by AA Gill
Mr Gill,
A parent from the school my 10-year-old son goes to rang up to say that he’d been flashing at the girls. It’s not a one-off thing, he does it quite a lot. I was really shocked, there’s nothing like that at home. So I made some discreet enquiries and it appears – well, it appears quite often – he can’t keep his pants on. He puts on little shows of penis puppetry in the changing room, and I’m told the other kids call him Harry Hill. He’s circumcised, but he’s quite popular. As yet no one’s made an official complaint, as he’s only a child. But in a year or two he’s going to be going through puberty and I really don’t want him exposing himself with hair on. I’m worried sick. Is he going to grow up to be Jimmy Savile, or worse? I haven’t spoken to him yet. I don’t know how to tackle it. I’ve tried talking to his father. He just said, “It’s only a little thing.” And laughed.
Julie, by email
Julie, I understand this is worrying. There are two things here. First, the need for children to gain attention. It’s a dog-kick-the-shit-out-of-dog world in junior school. Peer appreciation is paramount. Some play football, some tell jokes, some get their willies out. You’ve got to ask yourself: would you rather he was an exhibitionist or a bully, getting kudos by shoplifting and doing donuts in stolen minicabs? It seems he’s found a clever way to grab attention and it’ll all be quite different naturally when puberty hits not just him, but the girls, too. He really won’t get the same reaction of amused curiosity, and I’ve yet to meet a 13-year-old boy who wasn’t as modest as a medieval Irish nun. The second thing is the wee knobby itself. I suggest you give the boy a mobile phone and introduce him to sexting. Possibly get his dad or a cousin to do this. This is a universally accepted form of cuneiform for kids, what they call in universities a communication tool. He already has a head start, if not a hat. He can cut some shapes with his todger and strut some genital origami. You worry about him being a pervert? If you found him taking your Wellington boots on a date, that would be a perversion. Simply getting the chubby out – well, the offence is all in the eye of the beholder. Surprising old ladies in the baking aisle of Aldi with his meat and two veg will get him arrested. Running naked across Twickenham in front of 20,000 people will get him a guest appearance on 8 Out of 10 Cats. There is a difference between flashing and flaunting. It is a lesson worth learning early. In life, always flaunt, never flash.
Sir,
I’m in love with a girl in my class. Both our parents are very old-fashioned and are keen that we get good exam results, so we can become a doctor (her) and a lawyer (me). We’re not allowed to have anything to do with the opposite sex, but all we want is to have sex. We can’t think about anything else. We can’t keep our hands off each other, or concentrate. I’m afraid if I don’t have colossal amounts of shagging I’ll fail my exams. Where can we go that doesn’t cost money to fuck? Toilets are so lavatorial.
Isador, Windsor
Isador, I feel for you. I’m assuming there are no large parks near you and the library is now an interactive computer citizenship inclusion drop-in centre, so I suggest you both volunteer to visit old people. There are hundreds of them, and they’d appreciate a chat and a cup of tea and are unlikely to mind if you take 20 minutes in the spare room. If you get a really demented one, they won’t notice at all. And I had a friend who had a Punch and Judy show. You know, a little tent the size of a telephone box. He was always doing au pairs inside whilst waggling his hands above his head to entertain the kiddies, and shouting with a sort of strangulated gasp, “That’s the way to do it!”
Dear Sir,
I think my cock tastes funny.
Rufus, Farnborough
What, did the dog pull a face?
Dear Uncle D,
Men in scarves. What’s all that about?
Ali, by email
Where have you been? It’s all about the scarf, man. That wrap of ridiculous ergonomically pointless cloth that looks like an ogre’s foreskin through which peeps a sulky bell-end is the defining male style statement of our times. As the cloth cap of the Thirties and the ripped jeans of the Seventies were tokens of their eras, so the man scarf is the leitmotif of the second decade of the 21st century. While the cloth cap stood for worker solidarity and heads-down industrial muscle, and ripped jeans implied a tear-it-up anarchy and street style, what does the man scarf say about your generation? Really, honestly, you all look like a class of mummy’s boys. “Put your scarf on if you’re going out. You don’t want to catch a sore throat.” You look weedy, needy, neurotic, fearful and vain. That’s quite a lot of a look to get out of a strip of tablecloth. Looking back through cloudy eyes from the leather armchair by the window, it seems strange that your generation has striven through so little, having been given so much, to achieve a look quite so incapable and lost, so quiveringly tearful. You are a troupe of self-made eunuchs with your naked ankles, tortured facial hair, skimpy jackets, crotch tourniquet nappy trousers. You have managed to extract the male from masculine but have failed to replace it with anything sophisticated, amused or intellectual, just a vision of nerdy, pale victimhood. The man scarf is your banner, your flag of sexual surrender. Appropriately and predictably, there are internet sites devoted to showing you how to wear your scarf, because really it’s that complicated. In all the whirl of bedroom mirror variations, none of them suggests a noose at one end and tying the other to the bannister. Look, I don’t care one way or the other, I’ve got my cravat to live up to.
