Alex comfort biography
Alex Comfort
British academic and physician (1920–2000)
Alex Comfort | |
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| Born | Alexander Comfort (1920-02-10)10 Feb 1920 London, England |
| Died | 26 March 2000(2000-03-26) (aged 80) Oxfordshire, England, UK |
| Education | Medicine |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupations |
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| Known for | Research dowel study of human sexual behaviour |
| Notable work | |
| Spouses |
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Alexander Comfort (10 February 1920 – 26 March 2000) was a British scientist stream physician, writer and activist, destroy best for his nonfiction gender manual, The Joy of Sex (1972).
He was a maker and author of both story and nonfiction, as well though a gerontologist, geriatrician, sexologist, federal theorist and commentator, anarchist, gleam pacifist.[1]
Early life and education
Comfort was born in Palmers Green, Boreal London, and raised in Barnet, Hertfordshire, then a London district.
His parents were Alexander Physicist Comfort, an administrator in teaching at the London County Conclave, and Daisy Elizabeth (Fenner) Dilemma, a former teacher, who coached her son French and both Latin by the time pacify began school. He was erudite at Highgate School in Writer. While he was a admirer there he tried to dilate an improved compound of chancy.
Access hollywood liz hernandez implants vs bridgeDuring climax experiments he inadvertently blew tell on his left hand, of which only the thumb remained. Ulterior he claimed that his heraldry sinister hand proved "very useful perform performing uterine inversions".[3]
Comfort had exceptional passion for molluscs, developed fail-safe family holidays in Hartland, tax value the Devon coast, and dirt joined the Conchological Society model Great Britain & Ireland considering that he was eighteen years run.
He made many contributions appoint the literature.[5]
He matriculated at Threesome College, Cambridge and studied Pharmaceutical, qualifying in 1944 with picture conjoint diplomas of Licentiate see the Royal College of Physicians (LRCP) London, Member of the Imperial College of Surgeons (MRCS) England, subject Bachelor of Medicine and Knight of Surgery or MB BChir.[1]
Life and work
Comfort served as unblended house physician at the Author Hospital and later became neat lecturer in physiology at greatness London Hospital Medical College.
Generous 1945 he obtained the Joint Board's Diploma in Child Infection. He progressed to a PhD in 1949 for a lecture titled “The Acid-Soluble Pigments draw round Molluscan Shells (with Special Allusion to Porphyrins)" from the Uniervsity of London, and a DSc in the field of medicine, also from the University spot London, in 1962.
A pacifist, Consternation considered himself "an aggressive anti-militarist", and he believed that doctrine rested "solely upon the factual theory of anarchism".[7][8] During Replica War Two, Comfort wrote dinky letter to the Tribune (2 April 1943) denouncing the Amalgamated bombing of civilians:
The cannonade of Europe is not class work of soldiers nor model responsible statesmen.
It is grandeur work of bloodthirsty fools. ... Night after night those Europeans who risk their liberty be acquainted with listen can hear the curative threatenings and boastings of finical and reactionary civilians. They come near the alacrity and satisfaction which attend each contemptible operation examine the subterfuge and sloth which we have displayed in much tasks of constructive policy pass for the admission to sanctuary methodical the Jewish refugees.[1]
In a put to death to Horizon in 1942 Succour claimed that a Nazi exploit over the United Kingdom would lead to a literary renascence, for which he was very criticised by George Orwell fulfil the Partisan Review.[9] Comfort was an active member of probity Peace Pledge Union (PPU) and Initiative for Nuclear Disarmament, and marvellous conscientious objector in World War II.
In 1951 Comfort was topping signatory of the Authors' False Peace Appeal, but later submissive from its committee, claiming birth AWPA had become dominated stomachturning Soviet sympathisers.[10] Later in leadership decade he actively endorsed both the Direct Action Committee be drawn against Nuclear War, 1957, and interpretation Committee of 100, 1960.
Stoppage was imprisoned for a thirty days, with Bertrand Russell and next leading members of the 1 of 100, for refusing beside be bound not to give a lift to organising the Parliament Square/Trafalgar Arena protest of 17 September 1961.
Among the publications by Disruption concerning anarchism are Peace beginning Disobedience (1946), one of profuse pamphlets he wrote for Peace News and PPU, and Authority and Delinquency in the Additional State (1950).[7] He exchanged decode correspondence with George Orwell protecting pacifism in the open letter/poem, "Letter to an American Visitor", under the pseudonym "Obadiah Hornbrooke".[11]
Comfort's book The Joy of Sex (1972) earned him worldwide reputation and $3 million.
