish you wouldn't, please Oh well, I'm too weak and I'll just give in." Au contraire. She's asking for it. She needs it. She needs the reassurance. When a man is making love to you, the United Nations building could fall down and if he's really a man, he won't stop for a minute. Therefore it's pretty exhilarating. It does give you a feeling of power. Men, in most cases, would be more like wild, uncaged beasts if they were stopped in the middle of a sex act, more than a woman would. I understand a nymphomaniac in that respect. Any girl who goes to bed with a man has a reason. I don't think one of them is that she just doesn't know how to say no. A few, maybe, are so socially inept that they don't want to hurt anybody's feelings so they go through with it. But very few. I absolutely insisted on getting that word pushover out of there.

[Q] Playboy: Censorship aside, how can your expositional book be translated into a dramatic film?

[A] Brown: When Warner Brothers first started working on it, the producer had me meet with the screenwriters. He thought I could be very helpful. It was a very drunken night and they started telling me the story line and I got more and more depressed so I just didn't say anything. The opening of the picture is where this one girl gets out of a taxicab pursued by this burly fellow. She turns around and clobbers him over the head with her handbag. She runs and he chases her up the steps to her apartment and she flings open the door and there is her roommate breaking from a clinch with her boyfriend and the roommate picks up a couple of very heavy books and throws them at the guy. I just threw up my hands. I didn't tell them how upset I was. Nobody hits anybody with a handbag or throws a book. It's like out of the days of tea dancing. But then again, if they left me alone with it, I would probably improve it right into a flop.

[Q] Playboy: Are you suggesting Warner Brothers paid $200,000 just for a successful title?

[A] Brown: Not exactly. The book runs all through the screenplay. It's supposed to be the girls' bible. And they use all the terms that are in the book: The Availables, The Impossibles, and so on. They're also picking up some of the characters from the book, like the married woman who fixes up the single girl with a date, and then she won't let her get near the guy because she's interested in him herself. You can imagine that would be kind of a cute little sequence in a movie. And there's the chapter that has the mother who is in love with her daughter's date, too. But I don't care what they do. It's a big miracle. And I think I deserve it. Because I worked like a sonofabitch all my life. I had no education and no confidence until a few years ago. I was always afraid that I would go under. The fact that all this is happening now, I don't think anybody should mind very much. I can't seem to touch anything now that doesn't pan out for me. Like the movie, and the paperback reprints, and the record and the column. I think it's a gas. An absolute gas. But I'm still a neurotic worrier in that I'm not able to lie down and wallow in it.

[Q] Playboy: Does the continuing criticism have anything to do with this feeling?

[A] Brown: I've had criticism, naturally, and I'm still not enough of a hardened criminal not to have had this affect me. I hate it. Nobody wants to be not loved. We spend all our lives trying to be loved. Mostly people say: "Why did you take this attitude, why didn't you take that attitude?" They criticized my emphasis on the importance of being solvent and they say it's an awfully crass, commercial little picture of things. But this book reflects me. I had a ghastly time, so of course I was influenced by that. I can't write somebody else's book. I keep saying in every third paragraph: "This is how it was for me. This is how I played it. It's just a pippy-poo little book and people come back with this diatribe about its great social significance. Well that's just because nobody ever got off his high horse long enough to write to single women in any form they could associate with. If they had, somebody else would be the arbiter for single women at this point instead of me. I get very annoyed with these people.

[Q] Playboy: There are other critics who object to your language as well as the book's content. Norm Porter, a columnist for an Olympia, Washington, newspaper, says: "The book never quite attains the high level of smut by innuendo accomplished in the Springmaid Sheet ads. There's more polish and tone than most of the deodorant or laxative copy." What do you think he means by that?

[A] Brown: He hates the book. It's not his book. And there probably is some sly reference to the fact that it sounds like advertising copy. If it sounds like ad copy, I'm delighted. That's good writing.

[Q] Playboy: Are phrases like little bitty, teeny-weeny and pippy-poo examples of good writing?

[A] Brown: Those phrases seem to have annoyed some people, especially the word "pippy-poo" -- they just climb walls. I can't blame it on my copywriting background. I write letters that way. Let's just say I've made a thing out of writing very girlishly. I just didn't pick out 20 ridiculous, silly, girlish words and say: "OK. I'll drop them in like eggs into an Easter basket and see what comes out." I don't think these words offended anybody but men.

