by AA Gill
Dear Uncle Dysfunctional,
I’ve got an itchy arse. Really itchy. Sometimes it’s like an ant’s Olympics up there. Should I do something about it?
Julian, New York
You bet. Get an aardvark digit up there and do the starfish samba. Surf that itch. Here’s the thing with the arse itch. It can have any number of causes. But they’re unimportant. What matters is that the itch that dare not speak its name is one of the greatest pleasures in life. An effervescent ring is the fundamental joy of being a man. It is the back door to endorphins, a secret cave of shuddering relief. Few simple pleasures are as blissfully rewarding as getting down and dirty with the little boy’s itch. Followed by that intense guilty stab of pain. And then the long moments of reverie, secretly smelling your fingernail. That’s the good stuff, man. You get your haemorrhoids frozen, or the dhobi itch cortizoned, what are you left with? A sewage outlet. Where’s the fun in that? The Emma Freuds are one of the few diseases where the cure is worse than the condition.
Mr AA,
I keep having this weird dream that I’m giving my boss a blowjob. It’s really graphic. I wake up with a massive hard-on. In real life we get on fine. I admire him. We play squash in our lunch hour. But nothing pervy. Do you think that I’m subconsciously gay, or just ambitious? Should I be worried?
Geoff, Manchester
I don’t know, Geoff. Should you be? If your boss were a woman and you had a dream about going down on her, would it be a problem? Would you still be ambitious? Would you have written a letter asking if you should be worried? Why is the possibility you might be gay any more disturbing than the possibility you might be straight? When you bought this magazine, did your hand just slip off Vogue? The simplest way to find out if you’re gay is to get stuck in. Have a go. Ask your boss if he fancies a gobble after squash. And if you do it more than twice, chances are you’re both gay. Congratulations. Life’s looking up. You just got regular sex, a better wardrobe, and probably the key to the executive washroom.
Sir,
What’s with guy nipples? Like, what’s the point?
Yusuf, by email
Well, there are two answers to this. One is the boring biological one and the other is the fun pick-up line. Lessons first: the scientific explanation is that while the sperm chooses the sex of a foetus, in the dark we are all omnisexual. It could go either way. When the male sex organs are being made it would be too much trouble to remove the nipples, which are probably modified sweat glands, so they’re left on as ornaments. Females get on and construct a mammary system, and you both get to enjoy the Victoria’s Secret website. Almost all male mammals have nipples. But I seem to remember that mice don’t. And I’m not sure about muntjac. That’s the explanation. But it isn’t wholly satisfying. Nature rarely leaves spare parts around. Natural selection doesn’t like waste, or useless hangers on. Nothing is a design flaw. Particularly when nipples in humans are also a secondary sexual characteristic (though not in mice). But here’s the thing. Although male nipples are sensitive and have an erectile capacity, I know of no straight men who like their nipples tinkered with. I’ve asked around, and most blokes actively hate it. The best I got was a shrugged indifference from Giles Coren, metrosexual lothario and epicurean, who said, “Er, not especially. Bitten gently is nice but only if I’m already up and running. Not as a girl’s first move.” But I’ve also asked a handful of gay blokes, and, to a man, they say that the male nipple is a sensitive and important part of foreplay. Now this isn’t a scientific study – well it’s as scientific as most cosmetics studies – but we may be onto something. The point of the male nipple just might be the elusive gay button. If you’re worried that you’re a gayer or indeed vanilla straight, put Maria Callas on the iPod, take off your Ben Sherman, stand in front of a mirror, think of Ryan Gosling and gently run your thumb anti-clockwise over your nipples. Getting anywhere?
Dear Uncle,
Is there a god?
