In Competition No. 3303, you were invited to submit an explanation of the facts of life by a person from the field of fact or fiction who might be deemed a surprising choice.

A commendation to A.R. Duncan-Jones, whose lesson harnessed the reverse chronology of Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow: ‘Every ejaculation is premature. Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?… Quite apart from the disappointment and frustration, it’s also extremely embarrassing to find yourself ejaculating inside a girl that you’ve never even met.’

And to David Shields’s Gradgrind: ‘Sexual congress. Undertaken by one male and one female. Purpose: propagation of species. Method: introduction of sperm to ovum. Result: impregnation of female partner, followed by nine months’ gestation and, eventually, parturition.’

D.A. Prince and A.H. Harker also stood out, but the cash prizes go to the winners, below, who earn £30 apiece.

Good mounting, children. You’ll be ignited to know that it’s time for your sex edification lesson, now repulsory in all schools. I’m here to share some age-approximated defamation about your sexual encumbrances, now and in the future.

I shall traduce you to the many instabilities, and the various precisions you can adopt, including aural sex for the hard of hearing, and the benefits of mastication to relieve digestive problems. And a word about diversity and infusion. Over ten per cent of the copulation are in same-sex receiverships: ‘What’s good for the goose is good for the gender,’ as Aristotle said.

We’ll discuss methods to avoid conceptualising, how to discombulate unwelcome advances, and treatment of sexually-transmogrified diseases. By which time any vestibule of romance in your lives will have been disbursed, so I suggest you return to your favourite porn provender for more disinformation.

The bell! Class dismember, everyone out, foreplay time.

Sylvia Fairley/Mrs Malaprop

The average speed of a sperm after, uh, ignition? A pathetic twenty-eight miles per hour! What kind of girlie speed is that? It’s like Mary Beard in her grandma’s clapped-out 1950s Morris Minor struggling round Swindon’s one-way system. Mind you, 0-28 mph in a split second is some acceleration! POWER! And you have to admit, a sperm’s sleek, streamlined body does have something of the Ferrari 458 Italia about it. Perfect for cornering in those fallopian tubes…. Ah yes, the fallopian tubes. That’s when things really slow down. Five minutes to reach the cervix then seventy-two hours to find a flipping egg. It’s like you’re racing down the M4, then suddenly you’re stuck behind two bloody caravans hogging the road all the way to Bristol. Don’t be surprised to hear that sperm muttering some choice and, might I say, apposite language in the circumstances, as it chugs along those tubes.

David Silverman/Jeremy Clarkson

When, as Tennyson has it, a young man’s fancy turns to love, it’s the mating season and high time to pop out his intimate gentleman’s gentleman, driving said fellow pronto up the fairway of the gamest girl he can muster, thereupon pumping away like billy-o until he produces a sort of cream to accompany the eggs any girl worth her salt is apparently odds on to have stashed away behind the old belly button in plenitude. You’d think a chap might earn a reviving omelette for his exertions, but no: Mother Nature leaves him mooning about for nine months (missing the Flat season entirely, I shouldn’t wonder) before this creamy, eggy cocktail emerges as a bouncing infant of one sort or the other. Jeeves insists birds and bees have been about a not dissimilar lark since time immemorial. ‘Bees,’ I loftily corrected him, ‘cannot make omelettes.’

Adrian Fry/Bertie Wooster

Right, you ’orrible lot. I’m Sar’nt-Major Reed, and you will address me as Sar’nt-Major. But you will not address me at all unless invited to do so, which is highly improbable.

Today, we have naming of parts. Unlike previous training on this topic, the parts in question are not rifles or tanks, but your parts. Private parts. What we might call ‘privates’ privates’.

We will also be considering parts of the female anatomy, which in your case you have not got.

Now, on finding yourself alone with a naked female person, you’ll notice your wossname coming to attention – as you were, Private Eliot, we don’t require a demonstration.

The part of the first party is then inserted into the part of the second party, and coition takes place.

That’s all for today. Tomorrow we’ll be looking at certain precautions you can take, though none of them very reliable.

Dismissed!

Sylvia O. Smith/Henry Reed

If you can keep your organ well erected

without Viagra, when the heat’s on you,

if you can find the orifice, directed,

and take the plunge and bravely follow through,

if you can send your sperm upon their mission, 

toward the egg before your ardour cools, 

if you can make the most of your position, 

and stay the course, and don’t have worn-out tools, 

if you, my son, these simple facts can master,

if there is implantation, life and such,

if you don’t get off early (a disaster), 

you’ll walk with Kings, for Kings can do as much;

if you can consummate with great endeavour,

if you can fill an oven with a bun,

you’ll know what birds and bees have known for

ever, and what is more, you’ll knock her up, my son!

Janine Beacham/Rudyard Kipling

No. 3306: Futurism

You are invited to submit a poem about procrastination. Please email entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 28 June.