Reading newspapers these days makes me think that life has passed me by. Just one issue of a popular daily proves that, while I busy myself with two of the three Rs (no ‘rithmetic), other people are having all the fun.
For example, Dr Cyprian Okoro has opened my eyes to certain amorous possibilities that I didn’t know even existed. The good doctor is on trial at the Old Bailey for filling his phone with objectionable images of unconventional sexuality.
One shows a woman with a dog, proving that it’s not just a man that a dog is the best friend of. The report didn’t specify the type of dog, but the lady’s best friend must have been bigger than a Yorkie.
Speaking of big, another image showed a woman corrupting the morals of a horse, which must have been a traumatic experience for both. The story that Catherine the Great died in flagrante delicto with a stallion is probably apocryphal, but the danger is very real.
Though I’ve never engaged in such activities, nor indeed watched them, I knew they existed. Where the good doctor took me into new territory is with another image he enjoyed, that of a man having sex with a snake.
As a medic, Dr Okoro must be aware of anatomical possibilities that would never occur to those bereft of his training. Hence, hard though I strain my imagination, I can’t picture the mechanics involved. Was the man the active or passive participant? The public has a right to know.
Watching such entertainment betokens a man of underdeveloped moral and aesthetic sense. That shortcoming, however, isn’t yet criminalised, for otherwise every pop star would be doing porridge. Though uploading such material is undeniably criminal, downloading it is more ambiguous.
Provided the doctor enjoyed himself in private, the tiny libertarian portion of my worldview rebels. Can a viewer of such material be seen as an accomplice? The law evidently feels so, but as Mr Bumble said, “the law is a ass”, or can be.
Still, it’s reassuring to know that HMG looks after the moral health of snakes, reasserting thereby the unity of all living things. Those poor creatures need to be protected from libidinous men of adventurous tastes – unless of course the reptile gives consent by some semiotic expedient.
Is prosecuting Dr Okoro just? I’ll sit on the fence here, because the conservative portion of my worldview is bigger than the libertarian one, and there’s a conflict. No such equivocation about the next news item that caught my eye.
A woman who sleeps naked with her 16-year-old son asked the Internet if such nocturnal arrangements were wrong. She didn’t ask what a degenerate was, so presumably she already knows.
Dr Freud would dine on this story, though a New York woman once dismissed his pet theory by saying “Oedipus, schmedipus, as long he loves his Mum…” They do say that incest is best, although here again I have no personal experience in the matter.
It’s unclear whether the woman in question was wondering about the advisability of incest or if sleeping naked with a teenager full of bubbling testosterone was indeed incestuous. The answer to the second question is obviously yes (in that situation congress can occur even if it’s not intended, as an accidental result of tossing and turning at night), but the first one is more involved.
The state condones, nay promotes, unorthodox sex. My moral antennae aren’t finely enough tuned to detect a valid difference between incest and two men getting married with official blessing. In fact, the egalitarian in me resents such discrimination among perversions.
The same objection could be raised to the first story. If Dr Okoro would be within his right to marry another man, why can’t he watch his fiancé getting his amorous warm-up with other species? Oulaw speciesism and human supremacism, I say.
The third story is tragic, even though I haven’t read it in its entirety. All I saw was a rather long headline with uncertain antecedents: “Naked British woman in her 20s dies while walking home following a night out in Ibiza after being hit by a female driver who was high on cocaine.”
For once I can claim partial personal experience. I have to admit with retrospective repentance that in the past I too used to have wild nights out, though never in Ibiza (pronounced Ibiffa, for the benefit of my foreign readers). However, I can’t recall ever walking through the streets in the buff thereafter.
Must have been quite a party, though marred by such a heart-rending finale. However, one must feel proud about British culture being carried around the world. I saw another proof of this welcome development this morning, when walking through my French village.
There’s a new shop there called Stylish Tattoo and Piercing. That the sign is in English fills my heart with nationalistic pride, even though deep down I doubt tattoos and piercing can ever be stylish.
Aren’t you happy to be alive in such exciting times? And let’s banish any history-based fear that such exciting civilisations don’t stay alive for long.