Unc Dysfunc,
Why is it that when people say, “I don’t want to sound bigoted”, they always do?
Carsten, Denmark
I don’t know if English is the only language where some expressions only and solely mean the opposite of what they say but we do have an awful lot of them. It is something to do with our natural desire to be stridently rude while at the same time remaining smilingly polite. My favourites are: “This isn’t a criticism.” Oh, yes, it is. “I don’t mean to be awkward . . .” You were just born that way. “It’s not you, it’s me.” It’s definitely you. “Sorry.” The only thing I’m sorry about is I didn’t do it harder. “Call me old-fashioned.” I’m calling you an immoral slut. “Would anyone mind if . . .” If any of you mind, keep it to yourselves. “It’s only a game.” This is war. “Let’s do lunch.” I’d rather share a lolly in a sauna with Stuart Hall. “We were spellbound.” Only a witch’s curse kept us in our seats. “I’ve never done this before.” I taught all your mates and your dad how to do this.
Instead of answering yet another letter, for a change, I’ve decided to answer some non-specific though pressing questions of the type you commonly hear in pubs and nightclubs, hospital queues and works canteens. Do works canteens still exist? Those places with bottles of brown sauce and vinegar on Formica tables, where lathe operators and their apprentices come to eat pasties? Do lathe operators still exist? Are there still apprentices for tea, tea that is drunk strong enough to melt t’spoon, while thumbing softly greasy copies of Tit Bits and making ribald, explicit comments about the conical bras on the secretaries and wages clerks who are painting their nails while discussing layaway frocks and Saturday night cock? Are there still places like that, Norman? Are there? Where young Brylcreemed men with an itch for a chair in the room at the top, for cash and class, peruse Esquire for a glimpse of the elan that’s available in pastel shades down South? Don’t answer, Norman. It is a rhetorical question. We have rhetorical questions in the South.
The truth is, I’m bored. Bored, bored, bored. I want a break from your depressingly repetitive, whining, self-righteous letters. Oh, God, when you’re not looking for excuses and justifications for pathetically unkind and self-serving behaviour, you’re begging for better and smoother lies to attain unjustified advantages. Each new delivery is a depressing litany of fearful, blinkered, furniture-humping, fickle, low expectations. No, Norman, I can’t recommend a transgender nationality that has better-tasting genitals than the Brazilian ladyboys you’ve experienced. And not a
gain, not for the third time, Norman, no, I don’t think it’s unreasonable of your wife to go off on some nancy Open University course just when you and your mates had planned your annual conga eel fishing trip, so there’ll be no one there to look after your son (her stepson). And again, Norman, least said soonest mended is probably not the best option all round when you’ve managed to infect eight members of the same family with genital warts, including one in a coma, and added the slider of crabs. And no, Norman, it’s not reasonable to ask for your money back when you discover that the telephone sex line you’ve been regularly patronising was in fact your wife on the extension upstairs, and that she has every right to be pissed off because you said the telephone sex with her disguised voice was better than the actual sex with her flesh.
And then to Sarah, Rachel and Camilla and the dozens of other irrepressibly half-full optimistic women who continue to write in mascara-stained tears to ask if I can suggest a sexual position or a drug that would make cohabiting bearable: no there isn’t, and no I can’t. Divorce the cretins, for God’s sake! Walk away. Why do you all put up with expectations of men that are lower than the ones you have of Netflix? So, for this month only, Norman, I’m answering the big questions that make you look to the heavens rather than examine your own groins like puckish chimps. So:
Dear me,
Can an omnipotent god create a rock he can’t pick up?
Adrian, London
This question has kept monks, hermits, and men in scratchy shirts who don’t get out enough puzzling for well over 1,000 years. It is a question with a built-in trapdoor. So what do you think? Don’t stress yourself. Both answers are wrong. Or not right. When a reasonable question has no reasonable answer it usually means it’s the wrong question. So you should reword it. Why would God want to make a rock he can’t pick up? To settle a dare? A bet? To impress the guys down the Vatican? What you should question is the word “omnipotent”. Just say it a couple of times. It’s a very . . . erect word. A very . . . assertive word. A can-do word. A superhero word. It’s a blokey word. And it’s too small, too limiting for God. The question should be: could a perfect god make a rock he couldn’t pick up? Now the answer is far easier. The more theologically pressing question is: could a perfect god do something evil? The Old Testament is full of acts that look spiteful, occasionally wicked and they are either directly caused or condoned by God. Isn’t the vengeance of a vengeful god itself an imperfection? These are not easy questions. But they should keep you away from “which manbag should I wear?” Incidentally, the answer to that is: neither. Any sartorial journey that ends up at the crossroads of “which manbag?” is using the wrong fucking fashion sat-nav.
