Sexual Intercourse Began in 1963: P. Larkin

MORE THAN SEX GOING ON HERE

Sexual intercourse began

In 1963

Between the end of the Chatterly ban

And the Beatles' first LP.

-Philip Larkin, Annus Mirabilis, quoted in Margaret Drabble: A Reader's Guide.

Sexual activity began

In 1962

Between the beginning of my pioneering

And the complete institutionalization

Of charisma in the conveyance

Of authority in an emerging world religion.

-Ron Price, Untitled Poem, written only here to convey a perspective.

The year I became a Baha'i
Lady Chatterly's Lover1
went on trial, four-letter words
became okay, sex was opened
to public discussion endlessly,
the unsayable became sayable
and pornography began to travel
in rivers to the sea of our lives.
The permissive society had begun
yet again as Betty Friedan
published her Feminine Mystique
and the tenth stage of history
made its entrance2
in the greatest drama
in the world's spiritual history---
as I tasted my first experience
of depression,3 of orgasm,
hungered for sex and meaning,
was initiated into the mysteries
and secrets of pioneering.4
Ron Price

1 August 1998

1 The first year of my experience as a Baha'i was October 1959 to October 1960.

2 The tenth stage of history is part of a Baha'i paradigm of history. It began in 1963.

3 This outline of the early 1960s is found in many places. I drew on Margaret Drabble: A Reader's Guide, Valerie Myer, Vision Press, NY, 1991, pp.13-14.

4 this poem is another example of the vahid(Farsi word for unity), a poem of 19 lines.

 

......What?

 

Don't worry, mate, if you don't connect with this. When I used to teach Shakespeare, 3/4 of the students had absolutely no idea what he was saying in his plays or poems. It's a feature of some writers/writing going back to the Bible and Homer. You and I have lots of company. I hope with my next post your insomniac life will be more enriched than it was with this effort of mine. Ah well, you can't win them all. -Ron