Endpaper

Four weeks in Cambridge, and I have already learnt more about a person's crazed anatomy and multiple neuroses than was perhaps required. The induction started early, with one lecturer salivating over Freud and immersing his class in the symbolism of some gripping sexual depravities. Then, in casual wanderings around campus, deep Oedipal lusts drifted in and out of overheard conversation. Am I normal? Don't I partake of psychological trauma? By now the worries have settled in. Full neurosis must be around the corner.

Let me explain. Life in my home town of Manchester, England, is a simple affair. The conversational staples are weather forecasts and family suffering ("Oh, you know our Terry. His leg's dropping off. It's great pity"), while the libido can only be coaxed into action after a drunken rout. As recession engulfs the city, the poor inhabitants will be so busy watching TV and eating white bread and fat all day, they may even forget they have bodies.

Yet where does all the undeniable sexual beastliness go? Under the veneer of lifelong tedium, signs are apparent. Naughtiness pops up with cheeky regularity in such a sorry life. Comedians prosper in Britain merely by being able to deliver in plummy accents words like "moist" or "orifice." Usually they reduce audiences to hysterical convulsions, especially if the joke is surmounted with a veiled reference to flatulence. One particular guru of such humour, Frankie Howard, built a lifetime's personal luxury on his catchphrase "Titter ye not"; favourite stunts of his included the "naked buttock scene," to be outdone by one alternative comedian's exploding groin show.

The advent of the 1990s saw more wonderful forms of dirty chortling, with the late-night game show "Sticky Moments" becoming a cult hit. Postmodern laughter and applause erupt as our unbelievably camp host mises onto stage in bondage gear. The leading contestants, having answered questions like "How long is this sausage?," win their prize by consuming as much ice-cream as possible in one minute. Their moment of stickiness climaxes with a tacky award of no value.

Such libidinal outpourings are not just the preserve of the British. Harvard students possess a peculiarly distorted view of European culture, feeling obliged to humble themselves before centuries of grand symphonic and literary traditions. In fact, French TV offers great disvalue for money: by eight o'clock, most shows or dramas display people in varied states of undress, with customary "humorous" complications. Germans enjoy nothing more than a wurst, a few beers, and an evening of hearty bottom slapping. And as for the Belgians. Well, what else can you do in Belgium?

There is something dreadfully funny about all this. Have you never realized just how extraordinary a visit to the lavatory is? British comedians certainly have, and are well satisfied with their discovery. Yet I fear this humor is not well received here: casual references to anatomical deficiencies elicit concerned glances from some students, who clearly regard such remarks as signs of enormous repression. Then when the Id is delved into, blood jets spontaneously into my face and giggles grip my vocal chords.

In the face of these shortcomings, honesty seems the best policy. What have I been hiding from myself? A relationship with Auntie Nora's pet poodle? Infatuation with my sister's lacey underwear? I fear such perversions must be deeply buried, and that much more psychobabble will be required to dent my native prudery. I get depressed sometimes--when England lose at soccer, or my bank account throttles into overdraft--but these moments hardly constitute a recipe for a session in therapy.

No doubt there are advantages to sexual frankness. With everyone coming in and out, losing and finding themselves, reinventing, returning and displacing, the giddy delights of independence can percolate everywhere. Yet something has been lost. Think of all those wonderful words which are endlessly suggestive to the repressed ear. Words such as viscous, fluid, ballast, balloon, column, effluence, and dampness hide beautiful messages behind their innocent facades. In a literal environment they are not longer potent. What a loss to the imagination if you can't chuckle over your bun, or prize the profundity of eructation.

Think of the consequences for art. In novels like those of Graham Greene, when a married couple is on the verge of mutual annihilation they inquire politely into each others' health, and ask whether they should brew some tea, while technicolor rage circulates beneath. "Yes, Fred. Get the tea." The tension screams out from the mundanity. Now all we get is some pretentious, self-proclaimed novelist giving us 50 pages of emotional history, followed by a long conjugal argument repeating the same. My interest usually lapses early on." Bob's childhood was rough. The lawnmower his father wielded intimidated him..." Yawn. Then we get mutual sexual histories. Yawn, yawn.

Excessive psychological introspection should carry a warning label. Why must we give reasons for everything we do? Living behind a pierced veil of puritanism, the British exult in caprice--in drinking, raving etc.--without feeling a need for self-examination. Such caprice is not harmless, though. The soccer hooligans of the 1980s indulged in violence because it was spontaneous and liberating, an escape from the doldrums of economic necessities (at the occasional cost of an eyeball). Yet if reasons for every act have to be given, or at least deciphered, no one can have such flushes of energy. Life becomes a set of formulae for the individual to choose amongst and pursue with unquestioning zeal.

Beguiled by psychology, incapable of being shocked, you bourgeois Americans have lost the pleasure gained in contravening rules, and subtly undermining censorship. The one good thing about repression and Victorian sexual mores is that they are fun to transgress. Once they are gone, you can only thrash about in a pool of uncertainty, kept afloat by dedication to the significance of your psyche. Can anyone be truly satisfied with such frankness? Revelation and disguise can be much more entertaining than display.