Fucking and Drinking

The great 18th-century conversationalist and lexicographer (and first and probably only "compassionate conservative") Dr. Samuel Johnson once stated that the two greatest pleasures in life are fucking and drinking. Further, he wondered why, given this indisputable fact, there aren't more drunks in the world since for most people booze is easier to get than a bang.

Of course, you won't hear many conversationalists or conservatives echoing that sentiment today.

Sex and alcohol are things even modern libertines (now an oxymoron) feel a little shy about.

On the one hand, we have religion making us feel guilty about them--despite Jesus's repeated commands against judging others and his flair for changing water into wine.

On the other hand, we have killjoys that insist that sex is good only if it is pursued "correctly," and we have a slew of pseudo-scientific manuals to help us corral and house-train our natural desires--I have two copies of The Joy of Gay Sex (old and new editions), and though parts of them are hotter than hell, the overall impression is that you're newly enrolled in a Pilates program.

And forget about getting blotto these days unless you "know" wines and beers and completed a thesis on them.

When religious conservatives today are in a generous mood, they permit sex for procreation ... and perhaps even some wine with meals for slimming down; thus, we pragmatically shrink two of life's great pleasures down to duties or helpful hints. Forget masturbation, forget blowjobs, forget homosexuality, forget The Joy of Getting Shitfaced. Most definitely forget drunken sloppy sex.

For many post-Freudian Westerners, sex is so fraught with anxiety that it requires leaps of imagination to make it fun again. For many post-Fordian Westerners, drinking and driving is intrinsically a sin (as well as a crime of ever-increasing severity), regardless of demonstrable driving skill, as is drinking by oneself in the post-twelve-step world.

Both traditional pleasures are subject to judgment by others--either by interdiction or by informal grades 1 to 10. Don't Try This at Home, we are told again and again.

Frankly, I don't think one has to be a trained professional to get his jollies "down there." Where's the spirit of play? Even hit-and-miss fucking is good at least for a yuck or two.

And you won't go blind, you won't go to hell, you won't be Jason Vorhees' next victim.

What's so wrong about discovering your fantasies through masturbation and then putting them into practice with one or more human beings?

And if you need two or three beers before you can ask your buddies to try out your new trick with hot wax and cowbells, so be it.