Sex
How did the BBC’s podcast Unexpected Fluids ever get made?
You may have noticed the flood of podcasts that’s been pouring out of the BBC since the launch of its…
Lonely hearts and guilty minds: the world of Pamela Hansford Johnson
The revival of interest in mid-20th century novelists is one of the most positive and valuable developments of our time.…
The passions of Paulo: Enigma Variations, by André Aciman, reviewed
André Aciman’s 2007 debut novel, Call Me By Your Name, was a sensuous, captivating account of the passionate love a…
Blacktivist rhetoric and impenetrable symbols: Misty reviewed
Arinzé Kene’s play Misty is a collection of rap numbers and skits about a fare dodger, Lucas, from Hackney. Lucas…
Bad news for fans of good TV drama – there’s three more corkers to keep up with
This week was bad news for fans of good television drama series — mainly because there’s now three more of…
Blue pill-pushers: Why is Viagra being marketed to young men?
In September last year, official figures showed a startling rise in the number of young British men turning up at…
A non-sniggering look at the latest developments in the lucrative sex-robot market
This week on Channel 4, we watched a cheery 58-year-old American engineer called James going on a first date. He…
High life
The death of the richest woman on this planet, as the tabloids dubbed Liliane Bettencourt, brought back some vivid memories,…
The joy of sex
Your typical Trollope-loving, Brahms-bothering Spectator reader probably won’t be aware that the most recent winner of Big Brother was a…
This charming man
Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled is set during the American Civil War and is about a wounded Union solider, Corporal John…
Taking the Kamasutra seriously
The rough English translation of Kamasutra is pleasure (kama) treatise (sutra). In the West, since it was first (rather surreptitiously)…
Modern feminists should come to me if they want the truth about sex
New York Even after all these years, I’m still at times floored by the scale of the place. And…
Mind your language: From body fluids to ‘gender fluid’
Benjamin Franklin thought that an excess of electric fluid gave rise to positive electricity, and a deficiency of the fluid…
Now that's what I call sex: Birmingham Royal Ballet's Ashton Double Bill reviewed
That joke about the young bull who tells the old bull, ‘Hey, Dad, see all those cows — let’s run…
Back in Time for the Weekend gives the 1950s its usual kicking
When the time comes to make programmes looking back on the 2010s, I wonder which aspects of life today will…
How they tried (and failed) to make ‘La Marseillaise’ nicer
Friendly words England football fans sang ‘La Marseillaise’ in a friendly match at Wembley. The anthem has not always been…
We’re not more genderfluid now. We’re just duller about it
Sex has always been less binary than it looks – but we’ve never been this boring about it
An unauthorised, and unconvincing, biography of Ted Hughes
Craig Raine says that Jonathan Bate’s unauthorised biography of Ted Hughes gets it wrong on every level
Woody Allen: a life of jazz, laughter, depression —and a few misdemeanours
Woody Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg), the prolific, Oscar-winning auteur, New Orleans-style jazz clarinettist, doyen of New York delicatessen society,…
Guns, tools and toffee apples - but no nudity: BBC1’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover reviewed
It’s hard to know whether the actor James Norton was being naive or disingenuous when he claimed in publicity interviews…
How common is adultery? Much more common than getting caught
How many cheats? More data on members of extramarital dating site Ashley Madison were put online. How widespread is adultery?…
How many asexuals are there?
No sex, please Several friends of the late Sir Edward Heath asserted that he could not be guilty of sexually…
Bisexuality is now everywhere – and nowhere
I’m not aware of knowing many bisexual people. Or indeed, off the top of my head, any bisexual people. Which…
The uglier the man, the uglier the attitude
The uglier the man, the more he demeans women
Why does TV assume everyone is so thick they have to have everything explained?
My favourite moment in The Scandalous Lady W (BBC2, Monday) was when the heroine played by Natalie Dormer was shown…
