Love Ain’t Nothing but Sex Misspelled – Harlan Ellison
“Love” is a bit of a euphemism for what young men’s fancy generally lightly turns to, and Janis is aware that it is CERTAINLY a euphemism for what one specific less-young man’s fancy has lightly turned to….
The *did* have the synonyms, but Tennyson was idealistic and romantic. Janice is being cynical and saying it’s *not* love but ###king. Arlo’s not denying it.
Compose poetry and chill
“In the spring a livelier iris sets the burnished goose to honking,
In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of boinking.”
There you go.
I like Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress, for expressing lusty youthfulness in soaring poetic flummery which, boiled down, in fact says something like this –
“If we had all the time in the world
You could spend most of it being virginal
And I would spend aeons admiring you from afar
BUT we don’t have all the time in the world
In fact, we’ll be dead wormfood soon
So get your knickers off already
And let’s go to bed!”
Slightly cut real poem:
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day;
[…]
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
[…]
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
[…]
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey
[…]
narmitaj – your high school English teacher was so much less cynical than mine. We were given a less polite summary of the meaning of the poem. Much less understanding more, “just sleep with me already, what are you waiting for?”
Shrug…
why mince?
“In the spring a livelier iris sets the burnished hen to clucking”
I think it was Groucho Marx who wrote a whole chapter in his book on “Why does everyone say ‘love’ when they mean ‘sex’?” He pointed out that the song title “Love is a Many Splendored Thing” is much better as “Sex is a Many Splendored Thing.”
A “fabulous” gay friend once told me that he came out by telling his parents “this young man’s love has turned to thoughts of fancy”
Scott nailed it with the Harlan Ellison quote. Harlan is still alive, and probably still kicking ass.
“In the Spring a young man’s fancy, but a young woman’s fancier.” Multiple attributions
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Love Ain’t Nothing but Sex Misspelled – Harlan Ellison
“Love” is a bit of a euphemism for what young men’s fancy generally lightly turns to, and Janis is aware that it is CERTAINLY a euphemism for what one specific less-young man’s fancy has lightly turned to….
The *did* have the synonyms, but Tennyson was idealistic and romantic. Janice is being cynical and saying it’s *not* love but ###king. Arlo’s not denying it.
Compose poetry and chill
“In the spring a livelier iris sets the burnished goose to honking,
In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of boinking.”
There you go.
I like Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress, for expressing lusty youthfulness in soaring poetic flummery which, boiled down, in fact says something like this –
“If we had all the time in the world
You could spend most of it being virginal
And I would spend aeons admiring you from afar
BUT we don’t have all the time in the world
In fact, we’ll be dead wormfood soon
So get your knickers off already
And let’s go to bed!”
Slightly cut real poem:
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day;
[…]
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
[…]
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
[…]
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey
[…]
narmitaj – your high school English teacher was so much less cynical than mine. We were given a less polite summary of the meaning of the poem. Much less understanding more, “just sleep with me already, what are you waiting for?”
Shrug…
why mince?
“In the spring a livelier iris sets the burnished hen to clucking”
I think it was Groucho Marx who wrote a whole chapter in his book on “Why does everyone say ‘love’ when they mean ‘sex’?” He pointed out that the song title “Love is a Many Splendored Thing” is much better as “Sex is a Many Splendored Thing.”
A “fabulous” gay friend once told me that he came out by telling his parents “this young man’s love has turned to thoughts of fancy”
Scott nailed it with the Harlan Ellison quote. Harlan is still alive, and probably still kicking ass.
“In the Spring a young man’s fancy, but a young woman’s fancier.” Multiple attributions