"Most people think not having it off is fidelity. They think all relationships hinge in the middle. Sex or no Sex. What a fantastic range of possibilities. Like an on/off switch. Did she, or didn’t she? Why would you want to make it such a crisis?It’s what comes of making such a mystery of it. When I was twelve, I was obsessed. Everything was sex. Latin was sex. The dictionary fell open at meretrix, a harlot. You could feel the mystery coming off the word like musk. Meretrix! This was none of your mensa-a-table, this was a flash from the forbidden planet, and it was everywhere. History was sex, French was sex, art was sex, the bible, poetry, pen friends, games, music, everything was sex except biology which was obviously sex but obviously not really sex, not the one which was secret and ecstatic and wicked and a sacrament and all the things it was supposed to be but couldn’t be at one and the same time – I got that in the boiler room and it turned out to be biology after all. That’s what free love is free of – propaganda."
