Times 2 - UK (2020-09-16)

(Antfer) #1

the times | Wednesday September 16 2020 1GT 3


times


The male


toff sex


obsession


By Sophia


Money- Coutts


P


osh men are slightly scared
of sex (repressed childhoods
spent masturbating about
matron) and learn early to
treat it like a bloody good
laugh. It’s a coping mechanism
essentially, which explains why
David Cameron allegedly thought
nothing of telling his pal’s wife that
he wanted to push her into the
bushes and “give her one” or making
endless, presumably increasingly
tiresome dogging jokes during the
same weekend, as revealed in Sasha
Swire’s new book, The Diary of an
MP’s Wife.
Cameron’s thank-you letter for
the same weekend included the
gruesome detail that “all the eating
and drinking brought on the birth of
his fourth child”. Later in the book,
Swire writes of a meeting with Boris
Johnson where he looked at her as if
he were working out whether she
was “shaggable”. Ha ha, what larks!
Ridiculing sex, making it less
terrifying, is also why poshos love
a slang word for it. The word
“bonking” appears roughly once a
minute in any Richard Curtis film. I
once sat next to an Old Etonian who
talked of “porking”. I presumed he
meant his wife, but didn’t dare ask.
To amuse such readers, when
I worked at Tatler we talked of little
other than sex and wrote pieces
including “the etiquette of the
threesome”, “posh girls with whips”,
“a guide to spanking” and the
absolute classic “dog toy or sex toy?”
To be fair, it’s surprisingly hard to tell
the difference between a vibrator
and a chewable bone.
The act itself is often treated as
a field sport, just like shooting. Both
can be done outside. Both can be
done in wellies. Both are often
frightfully messy, but you clear up
afterwards with a jolly hot bath.
I know one woman whose husband
urges her on at the critical moment
with the words: “Come on, old girl,
you can do it.”
It probably doesn’t help that most
toffs learn the facts of life not from
a human being, but by watching the
labrador or whichever animal is
nearest. My mother taught my
siblings and me about sex by
carting us off to a Sussex stud
farm where we watched a stallion
cover a mare, clambering on her
back and grunting for a while
before slithering off again.
There was a stunned
silence in the car
on the way home
before my brother,
aged six, piped
up: “But will
we have to?”
The poor boy
has got over
it now (he’s
34), but you can see how
warped ideas develop.

Country Wife always wins

have to get drunk because of the
filthy weather, which they duly did.)
See below.

6 Drink features large in the PCW’s
life. It’s high on the list of what makes
her officially Good Company
compared with PUWs (Posh Urban
Wives). Swire mentions negronis being
used as pick-me-ups on several
occasions, including to fortify Sam
Cam before she joined DC for his
resignation speech outside Downing
Street, and when cheering up was
required later that night.
Also on the list, along with being
up for a boozy party at a moment’s
notice, are: being fit from tennis and
running, but horrified by the idea of
a yoga room or any room specifically
designed for exercise; being an
enthusiastic cold-water swimmer;
liking a long lunch and then an
afternoon rest; liking people who
smoke, just in case; refusing to turn
on the heating until October at the
earliest; flirting; having a bedroom
that is the envy of friends, and a
sex life. See also: having a garden
that looks as if the gardener downed
tools, although there are in fact two
working round the clock; having dogs
plural that are definitely not of the

doodle variety, may be dangerous and
are dug out of tunnels/rescued from
peculiar situations at least once a
year; knowing all kinds of amusing
people, not just poshos; being an
enthusiastic (local) festivalgoer; having
a tent in the garden for overflow
guests (on account of the constant
traffic of visitors of all ages).

6 Being very dog and YA-friendly.
PCWs often live with packs of muddy
dogs and undomesticated teenagers.

6 Last, but not least — what separates
the PCW from other women close to
power is that a PCW is beholden to no
one. Unlike your posh London wife,
the PCW doesn’t depend for her very
survival on a team of people. The
PCW may well have a support
team, but she knows exactly
what to do when the lights go
out and would be perfectly
capable of living off-grid. This
means she has the advantage
of not really needing anyone,
let alone requiring anyone’s
approval. When asked
how she would react
if her friends were
horrified by what
she’s written in
her Diary,
Swire said,
“I just think,
f*** it .”
We may
be seeing
a lot more
of her kind.

Sasha Swire at home
with her husband,
Hugo. Right: David
Cameron

a fish or an injured rabbit as gussying
up in a long dress and heels for
a charity fundraiser. Squeamish she is
not. The woman who screams when
a mouse runs across the kitchen floor
is not a PCW. A PCW will also be
pretty good at first aid, driving a truck,
reversing a horsebox and cutting down
a tree. Will she bother? That’s another
matter. But she knows how to do this
stuff because where she comes from
men admire and are attracted to
women who are self-sufficient and
capable in country contexts, as well as
sparky, flirtatious company.

6 PCWs are very good at flirting. This
is not the sort of flirting you’d get
from, say, Carla Bruni (flashing eyes,
high-stepping legs, a slap across the
face for not bowing). This is PCW
British flirting. Think Camilla sharing
a whispered bit of mischief along the
lines of “wouldn’t it be such a relief
to get out of here and have a fag and
a Stoli lying under a tree”. Or the

Princess Royal cocking an eyebrow at
a double entendre and then suggesting
a jug of white lady followed by a game
of Sardines. That’s the flirting we’re
talking about.

6 PCWs are not polished or fragile:
they’re more the windswept hair,
mascara, dog under the arm, tightish
jeans and boots type (we’re not saying
they don’t like to look good). Their
houses and gardens are picturesque
shabby-grand, with heirlooms mixed
in with Ikea, and foie gras toasties on
the same plate as Co-op guacamole.
(Couldn’t help noticing SS took the
trouble to note down exactly what she
gave the Camerons when they came
to stay in Devon because, as she must
have appreciated, it was pretty much
a textbook PCW lunch — marinated
mozzarella, vongole, chocolate
brownies with shredded beetroot —
plain but sexy, not a meat or meringue
in sight. Plus she mentions she
announced they were all going to

HUGO RITTSON THOMAS

Drink features


large in the PCW’s


life. It makes her


Good Company


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Free download pdf