“Think of the boundless benefits of bypassing the need for sex”

Sex has become even more fraught since it ceased to be binary. Picture: iStock

As civilised citizens, you and I clearly concur with the moralists in the need to swear off such four-letter words as **** and **** and, worst of all, ****. Wash our mouths out with soapy water should we lapse. Yet the real problem lies not in four-letter swear words but in a 25 per cent discount to three. Undeniably the wickedest word in the entire English language is ***.

There, I’ve said it. ***!!! Or, if you insist, SEX. Forget money – here is the root (if you’ll forgive the expression) of all evil. The source of most temptations and deadliest sins. And the long history of religious misogyny makes it clear who’s to blame. Another three letters: Eve. The lascivious wench who, tempted by the phallic serpent, lumbered us with original *** (sin). Her immorality led to our mortality. Understandably all monotheistic religions view women as, at best, inferior.

God is usually called He. But aren’t She or It just as appropriate? Hard to see God having a gender. In evolutionary terms sex is a recent invention. However we must blame He/She/It for our sexual problems. Sex was perhaps God’s biggest error of judgment as it leads to lust, masturbation, adultery and such perversions as celibacy. Look at the problems it’s given the Vatican alone. The need for an Immaculate Conception, a Virgin Birth and an all-male priesthood. And consequential paedophilia.

Sex has become even more fraught since it ceased to be binary. In these debauched days of same-sex marriage, wholly and holy opposed by the better and bitter elements in RC and the C of E. Enter the Rubik’s Cube of gender fluidity. Now no one knows whether they’re coming or going.

Peruse the newspapers or the plots of Shakespearean plays or Netflix dramas. Most of the conflicts – other than wars over money, territory, power, ideology and religion – are over sex. So lurid, so violent. So it’s time to clean the slate and return to the simpler days of single-cell division, for the innocent era of the amoeba. Let the happy chant of “Two four six eight, who do we appreciate?” become “Two four six eight, look how we can replicate”.

No tragic Romeos and Juliets or West Side stories. No sexual confusions, no sexual torments. No pangs of puberty or fears of impotence! No need for colour-coded baby clothes. No need for babies! No need for divorce, hence no need for a Family Court to split up assets. Instead, you’ll simply split yourself in order to reproduce.

Think of the boundless benefits of bypassing the need for sex. No more morose blues or country-and-western dirges about being dumped. We would be free to focus on those things we love, such as money, power and shopping. No more adolescent yearnings or worrying about one’s appearance. No need to be sexually attractive or sexually anything. Behold vast vistas of spare time and spare cash. Gender itself would become less important, too. No more confusion in regard to toilets. No more concern about correct pronouns – the shifting sands of he-she-them-theys. Best of all, no Mother’s Days, Father’s Days or Valentine’s Days. (I’m uncertain about birthdays.) Bad for florists and Bunnings but very good for savings.

The injustices of primogeniture would be cancelled at a stroke, of course. Alert the aristocracy. And best and most blessed of all, no more misogyny. Alert the religions. Now self-love will be entirely proper – by all means cuddle your clone. Verily I say unto you/he/she/it/they: Let sex be ex.