Of Sex, Dulux and Pavlov's Dogs

In which Stuart asks some curious questions on the subject of naughtiness, and Phileas Fogg has problems with the Malaysian Wildlife Authorities

It seems to me that I ask a lot of rhetorical questions on this blog. Questions that aren't so rhetorical as to make me think that no one will be moved to comment, but still- I think I ask more than I answer. Today isn't really going to be any different.

In The Gun Seller, Hugh Laurie gives his lead male character a nifty trick for trying to make sex last longer. The chap tries to remember all of the names of the colours on the Dulux Paint Colour Chart...on one occasion getting up to No. 31 - Burnt Sienna, which as I recall was a personal best.

Scraping back the limescaley residue from the long-evaporated mists of time, I remember that there was similar advice in a Men Behaving Badly book. The technique was to think about non sexual or actively off-putting things...the image that leaps from memory is Bruce Forsyth squatting on a glass table...Helmut Kohl doing the same...socks...the list goes on.

I'm guessing that everyone is familiar with the principle of positive statements; saying things over and over to yourself to enforce something in your mind. And then there's Mr. Pavlov and his dogs...conditioning a reflex reaction to something through a similar process.

If you put the two together, some unfortunate soul who used that method and got a lot of sex might end up feeling sexually confused about DIY, aroused by re-runs of Play Your Cards Right, turned on by European Economic Policy and very raunchy towards his own laundry basket.

Just a thought.