CELEBRATING HUMOR IN SEX PART 2

YESTERDAY, BUILDING UP TO TODAY’S ST. VALENTINE’S, Brit humourist Gyles Brandreth began sharing tidbits from his book Even Greater Sexual Disasters. They continue today; again, quotes passages are Brandreth’s.

The rear cover of Even Greater Sexual Disasters, by Gyles Brandreth, Cartoons by Ed McLachlan, Grafton Books, 1988.

Icy Technique. “In her autobiography An Unfinished Woman, the author Lillian Hellman recounts a story of her Aunt Jenny, who was asked by a young woman how she could avoid pregnancy. Aunt Jenny advised drinking a glass of iced water before sex and taking three more sips during the act.”

“Some years later Lillian Hellman wrote to her aunt to tell her she was about to get married. By return came a telegram reading: FORGET ABOUT THE GLASS OF ICED WATER TIMES HAVE CHANGED.”

Big and Sporty. “The Germans are known to like their women big and sporty, and Reinholdt Bauer, who was only 5 feet 2 inches tall, was no exception. He used to haunt the red light district of Hamburg looking for the biggest partner he could find.”

“He eventually discovered his ideal woman in a flaxen-haired, 6-foot, 24-stone Brunnhilde of a lass who satisfied his every whim, including sitting on his face. It was this particular peccadillo that finished him off; he suffocated.”

Avoiding National Service. “Johann Ketteler didn’t fancy a stint of national service in the West Germany army, so when he was called up for a medical examination he took with him a sample of his girlfriend’s urine. He knew he’d be turned down because she was diabetic.”

“It took a week for the sample to be analysed and then Johann received another call to the army medical centre. He went along cheerfully and was delighted to hear from the senior pathologist that tests on his urine had indeed revealed an abnormality. His satisfaction was short-lived. The doctor told him he was pregnant.”

Assaying Bad Hooch. This reminds me of a tale appearing in J.C. Furnas’s Great Times: An Informal Social History of the United States, 1914–1929: ‘The “best joke that came out of Prohibition”—about the man who, suspicious of a new brand supplied by his bootlegger, sent a sample to a chemical laboratory for analysis and received the finding, “Dear Sir, your horse has diabetes.” ’

A Hot-Blooded Sicilian. “Of all Europeans the Italians are supposed to be the most hot-blooded and Evaristo Bertone, an eighty-five-year-old Sicilian, certainly lived up to the national reputation when he found a love letter that had been sent to his wife Adriana. Mad with jealousy and the idea that she had been unfaithful, he stabbed her in the shoulder.”

“This was all something of a surprise to Adriana, who asked to see the letter. When he showed it to her she tactfully pointed out that he had written it himself, fifty years ago. ‘His eyesight is so poor that I forgave him,’ she said.” 

St. Valentine’s Day. “Perhaps it’s time to reveal that for around five hundred years we’ve been conned about that most romantic of saints. According to Professor Henry Kelly, who has spent eight years studying the originals of the tradition, we’re celebrating the wrong saint on the wrong day.”

“The Valentine we should be remembering is St. Valentine of Genoa, who died on 3 May. And when you think about it there’s more sense in having a day devoted to lovers in spring, when a young man’s fancy really does turn to thoughts of love, than in February when all his fancy can rise to is a bowl of soup and a hot water bottle.” 

“So who’s to blame for this particular sexual disaster? Professor Kelly lays the blame on Queen Isobel of Bavaria who launched a Charter of the Court of Love—a sort of medieval escort agency—and set it on ‘the day of my Lord St Valentine.’ She chose the wrong saint and therefore the wrong day, and we’ve been celebrating the error ever since.”

Indeed, see “UCLA Faculty Experts Advisory: Valentine’s Day May Not Be What It Seems,” UCLA Newsroom, February 13, 2013.

The Party’s Over. “Rose and Antony Johnson decided to hold a ‘Not a Wedding’ party to celebrate the end of their marriage in November 1986. They invited everyone who’d been to the original wedding and had such a good time that by the end of the evening they’d decided to give it another go.” ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026