Love, Sex and Attraction

What is it about:

The book “The sensuous dirty old man” is a short humorous guide on how to boldly but respectfully flirt with a woman.

Summary by a critic: “….. Dr. A touches on … the stare, the leer, the snicker, the snort, the fatherly squeeze, the uncle-ish tweak, and the ‘problems’: what do you say when the husband arrives? …”

Here comes a surprise:

Dr. A who authored this book is Isaac Asimov.  Yes, the greatest sci-fi writer of all times (alternative opinions are tolerated).  I’m very grateful that this book did not present itself in front of me in my teenager years.  Otherwise, young and prejudice, I would never have laid my eyes on any of his other masterpieces.  Now, older and wiser, discovery of this book has, unsurprisingly, elevated my respect for Dr. A.

Quotes from the book:

• “Sex is dirty, if you do it right.”
• “Don’t peep at girls — stare.”
• (On men trying hard to not look at a young and scantily clad girl when she walks into a hardware store:)

“Here is a charming young lady, …, struggling with squeals of delight into an upper and lower garment … an exact 1.5 size too small.  She is then sent off to the hardware store, bashfully aware that she is pretty, and overlapping in all directions, and simply waiting for someone to take notice of her so that she might dimple and curtsy in appreciation.”

“And what happens?  The clods don’t look at her but find themselves overwhelmingly interested in samples of wall-sockets.  What is that but a clear indication that the clods would rather plug into the wall-sockets, so to speak, than into the young lady.”

• (On how to use touches:)

“… during a moment of passionate political argument at the dinner table, the hand of the man on her immediate right … came unwittingly to rest upon her own right knee. … it was when he was demonstrating … his left hand, overshooting its mark, landed on her knee.  Had the tablecloth not hidden the entire operation, she is convinced the gentleman would have noticed his mistake.”

“The young lady in question waited a polite interval for the mistake to be corrected.  When it was not, she … whispered freezingly, ‘Sir, you are taking an unendurable liberty.  If you do not remove your hand from my knee within half an hour, I shall scream.’ “

“It was no more than fifteen minutes, you can be sure, before the gentleman had removed his hand in some confusion.”