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of the Cosmos: a ghost with an erection! Yet not really amazing, for only if the abstracted ghost has an erection can it, like Jove spying Europa on the beach, enter the human condition.
    (g) It’s not that complicated. It’s simply that people nowadays have too much money and time to spend and don’t know what to do with themselves and so will try anything out of boredom.
    (h) Why go further than the orthodox Judaeo-Christian belief that monogamous marriage was ordained by God for man’s happiness, that the devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, and that as a consequence modern man has lost his way, has not the faintest notion who he is or what he is doing, and nothing short of catastrophe will bring him to his senses. At the height of a hurricane, husbands come to themselves and can even embrace their wives. During Hurricane Camille, one Biloxi couple, taking refuge in a tree house, reported that, during the passage of the eye, they had intercourse for the first time in years.
    (i) No, the explanation is biological. Man is undergoing a mutation in sexual behavior which will in the end, like the tooth of the saber-toothed tiger, render him extinct. Since most of the emerging varieties of sexual expression—homosexuality, anal and oral sex—do not reproduce the species and therefore have no survival value, the species will become extinct.
    (j) None of the above. It has always been so. That is to say, the sexual behavior of humans has not changed. Therefore, there is nothing to explain.
    ( CHECK ONE OR MORE )

    Thought Experiment
    THE LAST DONAHUE SHOW

    The Donahue Show is in progress on what appears at first to be an ordinary weekday morning.
    The theme of this morning’s show is Donahue’s favorite, sex, the extraordinary variety of sexual behavior—“sexual preference,” as Donahue would call it—in the country and the embattled attitudes toward it. Although Donahue has been accused of appealing to prurient interest, with a sharp eye cocked on the ratings, he defends himself by saying that he presents these controversial matters in “a mature and tasteful manner”—which he often does. It should also be noted in Donahue’s defense that the high ratings of these sex-talk shows are nothing more nor less than an index of the public’s intense interest in such matters.
    The guests today are:
    Bill, a homosexual and habitué of Buena Vista Park in San Francisco
    Allen, a heterosexual businessman, married, and a connoisseur of the lunch-hour liaison
    Penny, a pregnant fourteen-year-old
    Dr. Joyce Friday, a well-known talk-show sex therapist, or in media jargon: a psych jockey.
    B ILL’S STORY: Yes, I’m gay, and yes, I cruise Buena Vista. Yes, I’ve probably had over five hundred encounters with lovers, though I didn’t keep count. So what? Whose business is it? I’m gainfully employed by a savings-and-loan company, am a trustworthy employee, and do an honest day’s work. My recreation is Buena Vista Park and the strangers I meet there. I don’t molest children, rape women, snatch purses. I contribute to United Way. Such encounters that I do have are by mutual consent and therefore nobody’s business—except my steady live-in friend’s. Naturally he’s upset, but that’s our problem.
    D ONAHUE (striding up and down, mike in hand, boyishly inarticulate): C’mon, Bill. What about the kids who might see you? You know what I mean. I mean— (Opens his free hand to the audience, soliciting their understanding)
    B ILL: Kids don’t see me. Nobody sees me.
    D ONAHUE (coming close, on the attack but good-naturedly, spoofing himself as prosecutor) :Say, Bill. I’ve always been curious. Is there some sort of signal? I mean, how do you and the other guy know—help me out—
    B ILL: Eye contact, or we show a bit of handkerchief here. (Demonstrates)
    S TUDIO AUDIENCE: (Laughter)
    D ONAHUE (shrugging [Don’t blame me, folks], pushes up nose-bridge of glasses, swings mike over to Dr.