The forbidden words formed long queues; memoires.

The seventies were already getting very modern. You would have thought the world belonged to those wearing jeans and perms. Yes, that’s right, I too had a perm done. It was a sign of male emancipation. The journey ( and who is not on ‘journey’ now-a-days?) of freeing  the shackles of the sixties started in my case a few years earlier with a vasectomy performed by two female doctors, one of whom had the word ‘Cock’ in her surname. I remember both of them crouched down at the bottom of the bed, intent on the snapping of my vas deference.  A good omen. The perm ensured acceptance and added to confidence.  The vasectomy a discontinuation of the family who already counted three in an over-populated world. Why could the world of blond curls and untidy beards not be an outward sign for  those who owned the world?

What was not so modern though, and it seems ludicrous today, that words were still banned. Portnoy’s Complaint and Lolita were banned. The literary experts whose job it was to look after our morals and employed as Censors needed an ambulance after they had ploughed through those books. They were maimed for life. That’s what words can do. Words like ‘cunt and masturbation’, ‘breasts and erection’ and the unspeakable ‘penis’. When the books were finally released from being pent up by the tens of thousands on our wharfs in grey camouflaged wooden crates, pandemonium broke out. Police on horseback had to whip back and restrain rain-coat wearing men, blunt-stone women, all queuing up to get a copy and read all about banned words. There were no signs, as feared, of anyone going in a sexual frenzy. There were no rapports of fornication on the foot-path outside Hans delicatessen with the signs of Heisse KnackWurst for sale, or indeed inside the KFC take-away.

A few years earlier, similar horse-backed police had to restrain theatre patrons in front of the Metro in King’s Cross where after weeks of parliamentary arguments ‘Hair’ was finally allowed to be shown. Permission was given after agreements were reached whereby during the ‘nude’ part the undressing of all the actors and dancers were to be strictly performed under a large army canvas which would then be hoisted up by a crane. The nudeness had to be done in absolute stillness and no body parts moving. A single quiver in testicles or breasts and the show would be cancelled. It was an electrifying moment that we all waited for. Slowly the large canvas was lifted. The audience mouse-still. Not a flitting of an eyelash. Real nudes. Unbelievable. Afterwards, the patrons silently left the theatre, overwhelmed by it all. Many went home got undressed and looked in the mirror!

Next morning people queued up for the bus. Life seemed to go on the same as before. It always does. On week-ends the lawnmowers happily rattled on and the suburban nature strip wasn’t forgotten either. Petunias were being planted, rockeries cemented and fences re-painted.

It was always thus.

Is this the new Tosca or Weiner’s wiener?

Is this the new Tosca?
The romantic tragedy and passion of Puccini’s Tosca is palpable. She, who sacrificed herself to the man she hated in order to save the man she loved. Could it be any more beautiful and yet also be so tragic? In fact when it comes to love, perhaps they are the same. The tearstained upturned faces of so many, more likely from women than men, feature thickly in operas, paintings and leather-bound books that litter our history like so many autumnal leaves in Finnish Forests or so many tears having seeped down into the deepest oceans. Tosca was no ordinary woman. She made grown men weep.

One wonders if the beauty and tragedy of unrequited love has waned and if so, can we blame sexting? Of late this new form of romance has taken a strange twist. A potential mayor of New York has confessed of having sent many pictures of him-self to suitors of the opposite sex. Leaving behind the morals of his conjugal state and our urge to judge others let’s just stick to the subject of modern romance. Is sexting a new form of seeking romance and is it a kind of natural progression from the days of Puccini or Tolstoy? After all no one goes around sticking knives into people whilst singing in Italian like they used to. While unbridled womanizing still has free rein as proven by Mr Weiner in New York, none still happens to involve carriages with galloping horses over Russian tundra.

The one thing still shared between those former strategies of romance and the present is the age old matter of ‘vengeance’, always vengeance. No tale of romance could exist without retribution ‘vengeance is mine’ could be written on many a tombstone resting under the countless Elm trees of history. It descends on the hapless victims like the sword of Damocles with no escape.

Poor Mr Strauss- Kahn, a future president now being described as nothing more than ‘a rutting chimpanzee’ only knows too well the vengeance of unforgiving amoureuses still circling the carcasses of his previous stature. Even so, he is hesitantly and ever so slowly recovering and was seen last week at the Cannes festival with a new love tugging at his arms. Those DNA spots on the hotel carpet receding and the maid happy with a settlement.

