Birds, Bees Do It, Brits Don't

It used to be "no sex please, we're British." Now, it's "no sex please, we're bored."

It seems that on both sides of the pond we are all suffering a sex overload. No I don't mean we're "at it" continuously – rather the opposite. We talk about "it," watch 'it," use "it" as a tool to sell films, cars, even insurance policies but the number of people actually 'doing it' is pathetically low. It's as though we have become dulled by the mention of it, desensitised by the very word – by the endless sexualisation of everything.

Naked images are everywhere, dramas, documentaries... even the news is awash with pictures and stories of people living for sex, dieing for sex or being killed because of sex. They used to say "sex sells," but is that really the case anymore? Does the mere hint of it titillate you? The tiniest glimpse of it thrust you into the stores to buy the product that promises to get you more of "it?"

The word is so overworked it has become meaningless. Everything is now "sexy" – cars, washing machines, vegetables. Even dossiers on weapons of mass destruction get "sexed up." Is it any wonder we don't really know what sexy means any more?

And Plastic surgery is taking our confusion even further. Women have disfigured themselves with enormous silicone breasts – only to be told that they are no longer sexy but freakish. We are told that big kissable lips are desirable. So we have them pumped up with fat taken from our bottoms – just to be informed that we look odd and definitely no longer fanciable.

Youth is sexy, right? All 20 year olds are "doing it" all the time? Not true. It seems that even in the younger generation there is a general lack of enthusiasm in "that department."

The downside of all of this is obvious – we are doomed as a species if we don't get it on. But the upside is that those secret fears we all have that everyone else is getting loads of it are completely unfounded – so who cares about the end of the human race against that?!

By Petrie Hosken