A Driving Passion

An intriguing artifact, this book is a collection of some very frank lectures by Vassi, an erotic writer, who, as Mailer comments in his preface, ``was his own experiment.'' Vassi gave the lectures in 1975, at the height of the sexual revolution, and he died in 1989, at age 51, of AIDS. His eclectic quest for eroticism is somewhat poignant, and his fervor rarely lapses into silliness. Vassi coined the term ``Metasex'' to describe all sex beyond procreation, and he considered ``the erotic mood'' the source of beauty and art. He describes his own sexual experiences as an eight-year-old, as a 19-year-old serviceman in Japan, in New York City bathhouses in the 1970s (as interesting, he says, ``as the Grand Canyon''), and in his three marriages. Vassi suggests that fidelity depends on the terms of the contract in marriage, maintains that eroticism needn't have anything to do with love and observes that ``all my close friends and relationships have nice asses, come to think of it.'' (Nov.)