The Book Club: does sex matter?

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4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2020

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

Sam's guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is Olivia Fane — who argues in her new book Why Sex Doesn’t Matter that, well, sex doesn’t matter. She says that the idea that sex and love are related is a damaging twentieth-century invention, and that if we could just recognise that sex was no more significant than scratching an itch we’d all be wiser and happier. They talk about how she reaches that conclusion — and what, if she’s right, we ought to do about it.

The Book Club, what used to be known as Spectator Books, is a series of literary interviews and discussions on the latest releases in the world of publishing, from poetry through to physics. Presented by Sam Leith, The Spectator's Literary Editor.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for listening to The Spectator podcast. We've got a new offer. You can get a free
0:05.0	Brexit butterfly mug, as well as 12 issues of The Spectator for just £12 if you subscribe at
0:11.1	Spectator.com.com.combe, forward slash mug.
0:20.4	Hello and welcome to the Books Podcast at The Spectator. I'm Sam Leith, the literary
0:24.7	editor-in, and this week my guest is Olivia Fain, novelist and writer, whose new book is called
0:31.1	Why Sex Doesn't Matter, which is an attempt, as she puts it, to debunk sex,
0:40.3	which will be a great provocation to many listeners and a great relief to Mrs. Leith.
0:43.1	Olivia, on the face of it, you have history, biology and human behaviour
0:50.2	ranged up on the other side of your argument.
0:53.5	How do you think you overcome these? Oh, my goodness. They are not on the other side of your argument. How do you think you overcome this?
0:55.9	Oh my goodness.
0:57.2	They are not on the other side.
0:58.5	We're just talking about the last hundred years,
1:01.3	where it's all become love and sex are one,
1:03.8	love and sex are together,
1:06.0	and sex is so important and profound.
1:08.5	You say history has weighted against me.
1:10.6	History is on my side.
1:13.0	I actually I discovered it was quite how much it was, about 25 years ago.
1:17.4	I was in the University Library of Cambridge reading an incredibly boring Latin text,
1:21.5	and on the table in front of me was a book called A Woman's Place,
1:26.2	far more interesting than mine. And the first thing I read
	...

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