A recent issue of the International Herald Tribune carried an account of a Freudian bloomer by vice president George Bush, an aspirant for the US presidential office. Bush, describing the closeness of his relationship with Ronald Reagan, waxed so enthusiastic that he landed himself in 'sex'. Speaking in Twin Falls, Idaho, he said of the President to a Republican rally: "For seven and a half years, I have worked alongside him, and I am proud to be his partner. We have had triumphs, we have made mistakes, we have had sex." Because, it is not easy to picture Bush and Reagan thrashing about steamily under presidential sheets, this inadvertent remark was followed by stunned moments of silence. Until Bush, rapidly off the blocks after that false start, corrected himself, amidst roars of laughter from an understanding and sympathetic audience: "We have had setbacks" which really begs the question, doesn't answer it.
Alas! all this I find to be so sadly absent in our public life. It is so full of pomposity (and false bluster), and there is such little healthy laughter in it that one despairs of ever finding sex. It is as if our public figures were neuters and our public life a zone of sexless aridity; a region where only mealy mouthed hypocrisy thrived. Therefore, when it comes to the personal lives of our public figures, an unstated myth is perpetuated: "Our leaders do not do it." All very ugly, Victorian, totally unnecessary, and so false. Persuading a friend from abroad to once remark: "As all of you behave so prissily about sex, then how come India has a bursting nova of a population problem?" An interesting but not so intriguing question, more an illustration of our hollow attitudinising on the subject. Unarguably, yet another of those unsavoury imperial legacies that the parting British have left behind. And speaking of Victorian attitudes and legacies, I once purchased a small book called Once a Week is Ample. It describes itself as "the moderately sensual Victorian's guide to restraint of the passions", in which is a chapter titled — 'On avoiding paralysis, imbecility and the Double Bed'. In this chapter is contained the following query from a reader and its reply:
Q: More I have been told that constant appeasement of my carnal desires will lead me to paralysis and suicide. Does Medical Opinion support this fateful prognosis?
A: Certainly it does. Dr. J. Mount Bleyer, surgeon at the New York Throat and Nose Hospital, writes that 'all those who are continually appeasing such a sexual sense are always in a semi-paralytic condition in body and mind. They have not the power to carry on any train of thought in a logical manner. It is my belief that most of the suicides are due to these excessive practices in both sexes.'
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