Tag Archives: sex

“Sexual Intercourse Began in 1963”

By Robin Bates | Published: March 12, 2013

Philip Larkin describes how the Beatles changed Britain’s social mores fifty years ago.

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The Horror of Sex without Love

By Robin Bates | Published: September 16, 2011

Sex without love, the subject of several sex comedies this past summer, was also an issue explored by poets and playwrights in the British Restoration.

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Life Imitates Aristophanes in Colombia

By Robin Bates | Published: August 10, 2011

In Aristophanes’ great anti-war comedy, the women of Greece, led by Lysistrata, stage a sex strike, which gives them the leverage they need to end the Peloponnesian War. Currently there is a sex strike underway in a remote village in Columbia.

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One of Literature’s Sexiest Eating Scenes

By Robin Bates | Published: August 9, 2011

Homer gains Fielding’s admiration by his ability to move seamlessly between epic grandeur and “the shameless dog of the belly.” Perhaps it is Homer’s dexterity that gives Fielding the idea for his own contribution to “Great Eating Scenes in Literature.”

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Rhinos and RINOs, Both Endangered

By Robin Bates | Published: August 3, 2011

Rhinos are killed for their horns, which are falsely believed to be a powerful aphrodisiac. Knocking off RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only, is proving an intoxicating political sport of its own.

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Managing Midsummer Madness (i.e., Sex)

By Robin Bates | Published: June 29, 2010

Midsummer Night’s Dream provides good instruction for the parents of teenagers. First of all, don’t think that you can tyrannically dictate your children’s choices (say, by threatening them with execution). On the other hand, they need guidelines and guidance. There’s no telling how they’ll behave once they are set loose in the forest of their […]

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Poems for Abuse Victims

By Robin Bates | Published: April 13, 2010

Lucille Clifton Having attended a memorial ceremony for the recently departed poet Lucille Clifton this past Saturday (see yesterday’s post), today I commemorate her by putting some of her poems to good use. Catholic priest molestation has been in the news recently (less the molestation, which tragically occurs in all walks of life, than the […]

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John Donne’s Seductive Flea

By Robin Bates | Published: June 25, 2009

Georges de La Tour, Woman Catching a Flea, c. 1638. Oil on canvas. In case you haven’t heard, the news media was buzzing last week over a CBS interview with President Obama where he nailed a fly that was bothering him. I thought I’d have fun in today’s entry and talk about the symbolic use […]

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On Accepting Death and Living Life

By Robin Bates | Published: May 14, 2009

The German philosopher Heidegger argues that, by refusing to face up to the fact that we are going to die, we human beings cut ourselves off from life as well. Essentially, by seeing death as a horrible thing, we deny that we are natural beings in a natural world. In so doing, Heidegger goes on […]

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