perv-o-vision

One of last Saturday morning's Spongebob Squarepants I'd seen before, so I put Resonance FM on. They were talking about perversion. Someone had written a book.

They aren't called perversions now, they're called paraphilias, and nobody's too worried about them unless they do 'harm'. This raised some interesting moral questions. For example – this was the example the author used – who is doing more harm, an old woman lovingly wanking off her horse, or a horse breeder electrocuting his prize stallion's prostate so as to gain his valuable sperm for selling on? You don't get this on Weekend Kitchen With Waitrose.

In the old days - as I understand it – everything was simpler. If you couldn't get it up unless an earwig was crawling over your balls you just went to Freud and he'd sort you out – or if he didn't at least he'd get a nice case history out of it. Judging by what this guy was saying, these days they shake their heads, suck their teeth and go: 'No mate.' It's the wiring, see. In the brain. Can't do nothing for you.

But then why should it matter if it isn't hurting anyone? Later that very same day, the Eurovision Song Contest was won by a bearded lady (Well, man actually. A bearded man. But in a dress.) and no-one objected. Well that isn't strictly true: some people in Belarus started a petition, claiming that Conchita Wurst was staining the purity of the Eurovision Song Contest - previously, as everyone knows, wholly untainted by even the slightest hint of sexual deviation. I think they wanted her edited out, which would have made it a curious show in the event ('And the winner is – well, that's all we've got time for.') The song, Rise Like A Phoenix, was a stirring hymn to self-empowerment, made more convincing by the back story suggested by the beard – after all, it couldn't have been easy, could it, growing up as a bearded lady in Austria? Even if he didn't.

Personally I preferred the French entry, a novelty item in which some men sang about how they wished they had moustaches. You can see why it only got deux points though – men only considering growing moustaches look a bit feeble compared to an apparent woman who has actually grown a full beard.

The Netherlands came in second with a song people apparently liked because it was 'a real song' and not a novelty. Therein lay its novelty, I suppose. I quite liked the Belarus entry in which the melancholy sentiment 'I'm tired of being your sweet cheesecake' was expressed in an oddly jaunty fashion – or perhaps that's just Belarussian men for you.

Israel fielded an entry in which a woman lamented: 'We don't beat from the same heart' - like that's a bad thing - while Ireland unhelpfully asked the listener to 'hold onto my heartbeat'. Huh? How? Neither of these got through to the final. Poland did. My notes (yes I took notes) for their entry read only: 'buxom scrubbers', and indeed the act did feature women in national costume doing household chores in a saucy manner. As for the UK, they should probably stop trying so hard and just field, say, a woman wanking off a horse.