LRB Collections 4: ‘Four in a Bed’

Writing about sex from the London Review of Books

‘Ten, no, five seconds
after coming all
over the place
too soon,

I was lying there
wondering
where to put the
line-breaks in.’

– Hugo Williams

The pieces in this book look at divorce, bisexuality, boy toys, masturbation, impotence, bodice-rippers and involuntary celibates (incels), as well as the erections of Christ and the erotic fantasies of the French Surrealists. Some of the authors pretend to apologise for being unable to resist the temptation to joke about sex, but the truth is it really can be very funny. This isn’t to deny its tragic side. But perhaps, as Wendy Doniger writes in her introduction, the essays collected here will strike a blow for more humour – and more humanism – in our thinking about these subjects, and the spaces in between.

Featuring: Mary Beard, Jenny Diski, Wendy Doniger, Frank Kermode, Andrew O’Hagan, Adam Phillips, Amia Srinivasan, David Sylvester, Barbara Taylor, Hugo Williams and Mary-Kay Wilmers