Celestine, London
Uh-uh. Wrong question. You meant to ask, should I care if there’s a god? If the answer is yes, I do care, then yes, there is a god. If the answer is no, I don’t care, then who cares? You see, it’s not “does God exist”, but “does faith exist”? People who know there is a god and people who know there isn’t live in exactly the same world. Same number of hours in the day, same weather, same football results. They both love their children and die of the same diseases. People who don’t believe in God are no happier than people who do, and those who don’t believe are no nicer than those who don’t. The answer is that if God exists, he doesn’t seem to mind if you believe in him or not. The real question is: if you knew there was a god, would you behave any differently? And if the answer is yes, then perhaps you should assume there is.
Mate,
Is there a female G-spot?
Max, Edinburgh
See previous letter.
Dear Uncle Dysfunctional,
I’ve just been dumped. Oh, God, I can barely write it. I love him. I’ve loved him since the first moment I saw him in cricket whites at school. (I joined the sixth form of a boys’ public school.) We started going out. We were each other’s first lovers, in a sleeping bag in the New Forest. We read Auden together for the first time, climbed Ben Nevis together, shared jumpers and scrambled egg on toast with Marmite. We’ve been inseparable. I don’t think I’ve done something until I’ve done it with him. No one knows me, will ever know me, like he does. I knew, I know, we are a perfect fit. We went to separate unis. I wasn’t concerned because our love was so strong and beautiful. I never suspected, even when he cancelled a weekend together, but the next Monday I got a rambling email saying we’d got too entangled in each other’s lives, we both needed space to make new friends, do new things. He said he would always love me and it would be a perfect memory and that in the future we’d be great friends, and there was no one else. Of course there’s someone else; I know him so well. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened. I had no idea you could feel this desperately sad. I’m frightened by the utter hopelessness of my misery. I can’t stay at college. I can’t go home. I can’t bear to talk to other people. I can’t bear to be on my own. I can’t sleep. I can’t be awake. I can’t read, watch TV, listen to music, eat. I can’t think of anything else. I can’t be without him. There is no hope. I would do anything, suffer anything, to be with him. His name is Luke. My Luke. My love. Sometimes he cries after we make love.
Sylvie, Oxford
Sylvie, hold it there. Don’t go away. You need to see this . . .
Hi,
I’ve just broken up with my girlfriend. We’ve been going out since school and it was really intense, adolescent stuff. I was the first bloke who shagged her. We did all that embarrassing kids’ stuff: poetry out loud, our song, sharing clothes . . . But now we’re at different universities and, frankly, it’s a relief to be single. I’m excited. It’s a new chapter. I don’t want to have to do everything with another person. She could be very judgemental. Look, I know she’s going to write to you because she’s left me 36 messages, some of them just sobbing. I’ve had 110 texts and emails and I’ve had to block her from my Facebook page. I tried to let her down gently. I don’t want to hurt her and I’ll always love what we had and I really do hope we can be mates. But it was school, we were 16, I need to move on. I don’t want to cheat on her, but I don’t want her to be the only girl I ever had sex with. Couples break up, isn’t that part of being young? I’m not callous. But really, can’t she get over it? Look, I’m hurting too.
