A Writer's Manifesto

I made my decision sometime last year. It was nearing the end of the summer, over two years since I left university and somewhat longer since I last had sex. I was 24 and I knew I had to get laid soon, at least within the next couple of years, or I might as well call it a day.

Trouble is, I’m the shy type. Very shy really; for me to have sex with a woman she practically has to leap into my lap and yank off her knickers, and without prior provocation. To get this happening on anything approaching a regular basis would require either an extremely potent aphrodisiac drug, which I have concluded does not, and probably will never, exist. And yes, I have researched the topic thoroughly. Very thoroughly. Either that or some particular point of sexual attraction inherent to me. Some sort of fetish that, for a small community of women locatable over the internet, I fulfil to perfection. The problem is that I’m too well-proportioned to be fetish material. My knob and balls are neither abnormally large nor misshapen, I am not tall, short, fat or thin, nor do I have a big arse, huge muscles or a forest of body hair. I did briefly consider mutilating myself for the purpose, but there are limits even in desperation. I’ve kept the idea in reserve as a ‘plan B’.

What other quality, then, could make an otherwise ordinary man compellingly attractive? I wondered for a while whether it was true that many women find intelligence sexy. After all, it is the quality they most frequently ask about in those American sperm banks. It seems some women like intelligent sperm at least. But the problem I come up against, if you’ll excuse the pun, is that if any such women exist they have certainly managed to steer clear of me so far. There is perhaps an unflattering conclusion to be drawn from this last observation. In any case, intelligence isn’t a quality immediately apparent from the physique as is age or criminality, it must be communicated. And, short of printing my (falsified) Mensa certificate onto a t-shirt, I wasn’t quite sure how to achieve this, communication not being my forte. It’s not enough to be great, people, especially female people, have to know about it.

I felt I was onto something with this last idea, however. I had heard, perhaps even read, that fame is the ultimate aphrodisiac. This seemed like a solution; become famous, at least within an immediate circle of accessible women. It only remained to decide by what medium. Of course I immediately thought of television, particularly since we now have a wide range of shows specifically designed to turn the talentless into celebrities. But reality television, aside from being a near-oxymoronic concept, seems completely to defeat the point. If television may once have made people seem sexy, Big Brother seems finally to have debased this principle beyond recognition.

Rock star would be the obvious second choice, but although I might possess the fairly minimal talent required, I’m not sure I have the energy. Too much travelling, too much leaping around and sweating. Too much like hard work. And I’m not sure I could face all the drugs; I care too much about my health. Film star and politician are out for the same reasons.

Terrorist? I could blow people up. But I have my morals, even in the pursuit of sex. Besides, terrorists tend only to get famous after they’re dead (although I’ve heard they find it very easy to get laid in the afterlife).

No, I have decided that there is only one path to fame even remotely feasible for me. For the sake of my sex life, I must become a writer. So, dear readers, if by some miraculous oversight this declaration has made it to publication, I await your sexual homage. Only a brief magazine article, I know, but it must be worth a quick feel or maybe even a hand-job. I can be found at the Elephant café most afternoons; I await your sexual homage.