The decorously informative church <br />Guide to Sex suggested that any urge <br />could well be controlled by playing tennis: <br />and the game provided also 'many <br />harmless opportunities for healthy <br />social intercourse between the sexes.' <br /> <br />For weeks the drawings in the Guide misled <br />me as to what went where, but nonetheless <br />I booked the public courts and learnt the game <br />with other curious youths of my age: <br />and later joined a club, to lose six one, <br />six love, in the first round of the Open. <br /> <br />But the only girl I ever met had <br />her 'energies channelled' far too bloody <br />'healthily', and very quickly let me <br />know that love was merely another means <br />of saying nil. It was not as though I <br />became any good at tennis; either.<br /><br />Ben Jonson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/love-all-6/