HUSBAND.… Sex.
WIFE. Yes. For a change.
HUSBAND. I don’t know what has come over you. You sound so cynical. Such a matter-of-fact and naked way of putting it: “Let's have sex.”
WIFE. And what do you want me to say? “Let's make love”? Love? Doesn’t that seem ridiculous to you? Aren’t you embarrassed? Doesn’t it sound cynical? And you don’t seem to approve of the word “naked.” Better to be clothed. In a long coat, for example. All buttoned up.
HUSBAND. In a decent society they don’t talk about sex.
WIFE. You might think that in a decent society they don’t have sex.
HUSBAND. They do, but they just don’t talk about it.
WIFE. But each of us is not first and foremost an executive, a teacher, an engineer, a doctor or a member of parliament. First of all we are men and women. Why shouldn’t we think about it and talk about it? Why should I be ashamed of what is natural? Of what gives me pleasure?
HUSBAND. You shouldn’t be ashamed, but you shouldn’t talk about it either.
WIFE. And what do they talk about in a decent society?
HUSBAND. I don’t know. About money.
WIFE. You want me to talk to you about money? About what you call your salary? Well then, let's talk about money.
HUSBAND. No, better not.
WIFE. And what is so cynical in the word "sex"? It is matter-of-fact – I agree. But sex is a fact of life. A part of our lovely, comfortable, boring, miserable everyday life. You say, “Let's have supper.” So why can’t I say, “Let's have sex”? Let's watch TV. Let's go shopping. Let's go to the movies. Let's have sex. Let's take out the trash. Let’s do the laundry. Let's have sex. Let's call up some friends. Let's…
HUSBAND. Enough!
WIFE.… Let's move the furniture. Let's buy a teapot. Let's have sex. Let's go to bed… Does “Let's go to bed” sound cynical too?
HUSBAND. It depends on with whom.
WIFE. With my husband.
HUSBAND. With your husband it does not sound cynical.
WIFE. It doesn’t sound anything at all.
HUSBAND. So tell me, are you having a hard time at work?
WIFE. I’m having a hard time at home. At home, not only do I not have sex, but I’m also forbidden to talk of it.
HUSBAND. Why should we talk about it?
WIFE. Precisely because we don’t do it. And what else should I talk about? About the children that I don’t have?
HUSBAND. What has come over you today?
WIFE. Nothing. Today I want to talk about sex, again about sex and only about sex. Even if it’s just for today. Even if only to talk. I kept silent about it all my life. I talked about everything in the world. About Beethoven and the prices at the market. About skirts and French painting. About local elections and the boss’s tie. So really, do Beethoven, French painting, prices, skirts, elections and the boss’s tie interest you and me more than sex?
HUSBAND. Skirts interest you.
WIFE. And you too.
HUSBAND. Everything about a woman interests me.
WIFE. Yes. Everything between her knees and her waist.
HUSBAND. I’m a normal man.
WIFE. I wish I was sure of that.
HUSBAND. You are talking recklessly.
WIFE. That’s good. I grew up inhibited and uptight. Sex was forbidden. Nobody spoke about it. It was obscene, done only at night. Only with the shades down and the lights off. So that nobody would see, even yourself. It was forbidden to remember it in the morning or discuss it at work. We were sexless. We had nothing between our legs. And now they do it in broad daylight. Now they show it at the movies. Now they write about it in children's books. Recently I found twenty-two tips on how to use birth-control in a magazine for schoolgirls. And I had never read about it before.
