The Harrad Experiment

Rating:
Summary: Sex Education for a High School Sophmore
Review: ... the book is not without merits. It's presentation of idealistic youth in a changing culture was a refreshing reminder, for a child growing up in the age of irony and cynicism, that there was a time in America when the youth believed that change for the better was possible, an intellengcia who were educated by reading Hermann Hesse and Gibran as opposed to Hegel, Chomsky & Foucault. I have reread "Harrad" many times and am able to laugh at what I once thought possible and the ending, oh the ending, I still find satisfying. Although being a product of the early nineties I am admitidly a cynic verging on being apathetic I will say this, if change is at all possible, it is possible only if approached from the perspective of the "insix", read the book and you'll know what I mean. All in all I give "Harrad" four stars for even with it's faults it still portrays a time and place that one can look back on and say, "At Least They Believed In Something."

Rating:
Summary: Oh I wish...
Review: I cannot mistake it for being anything but a fantasy, but one that appeals a lot to me...women who one gets to see naked at least once a day, a roommate that you are told has been computer-assigned to you on the basis of sexual compatablily, a nice isolated New England college. Such a life - would definitely be good!

I enjoyed the heck out of this in the early seventies. While not anywhere as explicit as "Literotica" or other writings on the web, back then it was pretty hot stuff, particularly for someone who had lazy intellectual pretensions. The scene where two of our heroes/heroines have a long discussion of the history of polyamory while continuously coupled was especially pleasing.

Since then, I've grown up some; I've realized the war between advocates of prohibitions on sexual conduct, usually backed by the established religions, on the one hand, and the advocates of sexual license on the other, is never going to be won by one side or the other. Although not religious myself, I am mature enough to know that neither side is entirely right or wrong, and the advocacy of complete sexual license is often just one other strategy for guys to try and cut themselves out as big a slice of the female gene pie as possible. Heck, it sure worked for Rasputin and Charles Manson. I've also noticed the participants in the experiment are a cross-section of a '60s student body - white, middle class, without physical handicaps, and secure in their futures. Except for the young Indian girl who taken out of poverty is quickly converted to the "new American way." The earlier writer who said this reflected cultural arrogance is on the mark here.

Still, I still keep my copy around, reread it from time to time, and sure wish I could get dormed with someone like Sheila.

Rating:
Summary: Coed Dorms
Review: I first read this book at its publication many years ago. The idea of coed dorms was not even considered then. Of course, we still do not have coed rooms, or nude coed gym classes. I like the book. It gives one things to dream about, and is sexy without being hard core pornography.

Rating:
Summary: What Price Free Love?
Review: I missed out on reading this watershed book when it was "hip" to do so in the late 1960s. A little too young to appreciate it at that time--it's just sad thinking about the end of the so-called sexual revolution with the onslaught of yuppies, AIDS, and political conservatism starting in the 1980s. But having just finished it, I'll support the previous reviewer--"Harrad" is an excellent, engaging, always entertaining book! Ah, would the world of relations between thinking men and women be as utopian (and as free) as Rimmer describes at mythical Harrad College (an amalgam of HARvard & RADcliffe), located on a mysterious estate in tree-lined Cambridge, Mass. Somewhere, somewhen, we can only hope that a 21st century version of the Harrad Experiment will occur. The premise holds up well after 30 years and could still serve as a model for a bold community of college educated, liberal-minded, free-thinking men and women where a nonmonogamous--perhaps even bisexual--recreational public and private sex andclothing-optional lifestyle is respected as an individual right of freedom ; it should be celebrated as a sign of personal expression and liberation, regardless of age or body type. Unfortunately, the Baby Boomers of the '60s--who could have sustained the Harrad revolution-- have already settled into staid monogamy,babymaking, and church going.

Rating:
Summary: Wow...
Review: I read this book as a frshman in college and it really did change my perceptions on life. I found myself getting lost in the philosophy and taking a journey within myself as I journied with the students Stanley, Shiela, Beth, and Harry through their four years at Harrad. I think that this is a book that all young people should read before their beliefs get set in stone.

Rating:
Summary: An Underrated Blueprint for Human Loving
Review: I read this book when I visited my sister at her college, back in 1970; I was 12 at the time. This is funny, in that Rimmer's vision set my "over-intelligent" mind seeking the kind of intimacy, honesty, and sensitivity that he described...and I hadn't even gone to high school!

I've re-read the book several times over the years. I find the characters entrancing and their explorations enlightening. I agree that the book feels dated in this cynical world that poises at the brink of a new century, but the essence of the novel--the exploration of the fullness and freedom of human loving--is as fresh as advice that has never been followed.

Now staring down the barrel of 40, I still find the joyous exuberance of Harrad to be uplifting, entertaining, educational. Reading the book for perhaps the dozenth time is like visiting old friends who still hold their beautiful vision close to their hearts. Would that I could have shared in that experiment. Would that I had been so fortunate, so strong, as to forge this daring new blueprint for human loving. But I still do my part.

I strongly recommend this book to any and all who would explore the greatest realms of human passion. With love like this, we might finally enter that long-fabled human millenium.

Rating:
Summary: Easily the most controversial and intimate books of all time
Review: When i first read this book I was around 13, the "puberty years". Though when I first started reading it I thought I was being perverted. Now i know that it isn't a perversion yet a form of love and inner being. First reading the book makes you feel weird, not knowing what to read. Yet reading the book a multiple of times, slowly once, in one day another, you get the different sense of each character. What they were going through and how it pretains to life. Though in my life I haven't gotten to that form of intellectual atvantage. I know in the future of my reading of The Harrad Experiment, I will learn more and more about myself , love and intimacy.