LETTERS Bedside manners
Sir: I do not have the direct experience of the courting and mating habits of the mod- ern German that your correspondents Anne McElvoy ('We might as well make love', 13 March) and David Ballantyne (Letters, 27 March) evidently have. My experiences of foreigners in this area, such as they be, are of non-Germans. However, I feel in fairness to our Teutonic cousins and in a general spirit of mutual tolerance (leben and leben lassen) that some support- ive response needs to be made on their behalf.
Anne McElvoy is clearly not turned on by the horn-rimmed glasses and checked jack- ets apparently favoured by the German males she has come into contact with. Fair enough. De gustibus non est disputandum. However, I am puzzled by her dislike of what seems to me the directness and unde- viousness (to her 'the unimaginative literal- ness') of their sexual approaches. Such directness may lack subtlety, but it is at least honest. Stranger still is her apparent preference for the somewhat underhand and clumsy 'feeling-up' strategy that she seems to attribute to Englishmen in the same situation. What would Miss McElvoy prefer — to be treated as a senseless, inde- cisive creature whose attention can only be won by a gauche 'lunge' (her word) at some part of her anatomy; or to be treated in some degree at least as a thinking, respon- sible adult who can say yes or no in an urbane, untroubled way?
As for David Ballantyne and his aversion to the hygienic and houseproud ways of the mating Frnulein (she with the dislike of unwashed bodies, damp patches on her sheets and unmopped up bodily fluids) well, again, fair enough. There are flesh- pots genug in the world, I am sure, where he can readily exchange such niceties for 'the rank sweat of an enseamed bed'.
In the end it is surely a question of, when in Berlin or Diisseldorf (and especially if you want to mate there) do as the Berliners or Diisseldorfers do. And if that's not to your taste, well, there's Schlafraum aplenty elsewhere!
Michael Towsey
111 Melrose Avenue, London NW2
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