chaplin

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Let's not talk about sex, chaps.

The obit of American writer Nancy Friday in today's Times quotes her on why she started writing about sex:
"Men spend a great deal of their leisure hours in pubs, clubs or washrooms talking about their sexual exploits, but women don't say anything at all. Consequently one woman never knows what another woman thinks about sex."
I don't wish to take issue with the recently-deceased but, setting aside the obvious question, "how would Nancy know what men talk about in men-only situations?", it has not been my experience that men talk to other men about their sexual exploits.

I realised this again recently in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein business when, like everyone else, I've been asking old colleagues whether we ever worked with anyone who showed any of the same tendencies.

We quickly realised that what little we knew on the subject was entirely based on what female colleagues had told us.

Obviously been going in the wrong washrooms.

4 comments:

  1. After a tip-off in the Times a couple of weeks ago, I was pointed in the direction of the (very on trend) 'Guys we F*cked' podcast: seemingly, women *do* talk about sex. A lot.

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  2. I would direct readers to the excellent "Gay/Not Gay"
    by King Missile for the ultimate refutation of this absurd idea about men and washrooms.

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  3. My experience is teenage boys talk about all the sex they're having whilst having none, but this chat fades away once they actually HAVE sex, largely because one learns pretty sharpish that if you want to continue having sex with someone you don't blab the details to third parties.

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    Replies
    1. Quite so Rob. If a man, in my company, started talking about sex at all we'd think there was something slightly wrong with him.

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