Anonymous
OK, Anonymous. Or Luke as you’re also known. Both of you, Luke and Sylvie. I’ve shown your letters round the office, at dinner parties, in the park and at a bus stop. Sorry, but you’d be amazed at the reaction: loads of nostalgia, sighs and smiles, a couple of retrieved memory tears, and everyone has a story. Reams and reams of reminiscences. The sympathy fell exactly, unerringly, along gender lines. Men thought Luke had a point. Women wanted to slap him and ta
ke Sylvie round a bottle of wine and a box set of Sex and the City. A couple of guys asked if I had a photograph of Sylvie. What surprised me was the empathy wasn’t split between dumped and dumpees because a recent study (undertaken by me) shows there is a pattern to the end of affairs. People tend to be finishers or the finished. It seems we are either love’s assassins or love’s victims. And we repeat the same song over and over. We either get frightened and leave or we go deaf and blind and wait to be left. Sylvie, the conventional wisdom is a hug, a drink and rebound sex. Like herbal tea for herpes, it doesn’t work. Nothing works. Your mother will tell you that time is a great healer. It isn’t, it’s just a lot of minutes sewn together. You don’t ever get over your first love. You put a gag on it and lock it in the emotional attic. But it comes back every time you start a new relationship. It is the template of every affair. Every partnership is different and bespoke but, like suits, they’re all made to a pattern that is cut out by the first one. And Luke, I’m afraid though your mates will be offering you man hugs and high fives, the same applies to you. This mildly self-pitying and justifying belief that you’re missing out on something around the corner or in the next room, that the arse will always be keener, will follow you round like a shallow curse. The sorry truth is, we don’t make the beds we have to lie in. Other people unmake them. There is no right or wrong here. If there were, love wardens would hand out tickets. The good news is, neither of you will get over this. You will go on doing it. You will try to medicate the symptoms until you lose the will and the urge. You won’t be friends. You will lose touch. But you will always be first loves. And secretly and silently you will miss and yearn for each other, in small intensely painful ways, for the rest of your lives. Like when unguarded Auden whispers, “Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm.” Someone get a hankie for Sylvie. PS: Next month, I think we might run a compendium of the most frequently used or amusing dump-lines: “You know, it’s not you it’s me”; “I love you, I’m just not in love with you”; “I think we need to be apart for a bit so we can get closer”; “I obviously don’t make you happy”; “I’m doing this for both of us”. And this month’s favourite: “I’m just a bad person”. Unarguable and honest. Send in your best shots, either received or given, but nothing you’ve heard Billy Crystal say please.
Dear Uncle,
It’s spring-ish. Please, what’s the definitive rule on shorts?
Edgar, Soho
I’m so pleased you asked me, Ed. It’s never after 12. Years, not o’clock. No 13-year-old or over should be seen in trousers that finish above the ankle. It doesn’t matter how good your legs are, or if you’re on a beach in Bermuda where they invented the things. This isn’t about tan or temperature. This is about dignity. It is impossible to be taken seriously in shorts. No one has ever cared about anything said by a man in shorts. You can propose marriage naked or in handcuffs, but no one is going to agree to forsake all others for a man in shorts. You can’t declare war in shorts or deliver a eulogy in shorts. Shorts are silly. Men in shorts are silly men. And silly is about the worst thing a man can be.
Dear AA,
Why do women complain so much? I mean it’s so much better to be a woman than a man. They get everything paid for and they can have sex whenever they want. A woman can walk into a pub and shout “I fancy a fuck!” and there’ll be a dozen blokes all over her. If I walked into a pub and shouted “I fancy a fuck!” I’d get my head kicked in.
Joe, by email
I could put you right on so many things, Joe. I could point out the comparative earning and career opportunities between men and women. I could draw your attention to the incidence of violence toward women and the rape statistics. But you wouldn’t listen. And we both know you’re right. I would just add, though, that the reason so few women do stand in the doorways of pubs shouting “I fancy a fuck!” is because they’d be pulling a dozen blokes like you out of their underwear. I’m pretty sure you don’t have to say anything to get your head kicked in.
Dear Uncle,
Nobody understands me.
Charles, by email
What?
Mr Gill,
Can you settle an argument? My mate says that girls don’t like to see a chap’s todger through his strides. I, on the other hand, know that a bit of a man bulge is a come-on. I mean, look at Becks in his kecks. That’s got to be a pull, ain’t it? The only thing is how do you arrange the cushions? I mean, a lazy lob down the side of the Wranglers? Commando in the tracky bottoms? Or a neat, assertive bulge up front in the chinos?
Freddy, Carlisle
Ah, Freddy. Planning on staying a virgin for long, are we? The reason you are writing this letter and your mate isn’t is because he’s next door shagging your sister. Or is it your mum again? One of the great disconnects between the male and female of this species is in the perception of the aesthetic appeal of man-gristle. Men think their little willies are pretty handsome. And therefore women must, too. They believe the thing is intrinsically beautiful. The clue that this might not be a shared opinion is the obvious truth that no woman in this history of sex has ever said, “Oh, my, what a heavenly scrotum.” And girls rarely have tattoos of penises on their forearms. The whole codpiece/penis sheath/dancer’s posing pouch thing is there to intimidate other men, not attract women. The matador’s bulge is for the benefit of the bull. I have yet to meet a woman who doesn’t think that on their own, without context, penises are risibly absurd, puffed up with their own pathetic self-importance. The true comedy of manhood is that your knob may well be the axle around which life revolves, but it is also ridiculously stupid.