However, the New York future mayoral attempts at romance through texting explicit photos of him-self seem to have brought is to a completely new level. The past always involved the complete features of the persons. This was the way people made up their minds about any possible entanglement and involvement. The visual prospect was one of many that people consciously or otherwise helped to make up decisions, often foolishly so, but, what the heck, that’s love for you. However, just to see pictures of genitalia seems to have done away with that form of initial introduction.

I fail to see what criteria one could possibly surmise from such limited pictorial imagery. Is the photo of Mr Anthony Weiner’s penis sent to one of his suitors an indication of his determination in achieving an outcome for the rubbish collection from the Streets of NY or a push in lowering parking fees? I don’t see that but then again I don’t have photo of his penis either. Women also send intimate pictures of themselves to future lovers and again, I fail to see how one can possibly scan anything out of looking at their private parts. What can you possibly scrounge from a vaginal photo? Can she reverse park or is she good at making gravy? The mind boggles.

A politician’s worst nightmare came out in Canada when a Twitter account showed up a politician’s penis. A spokesperson defended this by saying his BlackBerry went off in his pocket and later on confused the issue even further by saying that it was somebody else’s penis. He was a candidate for parliament and lost by over 500 votes. People are unforgiving and remember ‘vengeance’ is still around.

We have yet to see if Mr Weiner will survive his weiner.

In Praise of Sex and Moscow State University

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Years ago, a movie about sex education was shown in a George Street cinema. It might have been during the mid or late fifties or so. The movie could only be seen by strictly segregated audiences. Women were on even, men (as always), on uneven days.

I was still young but mustardy keen about sex, very curious about finally viewing female genitalia. The ticket prices were more than usual. Sex, even the educational type, was exploited already then. The queues were long, but I finally got in. The ticket seller a male and so were all the ushers. Not a woman in sight.

The Hammond organ rose majestically from the bowels of the cinema, while large pink curtains slid open soundlessly. A stirring rendition of ‘God save the Queen’ was oozed out of the organ. We all stood up in Royal reverence and lustful expectation.

There was a short introduction by a lanky Liberace-like man dressed in a sparkling white suit, warning us all not to get over excited. Please, all stay calm throughout the entire film, he advised with stern authority. We would finally be shown the act of human re-production in all its black and white glory, he enthused. Far out!

Apart from the sighing of hundreds of young men with penises semi expectant, you could hear a pin drop. Not as much as a rustling chips packet.

The film finally started and with lots of diagrams and arrows there appeared shot after shot a plethora of ovum and sperm. Nothing actually moved. It was rather disconcerting when after some ovum and sperm finally getting together; a real live woman was shown to wheel a baby around in a pram. Not a twitch of anything sexual or erotic, in fact the opposite. No genital let alone genitalia.The disappointment was palpable.

The crowd was getting restless. A trickle made for the exit, soon followed by a torrent. Then, and I have never forgotten this, a very miffed young man shouted at the back of the cinema in a rasping strong Aussie accent…” has anyone cracked a fat yet?”  I still laugh in the sweet memory of it.

In those days, sex was totally kept subterranean and one was lucky to have seen a girl’s nude knee. Girls were kept at arm’s length. The mothers gave daughters sex information based on; if anything moves on the boy, no matter where or how, move away and come home immediately, darn a sock or boil some Brussel sprouts.

Haven’t things moved forward since? Just type in V A G I N A on the computer and one is greeted by 32.900.000 responses in one ninth of a second, compliments via Google. While the issues surrounding sex were cloaked in secrecy and mystery at earlier times, not anymore now. We certainly don’t need queue up in George Street cinema anymore. At the same time I wonder if the pendulum hasn’t swung the other way a bit too far. I mean, 32.900.000 times too far.

It all reminds me of standing in front of Moscow’s university, apparently one of the largest in world. Our lovely Russian guide Natasha informed us, that even if we got to a hundred years old, our lives would not be long enough living in a different room at that university every week.

The Lomonosov Moscow State University enrolls over 40.000 students annually with another 4000 foreign students. Its library alone has over 9.000.000 books with 2.000.000 in foreign languages. More than 6000 professors and lecturers are employed plus scores of researchers…

http://www.msu.ru/en/

Now, they are impressive numbers that surely matter more than the 32.900.000 vagina Google entrees .You would have thought that the world’s interest in sexual matters would now have subsided, calmed down a bit and shifted away to more pressing needs.

While the interest in the female genitalia continues unabated, it’s a different kettle of fish with penises. Amazingly, there are only 9.440.000 penis entrees on the internet. What do we make of that? Are we men not good enough? Are there some design flaws or the aesthetics unappetizing? We men need to feel secure and strong, you know.

