If you are a child of the Seventies or Eighties, chances are that your formative sexual education was considerably influenced by rifling furtively through a Nancy Friday book. Even today, thanks to well-thumbed titles like My Secret Garden and Forbidden …
Will we survive the sex war?
Throughout history, the happy convergence of men and women — and their by-product, children — has driven human civilisation. No less than Freud saw this need for family as intrinsic: “Eros and Ananke [love and necessity],” he writes in Civilisation …
The march of Kamala’s brides
In a recent appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump caused a furore by questioning the racial “identity” of Democrat Kamala Harris. “Is she Indian or is she black?” Trump wondered. “I respect either …
Why prison guards have sex with inmates
As Britain’s summer of crisis continues, the penitentiary industrial complex could soon be overwhelmed. Not because of a lack of resources: estimates put the prisons’ budget at £4 billion. And it’s not for a lack of bipartisan thinking: the Labour …
Freud is coming for your kids
According to an old joke, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung are enjoying some pastries in a Viennese coffee shop. The younger analyst hesitantly asks the elder: “Tell me, Herr Professor Freud… vat lies between fear und sex?”. With furrowed brow, …
Is the Tradwife Queen a fraud?
The pioneer dream is deeply engraved in American culture and history. It’s simple but powerful: setting forth into the unknown, with just a few belongings and your immediate family, and creating a self-reliant, flourishing home in an unforgiving environment. As …
British feminism needs a history lesson
These days, we tend to interpret figures from long ago as if they lived just across the road. Such is the thesis of French sociologist Olivier Roy, who argues that an erasure of national cultural history is well underway. We …
Rediscovering the Garden of Eden
In 1882, General Charles Gordon rediscovered the Garden of Eden. This renowned military hero, who had played a significant role in quelling the Taiping Rebellion and was later to perish at the Siege of Khartoum, had been dispatched to the …
I’m in love with my AI girlfriend
Grand announcements in the world of AI are not rare; in fact, they are almost as frequent as new Tory Prime Ministers. Nonetheless, last week’s launch of OpenAI’s latest glittering iteration of its GPT series, GPT4o — the “o” is …
Sex education is TMI
“In matters of sexuality we are at present, every one of us, ill or well, nothing but hypocrites”, said Freud — a sentiment that came to mind as I watched reactions to the government’s announcement about sex education on Wednesday. …
Can Challengers make sex hot again?
I was the sole audience member at an otherwise-empty afternoon showing of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers this week, which should have been a rare luxury but instead made me feel like a pervert. Challengers is not a sex movie — ostensibly, …
The case for polyamory
The world seems to be awash with new ways of being in a relationship — or so a flurry of articles examining polyamory would have us believe. Last month, The New York Times featured a 20-person “polycule”; earlier this year, …
The complicated truth about being stalked
The teeth were the detail that stuck with me. A friend had gone to the sentencing of the woman who stalked me — I can’t really call her “my stalker”, because she turned out to have many victims and I …
How vice consumed Blackpool
Every online review for one of Blackpool’s brothels tells a sordid story. “I plan to visit nightly,” writes a punter whose wife has just died. “A depressing hovel,” claims another who took a teddy bear with him. A third admits …
Inside the Gen Z sex war
Women to the Left, men to the Right. And heaven forbid there is any crossover. These days, young people are floundering in their sex-based political silos wanting different things: girls are still seeking equality and boys miss being the good …