[Q] Playboy: A female reviewer, writing for the Miami News, said: "The style is over-breezy. If Mrs. Brown never italicizes another word or uses another exclamation point, she'll still have used both devices more than one woman should in a lifetime."

[A] Brown: If this woman doesn't like my style, she shouldn't read my book. That's just her interpretation of it, that it's breezy and too girlish and it just babbles on and on. Most people feel it's a very easy book to read.

[Q] Playboy: Some readers have accused you of regarding males as little more than setups for exploitation and manipulation. In the book, you speak of us variously as pawns, slaves, toys, pets and seven-year-olds. You use terms like "bagging a man." Your own courtship is described as "a year's battle with trident and net." You say: "Let your friends help you rope him, you tie him." Is this a posture you've adopted to appeal to the popular female conception of men, just to sell books, or do you actually regard men as inferior beings?

[A] Brown: I've been through analysis and as far as I know, I do like men. And I don't like them as something to exploit. I've never exploited a man. I'm all for equality, a single standard of wages. Women should pull their own weight. In fact, I don't even blame men for not getting married. My gosh, if I were a man, before I married I would have to be so sure, because I know what can happen. I testified for a good friend in a divorce case and I'd always liked his wife, but it grinds me. She got all the community property. It's just as though he hadn't done a thing for the last 13 years, as though he just didn't exist. She gets unbelievable alimony and child support. I go absolutely ape when I think about what happens in these situations. This business of competing with men, also, is so asinine. People should be judged on what they are, what they have to contribute, not on how they're constructed.

[Q] Playboy: But you have deprecated men, haven't you?

[A] Brown: I don't think so. If a man were writing such a book, he would probably pick on the foibles of girls. I think if a girl did all the things that are recommended in this book, a man would be very happy with her.

[Q] Playboy: You say in the book that female man-haters may be suffering from what is known as penis envy. Will you elaborate on that?

[A] Brown: Well, I'm treading in an area that I'm not competent to talk about or probably even to mention in my book. It's quite presumptuous. However, in a study of Lesbianism, among the reasons given for this condition is the fact that a woman wants to be a man. Her father probably hoped that he'd have a son and he had a girl so all her life she has been taught to envy and to wish that she were a man. And I think this penis envy is a very commonplace thing. It comes up in most analyses. It's supposed to exist with all little girls, even if they don't become Lesbians, because a man is built differently than they and you can see what he has. It's very showy and she doesn't have anything like that.

[Q] Playboy: Why did you deal with this subject when you admit you are unqualified to talk about it?

[A] Brown: Well it's in the chapter called "How to Be Sexy." And I indicate you can't be sexy if you don't like men. You may be jealous of them. You may be jealous of a job they hold or of their so-called superior advantages. In psychiatry they find that little girls like this thing a man has. It's fun. Penis envy usually is eradicated when a girl finds out how wonderful it is to be used in its proper respect to her.

[Q] Playboy: Have you found its proper use?

[A] Brown: Yes, I really like sex. But I feel people who go around yapping about it too much or those who are absolutely preoccupied with sex and talk about nothing else may have a bit of a problem. There are thousands of people who are happily mated who don't talk about it, either to each other or to anyone else.

[Q] Playboy: Is it fair to say that women use sex as a potent instrument in manipulating men?

[A] Brown: It's a very strong weapon. It's been used since antiquity. If all things were equal, if we really did have a single standard, if men and women held the same jobs and got the same things out of being married, then I think it would be very wrong. As things stand, there aren't enough men. It is desirable to get married in most people's view. A husband is a priceless commodity. Whatever means you use to get a husband, outside of blackmail and things that are illegal, I think are all right. Practically every gal that I know has slept with the man she married before she married him. Most of those people have had to take a stand someplace along the line, like the girl who'll say: "C'mon now, either we're gonna get married or I'm gonna stop coming over here and being your little geisha girl every night." A woman desperately needs to get married more than a man does. She wants and needs the baby. So to get what she wants, she uses every available weapon. Sex is one of them. I talked about this to my favorite psychiatrist who thinks it's just outrageous that I say that women do use sex as a means of getting what they want. He says people should never use sex for anything except the sheer enjoyment of it. I agree with him theoretically. It's such a marvelous thing, you shouldn't kick it around. It's terrible when you tamper with it. If you sleep with somebody you don't like you get everything out of kilter. But this is what happens. Some women use sex to get material things. That's a little wrong. It's so much more fun if you get those things other ways, the legitimate ways.