Sir/Madam,
I think I’m a Liberal. I’ve always been attracted to proportional representation and closer ties to Europe, but I can’t talk to anyone about it. My parents are missionary position Labour. My dad says Liberals should be shot and my mum thinks they’re just Tories who don’t like being spanked. I know my friends would laugh at me. And what girl’s going to go out with a Liberal? So I pretend to be an anarchist. But I feel like a fraud. My heart’s with a caring, devolved society and a fiscally responsible mixed economy, with checks and balances and no nuclear deterrent. What shall I do? I’m marginally desperate.
Sam, by email
Sam, there are those who think Liberalism is a mental disorder and can be cured. They might suggest you try fox hunting, running a hedge fund and listening to thrash metal. You could go into treatment, do aversion therapy by spending six weeks in Finland, but personally I don’t hold with that. I think you’re born Liberal and I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t marry or adopt children. You don’t have to tell everyone straight away, you can have proportional coming out. You might start just by trying to tell the truth and not saying what you think other people want to hear. And stop smiling in that insincere way and do something about your sweaty hands. For more advice, get in touch with my helpline: [email protected].
Dear Uncle,
I work as a temp. Six months ago, I was sent to do reception and secretarial for an import/export company in south London. It’s a bit fly by night, above an estate agent. There’s just me and my boss. He’s not really my type. The first week was quite normal, then I came in to find a crucifix and a lot of small bones on my desk. My boss told me to drink some tea; it tasted bitter. Then he spat on my cardie. Now I’m his sex slave. He says I’m inhabited by evil spirits. He has sex with me up to five times a day while I carry on with the work. I don’t believe in this black magic mumbo jumbo but I’m powerless to resist. How can I stop this happening? I’m supposed to be going away with the kids to Lakeland next week.
June, by email
June, all advice columnists have a folder marked “Nutters, Flashers and Kardashians”. Normally your letter would be a shoo-in, but there’s something about it that makes me pretend it’s normal. I’m fascinated by psychic, spiritual, otherworldy coercion. There’s a man who writes every week to ask me if you can catch STDs from extraterr
estrial rectal probes, as if the only thing that questing aliens will want to do when they finally discover sentient life in the galaxy is look up the arse of a retired diversity outreach coordinator from Kirklees. I mean, just imagine if we got to Mars and discovered warm-blooded life, what would we do? Actually, if it had more than one orifice, we’d probably shag it. (Especially if we were Russians.) You just would, wouldn’t you? For the bragging rights: “You’ll never guess where this has been.” Sorry, this isn’t helping. June, you may not believe in this “mumbo jumbo”, though I should draw your attention to the dichotomy that it is pulling your knickers to one side. But your boss does. What seems to be his supernatural strength is in fact his weakness. You just have to be a better witch doctor than him. Get in early, sprinkle blood on his chair, tie a tampon to the phone, put a black cockerel in his drawer, make a votive voodoo doll out of wax, belly button fluff and bogeys (get the kids to help). Appear with a distant smile and break off conversations to swear in a baritone voice. Burn the eyes out of photographs. Write random Swedish words on the wall in soot. Pop an Alka-Seltzer in your mouth: it makes very convincing froth. And bark like a rutting fox. He will be putty in the hands of your demonic possession. I suggest you take over the business, make him your apprentice bitch. You haven’t mentioned what it is you both do, but I’m assuming it involves internally stuffed drug mules from west Africa and the usual “I’ll share my $50,000,000 with you please send bank details”. Of course you can go on shagging the poor dupe, but over his desk rather than yours.