Dear me,
What has led to the greatest improvement in a chap’s life over the last 500 years?
Adrian, London
OK, form an orderly queue. Plainly: antiseptic, antibiotics, anaesthetics, indoor plumbing, the kettle, trades unions, motorcars, aeroplanes, trains, bicycles (the greatest of these, internationally, is the bicycle), the international rule of law, the international rules of association football, the internet, the moving camera, white bread, the chip . . . They’re all contenders. Each in a grand or precise way has improved the lot of men. And we could throw in the safety razor, lucky underpants and amateur pornography. But it’s ideas that really change the world we live in. Penicillin and plastic bags help a lot, fridges and hot water make manliness more comfortable and Tom Ford’s fragrance range makes it smell better, but the idea that has pushed our lives into the light more than any other -ism or -ology is feminism. Oi! Sit down. I’m not finished. This is important. Because you need to man up and recognise how many of the good things you take for granted, how much of the mayo in the sandwich of your life is down to women’s liberation. And we’re not talking about the liberation to make lesbian porn or neck alcopops. It’s not the liberation of pole dancing and pubic alopecia. The women’s movement has given you half the human race as a present, as equals and friends. And nothing has been bigger than that. Liberation combined with contraception was a really big deal for everyone’s sex life. Actually, it invented the sex life. But the great winners of the women’s movement weren’t women. It gave them a great fury at the scale of the injustice of the past and the distance yet to cover. The trouble with righting some wrongs is that it makes the remaining ones seem even more unbearable. But it’s you lot who were the real beneficiaries of the movement. You did precious little to help. You sat on the sofa with your hand down your pants and sneered while at every step forward, women made your life better. And it cost you nothing. But it gave you a better mum, better sisters, better people to work with, to drink with, to tell you jokes, to go on holiday with and just to hang out with. Think of your last weekend session in the pub. Now imagine it without girls.
Dear Uncle Dysfunctional,
What shall I wear in bed?
Sam, Hastings
Sam, I can’t tell whether you’re a boy or a girl. Is that another problem we’re not talking about? And you don’t say if you’re sleeping on your own or with another boy or another girl or a rough-haired terrier. My grandmother, bless her heart (she is, as we speak, sleeping in what’s left of a plywood mahogany-effect coffin under a tonne of clay), always said that you should go to bed in the expectation that you may be woken up by a fireman. In her case, it was more wishful thinking than fearful. She always wore a wool nightie, a shawl, what they used to call an opera cardigan and knee-length bed socks, finished off with a hat. What she imagined this was going to do for the fireman I can’t begin to think, but as a small child I found it terrifying. She looked exactly like the wolf who’d eaten my grandmother. That doesn’t really answer your question, does it?
You see, it all depends on what you want to happen in bed. If you expect it to be the best bit of the day then, like Marilyn Monroe, you should perhaps wear just two drops of French perfume. And that goes for both sexes – everybody should go to bed smelling nice. In fact, everybody should wake up smelling nice. I go further, there is not an excuse, ever, not to smell nice, particularly your feet. And your bedroom shouldn’t smell like a Romanian STD clinic. Sorry, back to what you wear in bed. It’s all about intent and being appropriate for the job in hand. The very worst thing to find in bed is someone wearing pants. Nothing is more terminally prophylactic than pants in bed. They are either the ones you’ve been wearing all day, which doesn’t bear thinking about, or they’re the special ones you put on for lying down in. People who have dedicated horizontal underwear either don’t fancy you, or anyone else, or have incontinent effluvial issues. Either way, you’re not going there. And men who wear a combination of sports kit and underwear to go to bed in – which I see is so popular on soap operas and dramas about people who murder strangers – are again an unpleasant mixed message. Why would you want to sleep with someone who looks like they’re preparing to work out?
So it should be all or nothing. If it’s not nothing then it should be pyjamas or a nightdress, and they should never be ostentatiously erotic – it just looks like you’re trying too hard. And by the time you’ve got into bed all the due diligence has already been done. This is just the packaging your present comes in. I was trying to remember what the worst things I’d ever seen in bed were, and once I had a girl who couldn’t sleep unless she was wearing her father’s long johns. And then there was one who wore a mink eyeshield: she said it was not to block out the light, just so that she couldn’t see me. She said I wasn’t to be offended, she just couldn’t see anybody while she was having sex because it was confusing. And there have been various raggies and blankies and noonoos and awful bits of cloth, which come with the consistency of mummies’ bandages.