[Q] Playboy: Some of your readers have said you encourage the tease, the flirt and the charmer to nail their man with scientific exactitude by staring raptly into his eyes, flirting openly across the room with perfect strangers, flattering him, telling him lies. You advise girls to "belt below the belt." Are these some of the "legitimate" ways you have in mind?

[A] Brown: Well that's the silliest thing I ever heard. I would defy anybody to say that I'm for the cheat. I'm definitely against cheats. And if I've ever said, "Be a liar," I would argue about that. I said sometimes you have to use a tactful lie to get out of something you absolutely can't do. You have to say: "Look, you're attractive" and you may think he's a toad. I definitely am for the compassionate lie. I defy you to say that mature men are against women who flirt. The kind of person you're talking about is somebody I didn't describe at all. As for looking into a man's eyes, I don't think that's anything to go climb up the ceiling about. Or that if I look at you that way I'm a tease. There is a kind of girl who does that sort of thing. She absolutely drives a man to the jumping-off point by squirming all over him in the front seat of an automobile, and then she says: "Well, so long, Hank." Now, does that have anything whatsoever to do with what I discussed in my book? I don't think so. I adore a woman to be feminine, to be female and to attract a man so that he wants to see her again. That's the sole purpose of my book, not to exploit men, but to be companions to them.

[Q] Playboy: Your book has been described as lacking a sense of sensual joy, of romance, in its approach to sex. If this is so, yours would appear to be a cold-blooded, clinical attitude about one of the warmest and most joyful of human experiences. Do you, yourself, view the act of love with this clinical detachment, this coldly predatory attitude?

[A] Brown: I don't think I ever talked about the act of copulation in my book. I say many times that getting there is half the fun for a female, that she likes the letter writing and the romantic build-up. I say that there's a kind of cliff-hanging romance between people who are having an affair which doesn't exist in marriage. I'm not the great expert on how wonderful it is to go to bed with a man. I'm not selling bedmanship. I'm trying to get men into a girl's life. When she gets the men, she'll fall in love. I never say just go to bed for bed's sake. However, I do think there's too much of this falling hopelessly, hideously, horribly in love because you've been to bed with a man. Because of our mores in this country and our conscience-stricken girls, they feel that any man they sleep with must be the man to end all men and presumably must be the one that they marry, and the sooner the better.

[Q] playboy: Have you personally used the various snares and practiced the assorted wiles you've preached in your book?

[A] Brown: Yes, many of them.

[Q] Playboy: Do they work?

[A] Brown: Of course they work, or I wouldn't be recommending them. The entire book is based upon personal experiences or experiences of close friends.

[Q] Playboy: Do some of your ground rules for luring men -- "mad" beach towels, "crazy" ski caps, "shocking pink" cars, big name matchbooks scattered around the apartment -- strike you as trivial or superficial?

[A] Brown: Oh, heavens no. I think anything you can do to attract a man is absolutely OK. If we were talking about a mink-lined bathtub, a zebra-striped, er, I was going to say nightgown, but that sounds very interesting to me -- if we were in some area where there was some question about taste -- I can't imagine why anybody can find fault with crazy ski caps. Every time I talk to a bunch of girls they say: "How do we meet men? What can we do to meet men?" These are fairly off-beat ways of meeting a mean, but there are 4,000,000 too few men around. If a girl just stands there with her mortal soul ready to be probed and sweet and smiling, nothing may happen.

[Q] Playboy: Which techniques did you use to bag your own husband?

[A] Brown: I cooked dinner for him two or three nights a week. However, I don't think you can or should bag a husband that way. All these lures, attractions, baits that I have suggested are perfectly legitimate ways for a girl to have men in her life. Getting married is something else. A marriage should be predicated on other things, of course, than lures or bait. It should be predicated on whether people have a lot in common.

[Q] Playboy: In your book you say, "If a man, married for years, wants to take a single girl to dinner, it can hardly break up his marriage. He may even arrive home a happier, more contented man." Also you speak approvingly of "The many husbands and wives who have an understanding that he may frisk about a bit without recriminations." Suppose your husband, David, pulled this frisky bit. Would you handle it with the same lighthearted insouciance?

