Sex and the Anglo Saxon

I remember riding a crowded bus in London in the 1970’s and noticing a seated young adult male who was holding a small dark wooden box in his hands.  After a while he opened it and just stared at the contents for several minutes.  I thought it might be a special piece of jewelry or a religious icon of some sort.  I moved a little so I could see over his shoulder.  It was a simulated human rear end lovingly mounted in burgundy velvet, a small doll’s ass, realistically colored, just there to be admired.  He was fascinated by it, and didn't care who observed him enjoying the sight and feel.  It struck me then that yes, it really is true.  The Brits have their own strangeness about sex.

 

There's a movie version with Haley Mills. I dare you.

Kingsley Amis’s Take A Girl Like You is a comedy of manners that satirizes class, academics, marriage, and even a little politics.  But it’s mostly (actually pretty obsessively) about the social aspects of sex, pure and simple.  Yes it moves to a typical Kingsley Amis climax (sic).  In Lucky Jim it was a speech, here it’s the main character losing her virginity (willingly … sort of).  It’s all so very upper class British.  So many inside jokes, so much snobbishness and conceit.  On the whole, not very attractive, and more importantly not all that insightful about sex and intimacy.  I’ll take James Salter on this topic any day.  A Sport and A Pastime is marvelous.  As for Amis, his traditional British reserve, ultra-sophisticated understated and indirect language, and his satirical intentions don’t combine for me to produce insight about physical intimacy, or at least not in this case.  There’s some fun along the way, but for me anyway not the kind of ‘happy ending’ I hoped for.