Perhaps, it all comes down to choice. Our lives will not only be long enough to traverse through all of Moscow’s university rooms, neither do we have time to peruse all those vagina or penis entries. One thing is for sure. I would rather traverse through any university than trawl the net for genitalia. They are all so boringly uniform and the same. It’s just something with hair on it. Surely, there has to be more to life.

In Praise of Erectile Dysfunction

 

Gerard Oosterman

It has got me beat, why, when getting older and the morning glory finally in retreat, allowing a bit of a sleep in, that men’s obsession with flagging tumescence is called a ‘dysfunction’. The scientists in cahoot with sexologists have pored for years over glass test tubes to come up with a solution that will make the ageing male re-born again and cure him from flaccid flesh, drooping donger and dismissive dirges from partners. The expert doctor will now prescribe a pill to try and crank up the tired and ageing engine of love and lust once again.

We all know why doctor’s waiting rooms are seeing more and more men, looking a bit shy and sly. The grey haired male heads are now buried in Women’s Weekly trying to fill in the remaining left out clues on the cross words or count the differences in the two pictures. Life hasn’t always been easy.

All those relationship and marital battles, the kids gone astray up North bumming around on Noosa’s beaches with strumming guitars and silly girls with oafish boys. What about the maintenance and restorations, additions, extensions on houses and costs of kids, all those years of mortgage payments and sometimes also on partners and wives long gone.

Oh, that fatal dipping back in once life, the reminiscing on things gone by, and was all this for the insane drive and biological need for the going up and down.  Is that what has driven us all along in life?  Is this why we are sitting here in a doctor’s waiting room, all lost and chewed up?  Is it to pursue us men forever on?

Better stick to this puzzle making words from rows of letters, see how many I’ll get in before seeing the quack and get script on Viagra again.  I wonder what the Doc does in his old age, no doubt very generous in his own prescriptions.

Would all this worrying about rigidity in pyjamas next to partners be some giant con to get the pharmaceutical companies out of trouble?  I believe there is now a Viagra for women as well; many scientist have worked feverishly on this for a long time.  They believe that this new kind of female Viagra makes the blood flow to the pelvic area and works wonders.  Tests, so far done on rats, have shown it to be safely tolerated and the Pharmaceutical Companies a doubling of profits is assured if we can make ‘normal’ women feeling they have a ‘normal dysfunction’ as well.  Just like us blokes.

There are vague references made to men, as they get older, having vascular problems, smoking or drinking etc, all very normal and lack of tumescence a result of those chosen life styles.  Never ever, do they say that getting older might mean that things slow down a bit and that the flaccidity problem is a result of healthy ageing and pretty normal.

Oh no, around the world, hundreds of millions of men are bombarded with advertisements on how normal it is to have ED, and this is the triumph of money over common sense, it is a DYSFUNCTION and therefore ‘not normal’.  Millions don’t want to be feeling they have a dysfunction and hence the queue to the doctors and the handing over of billions to the merchants of Viagra, Cialis, Ram Rods, Pole Vaulters and others.

It seems that the mature man perhaps ought to take matters in own hand, step back sceptically and re-consider the issues a bit more thoroughly.

Could it be that advancing age is blessed with well hidden benefits of not having to be driven by those ridiculous up and downs, up and downs again?  It is not as if, afterwards, one ends up in Kalgoorlie or Vienna.  No we are still in the same spot and our partner will soon be snoring, a bit tired and the Viagra now is calling for revenge but will settle for a solid bout of thirty six hours of indigestion.

Gee, what rotten luck.  The Sudoku has been done in the May 2002 New Idea.  Don’t doctors ever think that patients might like something a bit more recent?

Just a good cuddle is what we are all really wanting more than this struggle with rigid or sloppy bits and being dependants on a pill.  It’s our entire fault, the stupid chasing of something that has gone, changed for something else, youth that is gone, thankfully gone!

Who would want to go through all that again?  Surely by now we could be looking forward in at least not having to worry about erections at bedtime and forgetting the Viagra.  We finally have the house paid, plenty of knives and forks, all the things at last in the right place, made a few friends and got it made, with pictures of smiling grandkids as proof.  The ride-on mower and two door fridge.

And afterwards, that glass of red, post dinner and on the comfy settee with partner in opposite armchair, nothing doing, not TV or Vid, nor noisy kids or tumbling dryer and dishwasher.  Just be sitting there.  How glorious.

That’s it, we are fed up with being taken as a sucker, enough is enough.  We have done our heaving and hoisting for pleasure, procreation and progeny, more than enough for the time being.  Put it all to pasture for a year or so, go for hugs and kisses, smell the roses and enjoy  time left.  No worries, yippee!

Doctor will see you now.

Yes, doc, I have got such a persistent cough………..