[A] Brown: Answering the first part, I was talking about men in other cities on business trips. I would stand by that. It does not break up his marriage and it was not anyplace where it would have humiliated his wife. I can't imagine my husband being in New York City and not being with somebody. I wouldn't want him sitting alone in his hotel room. If it were a girl, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I don't think he would tell me, probably, and I don't think I would want him to. Civilized people don't go around hurting their partners by going into lascivious detail about their every death wish for the partner and their every love wish for another girl.

Further, I don't think I condoned husbands and wives who have an understanding. I just said that some husbands and wives have an understanding, a tacit understanding that the husband may frisk about a bit. There are such situations, and I did not say it's good, it's bad, it's horrible, it's right or wrong or anything else. Now suppose the same thing happened to my husband, frankly, because my husband did most of his frisking during the years that he was married twice, and during the years between marriages. David is now 46. I'm his third wife. I don't think he's feeling a great need to be frisky. He married a sexy, sophisticated, worldly, uninhibited, man's kind of woman. We're not going to have children. We have a grown-up sort of hedonistic life. On the other hand, I did most of my frisking by the time I married him. I had been dating for 23 years, so I had a great deal of the play out of my system. Probably most of it. Now, if my husband were frisking about like a spring lamb, there would be something quite wrong with our particular marriage. How I would handle it I don't know. I'd say we were in trouble. The subject just wouldn't come up unless -- I'm blind. Of course I've had much experience observing unhappily married men, so I think I'd be able to spot one. What might happen five or ten years from now, I can't think. Most women who allow their husbands to frisk a bit -- I think those girls are the ones who are kind of relieved not to be going to bed with their husbands. The thing is never discussed, but some of the married men that I know have that kind of arrangement. And their wives are really quite pleased to get rid of them. Their wives are fond of them but they've just really had it in the bed department. That's how most frisking arrangements are arrived at. If a woman is really nutty about the guy in bed, I don't think there is too much frisking.

[Q] Playboy: You make a statement in the book relating to masculinity. You say: "Don't kid yourself that the man who doesn't kiss you goodnight is restraining himself out of respect. He isn't for girls, that's all. Look south of the border to his maleness." Would you explain?

[A] Brown: I think there were a couple of sentences before that which said after you've gone out with him for a bit if he doesn't try to kiss you then there's something wrong. And I firmly believe that. You don't have to be kissed on the first date or the second or the third, perhaps, but after that if a boy doesn't kiss you, I definitely think there's something wrong. I'm a very affectionate creature and I pet and pat everybody like a kitten. I love to be touched. I can hardly talk to anybody without petting them or something. Any kind of contact is a very nice thing. Holding hands is wonderful and all that stuff. I have found that a chap who never kissed me usually had some kind of a homosexual situation. This has just been my experience with guys who haven't made passes after a few dates. I would look to their maleness. As for kissing you and never going any further, after having weeks and weeks of doing this, I don't think they're necessarily homosexuals, but I do think they have psychosexual problems.

[Q] Playboy: Have you always looked for men to go further?

[A] Brown: It depends on what age you are. When you're in your teens, usually nothing ever goes beyond kissing. No matter how excited you are. Usually if you date someone, and there's quite a lot of kissing, things do progress to the next stage, if you are fairly easily aroused, if you're the kind of person who arouses other people. I'm not saying that somebody who doesn't do that sort of thing is a boob, I'm just saying if there is no attempted progression in a situation where you really are physically attracted to each other and there is much kissing, something's wrong.

[Q] Playboy: You keep mentioning kissing. Why do you stress it?

[A] Brown: Probably because it feels good. There are lots of good feelings. Having your back rubbed is one.

[Q] Playboy: You didn't mention back rubs in the book.

[A] Brown: Back rubs don't really come into the situation very much. I might have gotten into an area of saying that's rather sexy. When you're sitting at your typewriter and someone comes and massages your neck, it's the next thing to heaven. I don't know any secretary who doesn't feel this. But that's in the area of what feels nice to her. If a girl asks to have her back rubbed, that is very sexy. But that means let's get down to business. It's the first thing toward saying: "Why don't I slip into something more comfortable, darling." And if a girl rubs a man's back, presumably that might be an aphrodisiac, it might be something to get him aroused, but that isn't what I was discussing in that chapter. We weren't talking about how to get a man to bed. I made that very clear. Because I don't think it's much trouble to get a get a man to bed.

