Synopsis

Sex is our most powerful instinct. It has been the inspiration for great poetry, art, sacrifice – and murder. Sexual passion lurks a millimetre beneath the surface of the mildest life like a wild animal. Without warning, it can explode into violent action.

Sex plays its part in the slaughter of war, even in recent conflicts. A large number of Vietnamese men pined the Viet Cong, the Communist resistance during the Vietnam war, because American soldiers were coming to their country and taking their women. This caused what was known at the time as ‘shrinking bird syndrome’. Vietnamese men believed that the presence of foreigners in their country caused their penises to shrink – a powerful reason to go to war against the military might of the world’s most powerful nation. No wonder the Vietnamese won.

The problem with sex is that we are all vulnerable. Every one of us can be caught up in its heady passion. It is not hard for w to sympathise with lovers who have killed an unfaithful partner. Who of us has not suffered the paranoid nightmare of sexual jealousy? If a gun was handy, there are few of us who would not be tempted to pull the trigger and shoot the dirty dog down.

But how far would most of us go in other circumstances? If, say, we found that our particular sexual predilection was considered a little abnormal, would we stray outside the law to satisfy it? And if it demanded violence, cruelty, even death, for its fulfilment, would the hunger building day upon day eventually force us over the edge?

But worse, what are those people around us thinking and feeling? What are the secret desires of our docile partner – could they suddenly erupt in a murderous rage? Most murder victims are killed by people they know intimately. And what about that attractive stranger we have fancied from afar? If we get them back to our place tonight – for coffee – are we putting at risk our very existence?

The truth is that comparatively few people are murdered in the course of muggings, kidnaps or armed robberies. Many more were slain by rapists, sex attackers and jealous lovers.

Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980S, governments around the world have begged us all to think about ‘safe sex’. But there is no such thing as safe sex – no matter how many condoms you use. You are far more likely to be killed by your lover than by any HIV virus.

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