CHEMICAL REACTIONS
FOR two people who have no intention of sleeping together, we certainly talk incessantly about sex. Peter and I can be riding on the MTR or waiting in line for sandwiches when the inevitable cheeky, distinctly adolescent question comes forth. Usually it's something like, 'Have you ever done it in a rocking chair?' Or 'Are you into Polaroids?' In any other season, I would usually turn fully red and say, 'Like, I'm going to tell you. Go to hell.' But it is spring, after all, when propriety gets stuffed into the back of the closet with all your black wool clothes, and hormones emerge like something bright, flowered and loud. So we talk. And talk. Because hormones, as we all know, cause poor judgment like no other chemical can.
Of course, once the first question is asked and duly answered, Peter then takes it upon himself to treat me to a comprehensive and meticulous recreation of favourite moments from his own sexual history. Sometimes I close my eyes while he's talking and I could swear I'm actually listening to the voice-over from those Merlin Perkin's Wild Kingdom Of Animals programmes I used to watch as a child.
This ritual of 'exchanging reports' (I use the verb 'exchanging' lightly, as I usually end up alternately nodding, shaking my head, or gasping) seems to be some sick kind of one-upmanship. Of course, Peter always wins, damn it. He never ceases to floor me with the details: quantity, quality, location, duration . . . What's more, I think he must practise his expressions in the mirror, because he's got this smug post-coital glow down perfectly - something he never fails to flaunt every Monday morning when we meet on the street.
But this last Monday, he was unbearably smug. 'So matey, good weekend for you, too? Yeah, sure it was,' he said as he picked lint from his bright purple flowered shirt. 'Why do I get the distinct feeling that while I'm recounting, you're just reminiscing? When are you going to stop waiting for Prince Charming and get back on the horse?' WHAT Peter has obviously failed to realise is that mating - even among humans - is a specific thing. Ask anthropologist Helen Fisher, who has spent the last 10 years studying the sexuality of birds, bees and humans. What she concluded was that love is a chemical reaction and that the real sexual revolution began millions of years ago.
First of all, she says, Henry Kissinger was right: power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. 'For women, this is true. In a study of 33 cultures, women preferred men who have a job, status, power, and they've probably been attracted to this for four million years. When we came down from the trees, we began to stand on two feet and women began to carry babies in their arms instead of on their backs. So they began to need a man to help them rear their young. It was adaptive for them to find mates who would give them more protection and resources. This was the real beginning of the sexual revolution, and you can see it today. This is one reason why young men drive fancy cars and why older men work long hours to get ahead. Because power is sexy to women - for biological reasons.' She went on to comment about the size of women's breasts: 'Breasts evolved in the human female to signal fertility and the good mother. These are deep reproductive signals that are profoundly more important than the face.' So ladies, think twice about wearing that 95 per cent Lycra top to the office. Rather than sending out the signal that you have good taste in clothes, that you work out at the gym, or that you're secure with your femininity, you may be signalling that you're ready to mate.
Of course, men do not escape unscathed on the 'size' issue.