[Q] Playboy: Would you amplify that statement?

[A] Brown: I always found men a complete pushover. It was some big cosmetic company executive who spoke at a luncheon one day and said that when a woman was putting on her make-up she did it with exquisite care, she loved it, she did all of the things to her eyes because she was saying to herself: "Boy, tonight I'm going to get L.A.I.D." There's no trick to that. Most attractive girls can pick up the phone and call three or four attractive men who'd like to go to bed with them.

[Q] Playboy: Do you feel it's true that most women are less eager to go to bed than men?

[A] Brown: That may not be true in all cases. I keep hearing about the raging nymphomaniacs that are beating down doors. There are also married girls who need the physical relationship very much and aren't getting it at home and they aren't interested in too much except the act of sex itself. You keep reading about attractive 34-year-old married girls who go after the mail boy or the paper boy. In my own experience, the act of love per se is not something that you go out grabbing for, you don't need to. Maybe it has something to do with the kind of background you come from. If you're taught that going to bed is horrible until you get married, that it will ruin your life, there's this built-in reluctance to go to bed too quickly. I was the kind of girl who always seemed to be reluctant. I've never been involved with a man that I was pursuing actively physically. My experience was always in being the pursued one. Now this doesn't mean that I wasn't pursuing in my own way, the way that I mentioned in the book, such as hanging on every word and wearing low-cut dresses and all the rest of it. I was being aggressive in my way, but as far as actually being taken to bed, I was presumably resisting and someone was trying to talk me into it.

[Q] Playboy: Apropos bed, in your book you say: "Not having slept with the man you're going to marry I consider lunacy." Does this advice apply to all women?

[A] Brown: I'd make one amendment if I were rewriting the book. That would be right there. I might add: "if you're over 20." I don't think teenagers should go around sleeping with each other even if they are going to be married. Maybe I should have said if you're over 25 I consider it complete lunacy. But I stand on the rest. We must always remember that these are my biased, personal, opinionated, unqualified remarks about everything. I am brave and I do take a stand. I don't pussyfoot too much. A marriage should be for life if you can possibly get it to be, and I do not see how you can know someone in every way without participating.

[Q] Playboy: What physical types of men have appealed to you most?

[A] Brown: I think there's kind of a physical thrill of being with someone who's physically stronger than you. And I don't mean that diminutive men can't be absolutely fabulous lovers, and just wonderful and gentle and sensual and sexy as all get out. However, I do think there's a certain amount of pleasure in being with someone who's quite strong. This was something that happened to me several times. I'm small boned. I wasn't overpowered, I don't mean it that way, that if it was a gorilla or a King Kong I'd say: "Hooray." It's just a very nice feeling to be with someone very firmly so you can't get loose.

[Q] Playboy: What did you mean in the book when you said: "As for never literally going to bed to preserve your technical purity, that is to say you make love without being together in a cool, comfy bed, let's say you can get just as pregnant and have missed a great deal of fun."

[A] Brown: This is based on something that happened to my roommate, the one that got pregnant. They never went to bed. She was so determined that she was going to stay virginal, it must have happened in a chair, or something. There are girls who will not lie down in bed with somebody, but they actually do have intercourse. But it's in a car, it's in a chair, or standing up. It's doing something where they can say to themselves: "I was overpowered, I couldn't help myself," where if they really took off their clothes and piled into bed it would mean that they were a willing accomplice.

[Q] Playboy: Besides reassuring bachelor girls, you suggest a single girl should get material things from her married lover.

[A] Brown: No I don't. I've said for the most part I didn't think girls should be kept. It wasn't a tenable relationship. If it worked, if it were happy, that would be one thing. But it doesn't work. I said it's OK if a man is exceedingly wealthy, and she's a starving ballerina; that is quite different from saying I urge a single girl to get all she can out of her married lover. I think some pretty good gifts on his part are in order to make up for certain inequities. Because it's a better relationship for him than for her in almost every case.

[Q] Playboy: What are the differences between these barter arrangements and professional prostitution?

[A] Brown: Many things can be discussed in terms of prostitution. Many a woman who is married is in a sense a prostitute in that she accepts presents, money, automobiles, country-club memberships, trips to Europe and the good life from a man she can barely tolerate in bed. But we're now talking about another kind of so-called prostitution, a girl who accepts things from a man she's not married to. I feel she's less of a prostitute than the married woman who hates the bed relationship. No, I don't consider this single girl a prostitute. Her married lover is just somehow making her life a little better than it is. In a way we're all prostitutes.

