Dear Doctor Hip Pocrates [antikvár]

Preface by Joel Fort, M.D. Early in 1967, a serious thirty-two-year-old staff physician sought my advice at San Francisco's Center for Special (sex, drug, etc.) Problems. I had founded the Center and was then directing it. The young doctor wanted my opinion about a column he was considering writing for the Berkeley Barb. His concerns at that time illustrate well the establishmentarian hypocrisy and irrationality forced upon all of us: "respectable" people like physicians are not supposed to involve themselves in controversial subjects such as sex and drugs, or to "advertise" themselves in print. What would this mean for his career? Could these complex subjects be properly and humorously communicated to his future readers? Having become aware from Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld's ideas and dress that he possessed the dangerous and un-American qualities of independence and nonconformity which were likely to make the column successful, I encouraged him to do it and not to worry about the Establishment's reaction. Perhaps then, or during a subsequent conversation, we discussed questions about oral-genital contact for which I suggested my only specific line for the column: "It's all a matter of taste." The readers of this book and of his column are well aware of Dr. Schoenfeld's subsequent success, not only in conventional square (or hip) terms, but as a man and writer. Thirty to forty letters a week from readers (more than two thousand altogether since the column began March 24, 1967); publication in ten "underground" newspapers; and this book, which will be read widely. More important, he has provided public health education on taboo subjects about which most doctors and all health departments are frightened, and he has done this with clear, terse, funny language that reaches and grabs young and old. More