Cosmopolitan magazine the other day was exhorting girls to excite and cajole their lovers with wildly obscene language. Sexual Norm, who’s been brought up not to swear in front of a lady, would be absolutely horrified.

In fact after reading a sex book manual, I’m amazed any man dares pounce on a girl at all. He must be so worried about ‘ejaculatory incompetence’ or being a tower of jelly in a crisis, or not being able to come ten times a night. Then there’s always the problem of having wined not wisely but too well. Of the four stages of drunkenness: jocose, bellicose, lachrymose and comatose, it is essential to catch the girl at the post-jocose stage.

And novels are so sexy too these days that even if a couple are having a quiet read before going to bed, the girl is liable to become insanely amorous just after the man’s taken his sleeping pills.



LUST IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION

I’m a believer in lust—if two people fancy each other silly, they usually have a nice time in bed without the aid of chocolate ice-cream or the Velvet Buzz Saw.

Of course there will be men like the Old Man of Thermopylae who never did anyone properly, or lazy men, who believe in labour saving vices, and just lie on their backs and let the girl do all their work.

But on the whole I think the good lover has a way with women as some people do with horses—he makes them relax, he creates the kind of cosy emotional atmosphere in which a woman is not afraid to ask him to do the thing he wants to her. He is also an enthusiast, he cares for making a woman happy rather than making her, he is not frightened of getting his feet or anything else wet—relief would be just a lovely wallow away.

I don’t think most women are crazy about sexual athletes. If he can twist you into every position in the Kama Sutra that’s gym not sex. Nor are they wild about marathons. The third day he rose from the bed may be all right for some, but it’s no good if he doesn’t press the right buttons.

Finally the most important thing in a good lover is a sense of humour. He should be someone who can send the whole thing sky high, who wouldn’t mind if you were having an off day or didn’t feel up to it.


“But sweetest, why in the bedroom?”



BATHS

Afterwards lovers are supposed to have baths together, which I’ve always thought was an overrated pastime, particularly if you sit at the wrong end and have the taps digging into your back, with one side scalded and the other one frozen. On the other hand if you don’t have a bath together, whoever has last bath not only has to make the bed but also clean the bath.



THE VENERABLE BIDET

Then of course there’s the bidet—somehow if you go to someone’s house and see a bidet in their bathroom you assume they must be sexually switched on, or French. Sexual Norm thinks bidets are for bathing the dog. American girl in Paris hotel: “Dig that crazy drinking fountain.”



VASECTOMY

According to a recent article this is the most beautiful thing a man can do for a woman; it’s also one of the shrewdest. If a man has a vasectomy, he can have an absolute hayride sleeping with anyone he wants to without danger. His wife however is completely stymied if she suddenly gets pregnant.


DIRTY WEEKENDS

“But, darling, when you said a dirty weekend …”