#48

Written sex also has the distinction of being the only erotic art one can indulge in on public transport without fear of arrest. This is a truth well known by schoolgirls, who from the age of 13 onwards pass round dog-eared paperbacks, the good bits underlined for easy reference, as if they held the secret to life itself. Schoolboys, by contrast, are slaves to images, while we girls knew that in just a few years’ time we’d have our own three-dimensional versions of what the lads spent so much effort trying to catch a photographic glimpse of. Though some at least try the pictorial version of pornography: one girl at my school smuggled in a copy of Knave but the headmistress caught wind of her plan to unveil the illicit images to a paying audience in the first-floor toilets after last period. Those of us who didn’t get our 20p back learnt our lesson. Stick to the books.

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