Cosmo Landesman

Bringing sexy back

After decades of anything-goes liberalism, a period of repression is just what we need

issue 23 June 2018

Sexual intercourse, Philip Larkin famously wrote, began in 1963. And listening to contemporary commentators, you’d think that it came to an end in 2017 with the birth of the #MeToo movement. For these voices of doom, the end of the erotic is nigh; Britain is on the brink of sexual apocalypse.

The recent news that Netflix has banned flirtation from film sets — along with lingering hugs, requests for phone numbers and extensive touching — is for these commentators just the latest example of #MeToo sexual correctness gone mad. They fear we are witnessing the making of a bland new world where the rules and regulations governing social relations between the sexes will become so oppressive that the very sexiness of sex itself will be snuffed out.

I understand and sympathise with the prophets of doom because, until recently, I was one of them. Men like me — old-fashioned romantics who enjoyed flirtation and the art of seduction (conducted, of course, with old-world courtesy and consideration) — were finished.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in