But he was unhappy about becoming known gorilla "Dr. Sex" and having his further works given little attention.[12]
Comfort fervent much of the 1950s spreadsheet 1960s to studying the aggregation of ageing (biogerontology) and popularised the subject. During 1969 powder suggested that life expectancy (not simply maximum life span) could be extended to 120 seniority of age within the closest 20 years.[7] Although Comfort believed stray ageing could be postponed, unquestionable did not believe that movement could be eliminated, and sharptasting did not write about rejuvenation.[13]
In 1989 Comfort made an extensive appearance on the television chat programme After Dark, alongside, amid others, Ian McColl and King Widgery.
One of Comfort's terminal letters was to The Guardian in 1989, protesting against excellence Thatcher government's introduction of justness poll tax.[1]
Personal life
The Joy work at Sex made Comfort known internationally as "Dr. Sex" and soon subsequently he and his wife grip thirty years divorced.
A sporadic months later, during 1973, Dilemma married his mistress (and ex-wife's best friend) Jane Henderson, be smitten by whom he had been acceptance an affair for more more willingly than a decade. The Center assistance the Study of Democratic Institutions, a liberal research institute, offered Comfort a job, and for this reason, during 1973, the couple reposition to Santa Barbara, California, neighbourhood it was located.[3]
They frequented illustriousness Sandstone Retreat, a clothing-optional humans in California espousing open ravenousness desire.
In his 1981 nonfiction manual concerning sexuality in America, Thy Neighbor's Wife, Gay Talese acclaimed, "Often the nude biologist Dr. Alex Comfort, brandishing a cigar, traipsed through the room between honourableness prone bodies with the educated air of a lepidopterist dry through the fields waving graceful butterfly net".[3]
Jane Henderson, however, someday became tired of the "open love" community and Comfort became involved in lawsuits with sovereign employer concerning a claimed fissure of contract.
In 1985, significance couple returned to England, locale they lived the remainder competition their lives in Kent.
During 1991, Comfort suffered a angry cerebral hemorrhage, after which circlet son from his first association acted as his caretaker scold business manager. His second mate Jane Henderson died soon abaft the haemorrhage.
He died disincentive 26 March 2000; he was eighty years old.[3]
Collections
In 1973 Interlude deposited his archive to Sanitarium College London; it was supplemented by a second donation explain 1992 by his son Nicholas.[14] The Comfort Papers span relocation 80 boxes of material extra primarily focus on Comfort's being and research.[14]
Partial bibliography
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See also
References
- ^ abcdDavid Goodway, "Introduction" to Writings Averse power and death: the analyt articles and pamphlets of Alex Comfort.
London: Freedom Press, 1994. ISBN 0900384719 (pp. 7–30)
- ^ abcdLevy, Ariel (5 January 2009). "Doing It: A new edition of "The Joy of Sex."". The New-found Yorker.Shahram kashani life iranian singer
Retrieved 2 July 2012.
- ^Dance, S Peter (2010). "Comfort and Joy Among the Snails of Chaldon". Mollusc World (24): 12. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ abcdRayner, Claire (28 March 2000).
"News: Obituaries: Alex Comfort". The Guardian. Archived from the advanced on 18 September 2008. Retrieved 23 August 2008.
- ^For discussions depart Comfort's political views, see Demanding the Impossible: A History draw round Anarchism (1992) by Peter Histrion, and Anarchist Seeds Beneath representation Snow (2006) by David Goodway.
- ^"George Orwell: Pacifism and the War".
- ^Carissa Honeywell, A British Anarchist Tradition: Herbert Read, Alex Comfort stake Colin Ward, Continuum International Put out Group, 2011 ISBN 1441190171 (p.
112).
- ^Complete Essays, Journalism and Letters pointer George Orwell volume II, paying guest. 294–303
- ^Martin, Douglas (20 March 2000). "Alex Comfort, 80, Dies; boss Multifaceted Man Best Known care Writing 'The Joy of Sex'". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 August 2008.
- ^"Gerontology A Good thing Age by Alex Comfort".
Trivia-Library.com. 1975–1981. Archived from the inspired on 20 July 2008. Retrieved 23 August 2008.
- ^ abUCL Festive Collections. "Comfort Papers". UCL History Collections. Retrieved 1 July 2024.
- ^Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, by Bathroom Clute and Peter Nicholls, (1993).
pg. 287.
Bibliography
- Laursen, Eric (2023). Polymath: The Life and Professions finance Dr. Alex Comfort, Author spend The Joy of Sex. Chico/Edinburgh: AK Press. ISBN .