Kant would be turning in his grave! A person who gives in to another’s sexual desire makes a tool of himself or herself.

“For the natural use that one sex makes of the other’s sexual organs is enjoyment, for which one gives oneself up to the other. In this act a human being makes himself into a thing, which conflicts with the right of humanity in his own person” (Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, p. 62)

I got howled down at dinner last night when I said “feminism is dead”… oddly enough it was mainly the male contingent who were assuring me that women have never had it so good. The most positive female comment was that young women are so much more confident these days.

I agree… but there’s confidence and there’s the real world. Bear with me for a paragraph cause I’ll come back to sex. Power, security and wealth are still largely male domains. Yes, there are more women bank managers… but I think being a bank manager has become a downgraded job. There are still very few female CEOs, board leaders, Exec Directors, Ministers etc.

Let’s talk about sex, baby. What gets on my (Greek loving) goat is that girls are confident enough to demand the right to take all their clothes off and have casual sex. YYAAYY! Been there and still have the button (although it’s hard to find in bed with my eyemask and earplugs on).

But whose best interest is being served? Forget legitimizing sex work. Women don’t make much money out of sex work and yet who’s doing the work! We’ve have an industry promoting the sexualisation of women but who benefits?

Why Kant men and women be friends?

Here in the Greek community it’s not the men that are missing out on their conjugal rights but the women. It doesn’t take me that long to fill up my hot water bottle, snap an eye mask into place, roll up and insert my earplugs and pop in an orthodontic resin mouth piece. I have it down to about three minutes but right after that I am open for business and what happens? I lie there waiting for him to whisper my name. Perhaps it’s just that I can’t hear him. But I don’t think so. I think Greek men have a problem with their self image and I’ll tell you why.

A family myth told each year following Christmas lunch.

Whilst the women and children wash baking pans and self medicate in the kitchen, the men sit burping at the dining table arguing about ancient Greek politics and slagging off the Turks.

Handing out cigars Uncle T gets to tell the tale: You know why the women in our family are so ugly? he begins affectionately because when the Turks raided Kytheria over the centuries they took all the good looking ones.

You must understand that this is not a sexist tale although when I was 21 and in the feminist collective at University I did not quite understand the subtle cry of self anguish embedded in the story. It’s true that there is quite a bit of superfluous facial hair in female members of our family, but then you should see the men. Luckily, waxing for males has really taken off in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney and so things are vastly on the improve for all of us. How this will affect the future of conjugal rights for Greeks I don’t know. But, next time – all you who live in suburbs with trees – bemoaning the lack of action in your marital bed, have a thought for our poor men’s Achilles heels -toes sporting hair clips do not make for comfortable bed fellows.