Author Archive

As for sex, some Brits take a perverse delight in the idea that we are a nation of uptight neurotics. Cosmo Landesman, “May we have the pleasure?”, The Guardian, Saturday October 17, 1998 Favorite0

The British consider sex far too fleshy for comfort. Henry Porter, “Too close for our comfort”, The Observer, 13 October 1996 Favorite0

There was a time when failing to consummate a marriage was something to sing about: before the advent of the monasteries, which took celibates out of circulation, not doing it with your husband or wife was seen as a virtue. Ross Clark, “Not tonight, darling”, Daily Telegraph, 10 August 1996 Favorite0

But according to Julia Cole… it is not the broad technical details that modern married couples lack so much as the artistry. A wag once commented that school sex education told you everything about the sexual act—except for the fact that you would very likely enjoy it. Ross Clark, Not tonight, darling,

The British love sex—when other people are doing it. But we also hate sex—when we are doing it ourselves. What, asks, Henry Porter, does this say about our values? Henry Porter, “Too close for our comfort”, The Observer, 13 October 1996 Favorite0

But the English character is incomplete in a way that is particularly annoying to the foreign observer. It has a bad surface—self complacent, unsympathetic, and reserved. There is plenty of emotion further down, but it never gets used. There is plenty of brain power, but it is more often used to confirm

The Englishman appears to be cold and unemotional because he is really slow… When a disaster comes, the English instinct is to do what can be done first, and to postpone the feeling as long as possible. Hence they are splendid at emergencies… It acts promptly and feels slowly. —E. M. Forster,

Compared to your average Mediterranean male, we British are often condemned as unromantic—but then we don’t have much to work with. While in France they have the bistro, we have the once-French and now very British-sounding caff. Frenchmen get to drink in sophisticated-sounding bars called La Metro (sic) or Le Jardin, while

And yet even in the dark years of this century, Britsex bubbled under, though in an infantile way: … an erotic vocabulary composed entirely of squeals and giggles; even the very words “slap and tickle”, a euphemism for the carnal act no other nation on the planet could have coined… And that

Englishmen are notorious lovers; it only takes the average man ten years to ask the woman he loves for a kiss. Sometimes he proposes to a girl in maybe a year and a half—but not marriage. Peter Cagney, The Book of Wit and Humour, 2596 Good news for British men: there have