[Q] Playboy: Is there a dividing line between sleeping around before marriage and out-and-out promiscuity?

[A] Brown: Sleeping around is a very derogatory term and promiscuity is obviously something bad. If you say where does the demarcation come between a girl being a decently sexed, healthy person and sleeping around -- OK. There is no specific demarcation. I can't judge anything quantitatively. I would have to know how old she is, how long she was tied up with one person. For example, I was involved with one particular Don Juan for five years. I was very faithful to him, so nothing went on during that period. Who's to say that's a better relationship than if I'd had an affair with a different man every year? It seems unlikely that you would have as many as two or three or ten bed relationships a year without something being kind of skitterish, because the most delightful thing in the world is to have one real lover. It's more fun to have one man at a time. When there is multiple bedding down, and by that I mean you sleep with more than one man at a time, that's not being true.

[Q] Playboy: Your five-year relationship with a Don Juan seems to have left its mark. In the book, in commenting on Don Juans, you criticize their calculating ways, saying their "drive and attention to detail are awe inspiring," that "their ruthlessness is to be pitied." What is the difference between those manipulating men you put down and the manipulating bachelor girls you praise and advise?

[A] Brown: A Don Juan's sole aim, if I understand the term, is to prove his masculinity, about which there may be a great deal of doubt in his mind. Most literature on the subject indicates that he really doesn't love women at all. He really loves himself. Far from really loving, as we know it, he exploits. He's a sick character. In my book, I never at any time said it wasn't wonderful to have a man to be with, to love, to marry if you want to, or if not, to have at least for a loving friendship. Life without men is a very barren, arid, unhappy situation. However, there are not enough men to go around. The girl is the underdog. The first thing I hoped to do was to convince her she was not the underdog. She mustn't think of herself that way. Inasmuch as society has put her in that position -- i. e., if you don't have a husband you're some kind of schmuck -- to be able to get out of that position and show society that you really aren't a creep, here are some of the things you can do. I didn't present men as something to be exploited. Her goal is to surround herself with loving friends. At no time does the book ever say love 'em and leave 'em, beat the hell out of 'em, take their money away from them, make them unhappy. Always it suggests that the relationship be a loving one. However, this girl is the underdog. She does have to watch out.

[Q] Playboy: Are the two that dissimilar in their methods?

[A] Brown: The technical method is not that dissimilar. The means have a similarity. However, you could compare the pursuit of a confidence man who is trying to con a millionaire out of his money to the methods of a Washington hostess who's trying to snare the most important ambassador in the city to come to her dinner party. No one has the corner on charm. I don't know of anything more ruthless, more deadly or more dedicated than any normal, healthy American girl in search of a husband.

[Q] Playboy: In your book you say: "Crass and callous though, it may make her seem, the desirable woman is usually more favorably disposed toward a man who is solvent and successful than someone without status." Do you equate sex appeal with money?

[A] Brown: I love money. I don't mean it to be a crucial thing, although I've never known a really loaded, wealthy guy who didn't have all the girls he wanted. Maybe it's mean and horrible. But it's definitely a nice accessory. Of course there are more important things than money, but I get bored with people who are constantly deprecating it all the time. They really like it as much as I do. And I don't think it can be denied that a man who has a little money can attract more girls whether it's to take them to bed or whatever he wants to do with them.

[Q] Playboy: You now have considerable affluence of your own as a result of one "pippy-poo" book. Can you sum up the reasons for your success?

[A] Brown: This whole thing that's happened to me is so ridiculous. It's a fluke. It's crazy. But one thing that has become most apparent to me is the ridiculousness of saying that we aren't like we really are. Playboy says we're like we really are and it's OK to be like that. My favorite psychologist, Albert Ellis, is always harping on this subject. He decries that nobody ever writes about the fact that sex is fun. Why do we have to pretend that we love people that we hate and that marriage isn't a horrible bore much of the time? The reason my book is successful is that there's none of this crappiness about it. I said as well as I could what it was really like. Any time anyone can say of your book: "Yes, this is how it really is," you're apt to have a hit on your hands, if it isn't too grisly. You can have verisimilitude and be commercially successful if it's a subject about which people don't mind listening or looking. And what could fit the bill better than sex?