Tom, Putney
Jesus. She’s already wearing your bollocks as earrings. No man in the history of shagging has ever remembered or acknowledged a one-month anniversary. Look, Tom, these are the rules for lingerie: don’t. Simple as. Your job is getting it off, not adding to it. That’s all you’ve got to remember. Never, ever, give underwear. You don’t know her size. Her friends will lie about her size. She’ll lie about her size. Take an old bra into Agent Provocateur and the shop assistant will lie about her size. Just going, “Oh, about a handful”, isn’t enough. Men and women see completely different things when they look at bras and knickers. No woman who doesn’t keep tenners in her garter belt has ever worn red underwear. Men put on their Berlusconi heads when they step through the door of Victoria’s Secret. Women grow instantly frigid when presented with a bra and thong set. What they see is a whole night of humiliation and logistical and ergonomic problems. Any man who could choose aesthetic, sensual underwear in the correct size is not the sort of man they’d want to wear it for. Here’s what you need to know about erotic presents and Paris: give her a riding crop. Unless she’s got a horse. If she’s already got a horse it’s not an erotic present, it’s a cheap gift.
Dear Adrian,
I’m just starting at a Southern uni. No one from my family, school or estate in the North East has ever been to university. I can handle the work. I get on with the other students. I’m not teased or bullied. I’m popular and everyone likes my accent. It’s all cool except I really can’t handle the dressing up. Why are middle-class, privately educated Southern kids so childishly obsessed with fancy dress? Every Friday night the town and campus looks like a cross between a hen night and MGM’s backlot. The streets are littered with vomiting bunnies and discarded togas. Every event comes with some embarrassing instruction to dress up as your favourite sin or an animal with the first letter of your name. Or there are instructions on what to arrive as, and then find your blind date who’ll be dressed as Wilma to your Fred, or Courtney to your Kurt. I’ve just had another one from my tutor that says, “Dress: smart-casual”. What the fuck is “smart-casual”? Come as an oxymoron?
Clive, by email
Clive, you’ve stepped into the pantyhose of class, the last codpiece of the English class system. Everything else – the Empire, the deference, the big house, the cosy snobbery and a gardener with only one name – has been taken away from them. All that’s left are tarts and vicars parties. And if you want to feel really out of place, turn up as a vicar. All posh English boys want to dress up as women. They can’t see a balloon without sticking it up their jumpers. If you want to separate the public schoolboys from the comprehensive ones, just put them in a room with a wig. The reasons for this are many, deep and distressing. Don’t go there. On a fundamental level, the class system was always about fancy dress. A hierarchy of funny hats, ribbons, chains, breeches, riding, shooting, Henley and judges. It’s been pointed out (by badly dressed Americans) that the English ruling class has clothes instead of character. Their whole lives are spent dressing up to be someone else. When they say clothes maketh the man, they mean it literally. They have kit to be brave in, kit to be clever in, kit to be romantic in and pyjamas with flies that don’t work for rudimentary sex. Your best bet is to play to the stereotype. Have a couple of default costumes: a Jarrow marcher; a coal miner; or Rodney Bewes from The Likely Lads. As for smart-casual, no one knows what it means. It’s the garment version of “How are you?” or “I’ll give you a ring.” An empty instruction, a request without emphasis or meaning. It’s just there to stop people phoning up all week asking, “How should I dress for your drinks party?” It means, not a dressing gown or the robes for the Order of the Garter. And in your case, I think the Rodney Bewes outfit will be fine.
AA,
I have a large penis. We’re not talking above average. I mean huge. Thick and long. And white. A really, really big white penis.
Anonymous, by email
On your shoulders?
Hi,
My name’s Gerald. I’ve been in analysis for seven years, but my shrink’s away on her summer holidays and I really need someone to talk to. You look a bit like her and you also look a bit like my dad. I’ve had a sort of OK week. I think I’m dealing with the passive-aggressive stuff, though I did have this moment, an encounter – not so much an encounter, just like a passing thing, not important really – with this woman in a car park at Tesco. She was old, well not old, older than me. But nice-looking in a sort of seen-better-days way. I helped her load the shopping into the back of her car. It was a VW. I still get these pangs of irrational fear around German cars. Then she offered me a probiotic yoghurt as a thank-you. Fucking hell! What’s that all about? I was filled with rage. What did she mean? I mean really mean? Did she see me as a child, a helpful boy with undescended testicles, not a real man? Do I need my bowels opened? It brought up issues about penis length, cleanliness and my terror of sphincters. I mean, she could have given me a banana. She had a bunch. So there was that, which I think I dealt with quite well. The yoghurt gave me wind. The bitch next door, with the cat, the one whose bedroom I can see into and had the minor obsession with, well, it’s been pissing in my garden. The cat, not Laura. I actually caught it spraying the Japanese Maple where I put my dad’s ashes and the posthumous letter I wrote him. This seems over-loaded with significance. Bitch. Pussy. Dad. Writing. Canadian national symbol . . . [The rest of this letter can be read on helpmyanalystisonholidayandihavenoonetotalkto.com]
The thing with analysis, Gerald – I’m assuming Gerald isn’t your real name; Gerald hasn’t been anyone’s real name since the war – is that analysis is a good thing. Self-knowledge is a good thing. A karmic manicure is a good thing. Here’s the other thing: people who need analysis but haven’t had any can be really fun to be around, because they’re nuts. People who have had analysis can be really fun to be around because they’re not nuts. It’s the people in analysis that are fucking insufferable. They have half the understanding, which is like knowing half the rules of chess. You’re no fun to play with. So while you’re in analysis, that’s a decade when no one’s going to want to know you, particularly your mother. And by the way, she’s not on holiday, she’s moved.
Uncle D,
What’s your position on pornography?
Ava, by email
Complaining about pornography is like moaning about the weather, though more fun, with better graphics. We are just surrounded by it. It’s bottomless, topless and endless. It’s also very repetitive. Very, very, very repetitive. So I don’t have a position on porn. I’m assuming this is a sniggering pun and you’re not called Ava. You’re probably Gerald. And you’re 14 and your penis looks like the handlebar grips on a midwife’s Riley. What the nuanced social observer, the postmodern moral philosopher has in place of a position is more a voyeuristic, hand on chin, quizzically smiling anthropological interest in particular sorts of pornography. If you are in doubt of what that is, there is a helpful index to the left-hand side of most porn sites. You can choose which ones to take umbrage at. Racial stereotypes for instance. Black men, big cocks. Japanese girls, white socks. Fake lesbian exploitation. Unshaven German creampie Milf compilation. Porn is no longer either/or.
