You learn a lot of things watching television and reading newspapers. I’ve just finished watching the first series of Doctor Foster, a BBC drama series featuring a rather elegant senior GP and her mug of a husband. She would have forgiven him having a sex affair with a twenty-three-year-old dumb blond – an affair that had been going on for two years, no less – if he hadn’t bloody lied about it. That just drove her potty – the lie. Do I sense a little taste of Kantian ethics here, tell the truth no matter what? Of course, no first names here. As far as sex is concerned, mum’s the word.
Keeping such a lie in the hidden depths of your bosom is the price to pay for holding onto the woman you really love, and not losing your only child who you also really love and really feel responsible for. Really? Speaking of brats, this 13-year-old hits the nail on the head when he’s unwillingly pushed by his mother into the aforementioned blonde’s flat where his father has just spent the night. “She just a friend,” he pleads. If only my friends could be so obliging. Poor old Dad – he’s such a pleading idiot – didn’t have time to put on a decent pair of trousers before meeting his bewildered child at the bottom of the stairs. Nor did she, for that matter. What are friends for if they can’t lend you a pair of nickers.
As any good story would have it, the son immediately knows who his father’s mistress is.
“You’re Andrew Park’s sister.”
“Yeah.”
“At football, some of them fancied you.”
“Ok.”
“But then your brother said they shouldn’t because you’re a slut, and have sex with loads of people all the time.”
“Andrew doesn’t like me very much. He makes things up.”
“Is it true, though?”
“Women can have just as much sex as they like…Just like men.”
I must give credit where credit is due. The father’s son actually knows the definition of the word “slut.” Yes, it’s a woman who does exactly what men do. Now, if that ain’t equality, I don’t know what is. For me, the difference between a woman having sex when she shouldn’t, and a man having sex whenever and wherever he wants to, is that the former is a slut, and the latter is just …cool. OK a bit of a prick, I admit, but still very cool. Because, according to the father, that’s what men do all over the world.
The father – like all fathers – has a perfectly logical explanation for this sorry state of affairs, if you’ll forgive the play on words. It’s another thing his son has probably learned at school – biology. Yep, you guessed it. The father thinks exactly like I do – men are biologically inclined to have several partners, mostly on a Saturday night, and there’s nothing women can do about it. The only difference between him and me is that he applies the biology, and I don’t.
“We’re all animals. Sometimes we can’t control our biology. We fall in love when we shouldn’t, have sex with the wrong people. I’m sick of saying sorry. It happens to people all over the world, all the time. People just deal with it.”
Or is it that we fall in love with the wrong people (actually people who believe in love), and have sex when we shouldn’t? I don’t know, I’m a bit confused on this one.
I’ll seek advice away from the television, and turn to my favourite newspaper on my favourite iPad – The Times. What a wealth of information and views for 5 euros a month. I come across the following.
It concerns a woman who is wondering what to do about her boyfriend who has just bought a virtual-reality (VR) headset. She’s frightened he’ll have actual sex with a virtual “other” person. You’ll have to work that one out for yourself. She admits to watching 2D porn with him, and doesn’t have an issue with that (I know of some women who do, silly me), but it’s the 3D she’s worried about. Funny how one dimension can make all the difference.
Poor soul, she really does have the jitters, and going shopping by herself is a risky business when he’s at home. He might even get the vacuum cleaner out and start cleaning the stairs with his VR firmly attached to his crotch. Watching Kim Basssinger whilst cleaning the bannister, he’ll never know where one ends and the other begins.
“What is the best way to deal with this?” she asks, adding as a P.S., “We have sex about three times a week.” Well, Madam, either the sex your having is absolute rubbish, or you’re living with a pervert. Hasn’t he got anything better to do with his hands? But I just love the “about three times a week.” It’s an average, I suppose. Good weeks, it’s four. Bad weeks, two-and-a-half.
But spare a thought for our thirteen-year-old, who suddenly realises that his dad has got it all wrong again, and had it off again with someone who isn’t his mum. “My parents are divorced,” most of his friends said at school. He thought that he was the exception – a father and mother united in love. Now he knows differently. His parents may not yet be divorced, but his mother’s unhappy and his father’s a prick. I suppose he has to be grateful that his mother’s not a slut.