Reverse the trajectory of romantic relationships

Dear diary, I will bookend this entry with associated images from a pad of religious stationary that I found at my mother’s house. In the beginning, I will share a proverb; and I’ll end with an epitaph.

Reverse romance...

The way that modern citizens engage in romantic relationships is backwards. Everyone does it exactly the same: First, you and your would-be spouse attempt to perform verbal intercourse. Only if that is successful do the two of you then marry and perform physical intercourse. This is the wrong order:

Physical coupling is a low art. Conversation—or verbal coupling—is a high art. Both physical and verbal intercourse are beautiful, but conversation is an achievement that only humankind has perfected; whereas copulation (blessed be it) is available to all beings.

Following the present trend, you ask your congressperson to dinner; then the two of you attempt to converse; after which you enter wedlock to revel in simultaneous orgasms. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, thy culture should reverse this course of travel:

When you meet a new individual—whether the person is a member of congress, or a doctor, or a lawyer—the first thing that you should do is feel each other out. Gently stroke the flesh of each other’s forearms for a few moments, and then move in for the simultaneous orgasm. (Of course, all actions should remain mutually consensual.)

Only after enduring years of physical harmony should you attempt to proceed to the mental art of conversation. If you find that you and your congressperson are able to spark each other’s interest, and inflame each other’s true love, by exchanging thoughts and ideas through the medium of language (spoken words and written text are equally acceptable), then you may begin to dine together.

Now the question arises: In this new, perfected world, when will it be the right time for lovers to marry? And the answer is: Lovers should never marry. Strangers should orgasm together simul­taneously, to break the ice; and old, accomplished lovers should persist in conversation until they become pros at it. Marriage doesn’t enter into the picture. (We’re talking about utopia, remember.)

And don’t worry about the attractiveness of any given stranger with whom you choose to orgasm. As long as your social contact is an adult, which is to say, not a child, then their age, as well as their visual magnetism is irrelevant. (Leave children alone.) Here is why:

When blindfolded, if you touch the body of your new acquaintance, the attraction that you experience is immediate and immense—the stranger’s age, like their appearance, is unapparent and therefore negligible. As Fabienne says, in Pulp Fiction (1994): “what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye is seldom the same.”

But what is the place of childbearing in this paradise? Without marriage, and amid rampant physical coupling of total strangers, how is the birthing of children to be planned? Who conceives them? Who bears them? Who will care for them? How will humankind propagate itself? —All of these questions have the same easy answer:

We take a photograph of an ape, and place it on the bed of a scanner beside a snapshot of a pig. By manipulating the atomic makeup of the resultant organism, and either adding or removing gel filters during the re-shoot, modern technology can offer your unborn baby any number of various chic new looks.