On Reading Bettina Arndt’s Sex Diaries (2009)
It seems that married women shrink from sex,
Loath ‘four legs in a bed’ when two will do.
Diaries reveal that marriage casts a hex
On Cupid’s raptures. Though to bill and coo
Was once delightful, now it seems to vex
Matrons who had believed a man should woo
With sighs, gifts, vows of love and burning passion,
But now see sex as something they should ration.
Miss Arndt – has diaries – fifty-eight in all! –
Which tell a tale, familiar but depressing,
Of how all wedlock quietly casts a pall
On paradise; these ladies here confessing
Their husband’s sex-drive drives them up the wall,
Though what they call a curse was once a blessing.
Their attitude towards their spouse’s phallus
Is not only contemptuous but callous.
It’s passing strange that girls who, at fifteen,
Found their virginity a real disgrace,
And could not rest until they’d finally been
Rogered by some lout with a pimply face
Should now regard such conduct as obscene.
‘The world is everything that is the case’
Wrote Wittgenstein. But even his great Casebook
Affords no hint of things we read in on Facebook.
Though Wittgenstein knew nothing of such things
His fellow Viennese, mischievous Freud,
Taught us that Eros, not pure Reason, brings
Light into darkness; Id must be employed
In nurturing Ego or Thanátos flings
Our discontents and cultures to the Void.
All this was liberation. But why then
Did he not say why women can’t stand men?
Perhaps he’d never guessed it. In his day
The patriarchy was in full command
No female dared cry ‘Take that thing away!’
When heavy breathers placed it in her hand.
Ever compelled to swive seven times a day
They still submitted meekly. Understand
They thought the goal of sex was procreation
Spreading their thighs to serve husband and nation.
Two world wars raged, while skirts – like lives – grew shorter.
Much that had been concealed was plainly seen
Including man’s propensity for slaughter
(One hundred million corpses broke our dream).
So many a docile girl-friend, wife or daughter
Now knew they should not merely be, but mean;
Sought hard for meaning, found none, so instead,
Tired of their wild-goose chase, they took to bed.
Their bedtime joys increased with the appearance
Of that elixir quietly dubbed ‘The Pill’.
While pessimists forecast a general clearance
Of morals, leading to an overkill
Of population, arguing interference
With natural increase thwarted God’s own Will,
Most people felt that their ontogeny
Would burgeon free from tiresome progeny.
A woman’s tongue, when skilfully employed,
Can raise a man to heights of sensual bliss,
It’s hard to say whether it’s most enjoyed
When she gives head, or else bestows a kiss,
But every careless rapture is destroyed
Once she’s decided something is amiss
Then she gives tongue, not in a loving way,
But as a hell-hound does when scenting prey.
‘Homini homo lupus,’ runs the tag,
‘Man is a wolf to Man’ (Woman as well)
There are few beasts ferocious as a Nag,
A harridan sprung forth from hottest hell,
A graceful girl transmuted to a hag,
Transmogrified by some infernal spell
Like Xanthype, who harassed Socrates,
Who found her worse that Furies, plague or fleas.
To be continued as the poet ploughs his way through Miss Bettina Arndt's turgidities...
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