10 January 2010 – Talking Curling

One would hesitate to write about sex but a piece in The Guardian's G2 on 8 Jan compels me to complain about the deceptions that society has self-interestedly woven around the precious intention of sexual intercourse. A women writes in to complain that during her 10 month relationship with her boyfriend what had begun as explosive mutually satisfying sex had reached a point where she was now “only able to climax using a vibrator whilst on top.” And she now feels guilty about how long it takes for her to have an orgasm. Pamela Connolly, in reply, points out that her man clearly has problems multi-tasking, and goes on to suggest that they should focus less on technique and more on each other. Well that is a start, but it still seems to accept that sexual intercourse is essentially a form of sport between consenting couples, a bit like football; strong on technique, team-playing, charisma etc.

Essentially, we are not talking about copulation as if we were pairing animals. Notwithstanding the evolution of Homo sapiens and his imperious sex drive, we are also, as someone has put it, Homo divinus. We are angels and human animals in one. God was the author of life, the creator of this extraordinary sexuality in men and women. “Male and female he created them”, and in his own image he made them. As the Genesis story puts it so economically, when a man leaves his father and mother to be united to his wife, “they will become one flesh”. This is about sex becoming the medium through which a man and a woman meet each others' deepest needs to be known. Through a living and breathing, sometimes gasping, intimacy, we become more than the sum of our parts. That was what our Creator intended, which is why sex is too important to be just an issue of technique. The best sex starts after breakfast. We are not talking football, but more curling.