So what you’ve got here are three separate records devoted entirely to the sounds of sex, and I’ve got to admit that I’ve never been more bewildered by three records in my life. One of them, Dirty Fan Male, is something of a gag, but the other two are for straight-up porn for all intents and purposes – they were designed solely as masturbation fodder, and that’s where my mind starts to pinwheel. Both of the latter CDs are compilations of tracks released originally on LP or flexi-disc, so…how the hell did you jerk off to them? If you really liked one particular cut, did you run to your record player, pants flapping around your ankles, and move the needle arm back to the beginning until you were…finished? Or did you have to move your hi-fi closer to where you were…?

And the whole concept of sounds as erotica–I don’t get that, either. Pictures, sure. Moving images, no problem. But the sound of a woman (or more than one woman, or in the case of one hideous track, a guy grunting like he’s having arrhythmia) groaning orgasmically over late ‘60s-early ‘70s funk and psychedelic tracks? Or a constant stream of filthy chatter from a porn model? Would either of those actually get you off? I honestly can’t imagine it. But then again, I have a hard time with the guys who dig women covered in food or with hairy armpits. That throws me for a loop, too. Thank God there aren’t records devoted to those kinks.

But thank God that these three discs exist, as much as they confuse the hell out of my clearly vanilla libido. First and foremost, they’re all hilarious, especially Dirty Fan Male, which is the standout disc in the lot. Essentially, it’s a stack of fan letters written to English nude models and Page 3 girls read by actor Douglas Wisbey, who enhances their lunacy through a wide variety of regional accents and celebrity imitations, all of which are quite good—if you’ve ever wanted to hear Cary Grant enthusiastically declare that he was a pervert, here’s the place to get that action.

But really, Wisbey could have read these while half-asleep and they wouldn’t have lost any impact – the letters are absolutely mindboggling in their perversity. Jed fantasizes that the object of his affection shits herself before he administers a rimjob; G.S.F.’s idea of heaven is cunnilingus after a sweaty bout of tennis; an unnamed 78-year-old’s fondest desire is to “suck out” a model; and Spunky Arthur…well, I think you can guess his story. Some of the letters are just plain insane – frantic torrents of obscenities (as Lionel says, “I fuck you and you fuck me and we fuck all night and we fuck all day and my big rising willie…”) or sweat-soaked megalomaniacal fantasies, best expressed in four spine-chilling letters from Martin (whom Wisbey voices as James Mason), who promises to “take care” of Lady Samantha, despite the fact that by his own admission, he is dead. And others…well, they’re just sad. “Elvis” spends most of his long-winded missive explaining how local yobs beat the crap out of him for his sideburns, while another mousy fella offers a model on bum kicks a place to stay in exchange for her feeding his cat. Stuff like this is proof positive that truth is not only stranger than fiction, it lives in a world populated by dudes who pour the contents of their sticky souls out in letters to total strangers—how’s that for an eye-opener?  I suppose there’s something to be said about how the letters show how lust and obsession can cut to the core of a person’s being, but I’d much rather concentrate on how damn funny this disc is and not think about how much I sounded like one of these headcases during my own single and desperate years…

Trunk Records is also responsible for Flexi-Sex, a compilation of nine dirty talk recordings (as the liner notes aptly note, “46 minutes of utter filth”) that came in English stroke mags during the early ‘70s. The recordings make no bones (if you’ll pardon the pun) about their intention—this was pure wanking material, with no plotline to get in the way of the ladies reaching Teri Weigel-style orgasms or cooing about licking your shaft and the like. There are a few variants on the theme—“Tantalising Tina” is joined by some heavy-breathing yob at the end of her story, while real-life porn queen Mary Millington asks listeners to join her while she “sits on the loo” and takes a leak. The fact each of the actresses have perfect English diction and accents somehow makes their stories a bit dirtier (picturing Kate Beckinsale mouthing this smut helps that idea – at least for me), and at the same time, a bit sillier. It’s like tuning into BBC America and hearing the news reader offer viewers to lick her puff before moving on to domestic issues. I dunno—maybe it’s latent colonial yearnings or something. At any rate, if you’re a vintage porn fan, ephemera collector, or lonely UK resident in your forties, this ought to cheer up your day.

Ooh Ooh Ahh, from Boston-based audio archaeologists Arf! Arf!, focuses on songs built around the sound of women achieving orgasm, which is a surprisingly larger genre than one might expect. There have been some notable examples in the past – Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’s “J’taime” and Donna Summer’s “Love To Love You Baby” leap immediately to mind, as does Chakachas’ “Jungle Fever (which is included here under the title of “Brown Eyes Blazing”)” and to a certain extent, Black Flag’s “Slip It In”—but Ooh Ooh Ahh tracks down a whopping 21 additional tunes featuring various ladies (and dudes, and ladies with dudes) reaching le petit mort. This may be the weirdest of the three discs – the songs are just whacked-out funk and rock cuts laid out by faceless studio musicians with grunting and groaning laid over them. As with Flexi-Sex, a few tunes break the mold; “God’s Gift” is a “J’taime” parody featuring a crazy old Italian man chattering incessantly at his younger partner (“Viva la Francia!”), while “Caveman Cookbook” records what sounds like sexual assault between its female and male vocalists. The most insane of the bunch is “Missionary,” which is simply a percussion track under what sounds like a Slavic woman shrieking, “I AM TO COME--I WAS!” like she’s being frigged by a ten-thousand-volt vibrator. It goes on for an exhausting 3:37 and sounds like something you’d hear while chained up in Jesus Franco’s root cellar. By its end, you’ll need more than a cigarette—you’ll need heart massage.