|
|
|
| HOME | Atheism | Fiction |
Gay World |
HIV |
Opinion |
Reviews |
|
Pigeons, the Mother and Nine-Eleven 17 March 2003 Pigeons have made their home in Mile End tube station. While most of the station is underground, a shaft of light over the middle portion of the westbound Central Line allows the birds to fly in and out. During rush hour they hide in the beams of the poorly-repaired roof, but at quiet times of the day they come down and waddle along the platform. Sometimes a single bird can be seen, more often it will be a female apparently taking a leisurely stroll but harassed by a larger head-bobbing male, his tail spread out in a fan, pestering her from behind. It's not only Mile End, of course. Wherever you see groups of pigeons, you see the males pursuing the females, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups of two or three. Even when feeding, on bread, an empty crisp packet or whatever else they find in litter-strewn London, while most concentrate on the food, there are always one or two males pecking at the nearest female. The females are appear irritated, but seldom to the extent that they fly away or peck back. It's as if they feel responsible for the lumbering brutes behind them, as if they considered them children rather than prospective suitors. In a female pigeon's eyes, you suspect, a desirable mate would be doing something more interesting, such as keeping an eye out for predators, scouting for more food or building a better nest. Instead of being trapped by instinct, in a mental prison where every moment not spent in feeding, excreting and sleeping must be devoted to sexual release. Like pigeons, like men... Shortly after my last book was published (click banner below), the mother commented that it was very good, but it was a pity there was so much sex in it. And that was after reading only the stories I had recommended, not the ones where the sex was explicit and sometimes unpleasant. I protested mildly, claiming that there was less sex in First and Fiftieth than in most modern fiction but I could see her point. Over the last decade my fiction has become increasingly focused on sex, although less on the act than on desire. It is a reflection of the fact that I increasingly feel feel that the essence of the human condition, and therefore the only thing worth writing about, is the sexual impulse and all the emotions and actions that it consciously and subconsciously engenders. The fact is, however, that such a statement is probably only half true. There's enough anecdotal and scientific evidence around to suggest that while men's primary drive beyond survival is sex, women are more likely to have other things on their minds. Nonetheless, men's conscious and subconscious obsession with sex underlies much of our daily lives, from sex in advertising, to social inequalities. Furthermore, when men's sexual drive is suppressed or denied, some fairly unpleasant consequences result. How much violence is perpetuated by young heterosexual men who are at least temporarily frustrated in their desire for intercourse? And consider the men who hijacked the planes on 11 September 2001. In all likelihood, they had either forced themselves into abstinence or who, when they had sex, did so with strong feelings of guilt and shame. I am convinced that if they had had fulfilling sex lives, the terrible events of that day would not have occurred. Gay men, in societies where they can be open about their sexuality, are the exception to the rule. Because they far more likely to find partners - other gay men as ready for intercourse as themselves - they are much less likely to resort to violence. (Ask heterosexual pub owners who run gay bars why they do so; the fact that Friday and Saturday nights are peaceful comes high on their list of reasons, pretty close to the money that gay men spend.) And there are some heterosexual men who are at ease with their sexuality and who do not need to prove themselves either literally or figuratively. But if suppression of sexual desire can lead to harm, that does not mean that unlimited sexual activity is trouble-free. Irresponsible sex can have a range of unpleasant consequences, from rape to unwanted pregnancy and fatal disease. However, there is a difference between irresponsible and uninhibited sex; I suspect that if we were all able to have uninhibited sex as frequently as we wished, the world would be a very different, but more contented place. It will never happen, of course. After several decades of assuming that all sexual behaviour was culturally conditioned, we are returning to the belief that men's and women's sexuality is fundamentally different. Deborah Blum's book Sex on the Brain covers this issue in depth, let me give one illustrative example. Where male and female apes are separated by a door controlled sometimes by a male and sometimes by a female, the outcomes are very different. Males use the door to have frequent copulation with whichever female is on the other side; females use it to choose the males they couple with. Males choose quantity, women choose quality. Of course human culture can and does override much of the mating instinct displayed by pigeons and apes. The fact that women appear to be increasingly sexually active may in the long run calm men's fears about not finding a sexual partner, although in the short run it makes little difference. (Indeed, in the short run women's enjoyment of their sexuality threatens many men, particularly religious fundamentalists who, despite all the evidence to the contrary, continue to believe that men are somehow superior to women.) Even in London, where sex is more or less on tap, the single man who goes out at the weekend looking for sex is not guaranteed to find it. Many, who find themselves alone at the end of the night, or who fear their partner may be lured away from them, are edgy and competitive, spoiling for a fight. Alcohol plays a role, but alcohol merely brings to the surface issues that would otherwise remain buried. It would be good to think that we were slowly moving towards a society that was sexually free and less violent, but there is no guarantee that we will continue to do so; we have only to remember that Germany in the 1920s was overtaken by the horrors of National Socialism. But at least let us agree that a society where people are open and responsible about sex and enjoy it without inhibitions would be an advance on most societies in which people currently live. It wouldn't stop men being obsessed, but it might make them more at ease with themselves and the women around them. Back to Opinion |
|
|
