Lord knows the Brits are a randy bunch — if you don't believe us, just ask the folks over at Durex about it. But we're starting to wonder if there isn't something funny in the beef over there, 'cause let's face it, things are beginning to get a little out of hand.

Take, for openers, the incident at Wimbledon this week. According to London's Sun, a pair of students — both of them workers at the tennis tournament — were nabbed in flagrante delicto in a stewards' room underneath the Centre Court bleachers. Apparently, the pair had just stopped in for a quickie — "It was just a one-off bonk in the passion of the moment," said twenty-year-old security guard (and guilty party) Dan Wood — when a fellow guard happened into the room to pick up his blazer, thus setting off much blushing and nervous throat-clearing among London's posh, fuzzy-balled gentry. Wood's blonde partner, who remains unidentified, was reportedly among the catering staff charged with serving Wimbledon's famed strawberries and cream to tournament VIPs, and we'll let you insert your own cream joke here. As for the steward who caught the coupling couple, well, presumably he'll be alright, though he was "horrified," according to one Wimbledon source. "One doesn't expect that sort of thing at Wimbledon."

And if sex is a shocker at Wimbledon, then it's triply so at Royal Ascot, the Queen Mother of all posh British sporting events. The weekend of horse races, which has been an annual event for more than three centuries and which features a parade of high-society spectators in top hats and parasols (think Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady), was thrown into a tizzy last month when a pair of spectators — thirty-year-old city worker Doug Roberts and a red-headed acquaintance — scurried out onto the finishing straight after the last race of Ladies' Day and engaged in some thirty to forty-five minutes of shameless horseplay in front of the still-packed stands. "At first they looked like they were snogging, but when I picked up a pair of binoculars, you could see quite clearly they were at it," said spectator Karen Hockney, who snapped a photo of the pair which ran in the Sun the next day. "It was a bit surreal, as she was in her Ascot finery. She even had her hat on for most of the time they were having sex." According to the paper, the Queen was "a bit shocked," when informed of the Ascot antics, which took place just hours after she had vacated the premises. But, according to one royal aide, "the Queen Mother thought it was hilarious." Apparently, London's Institute of Directors has a slightly more refined sense of humor than the Queen Mum: Roberts has reportedly been sacked for his role in the affair.

Proof That It Could Always Get Worse

As if their lives weren't already miserable enough, referees in England's Premier League have been ordered to sleep alone on the night before road matches. According to the Sunday Telegraph, the refs, who are frequently subjected to a hail of verbal (and occasionally physical) abuse both during and after games, have been told that when they stay in hotels the night before a match, they are forbidden from having guests stay with them — not even their wives and girlfriends. "We are paying them quite a lot of money now," said Professional Match Officials Board manager Philip Don, who is in charge of the league's twenty-four officials. "Just as the players wouldn't dream of taking their wives away on a Friday night before a match, we're looking at it the same way, so that there are very few distractions and they can focus their mind on what they have to do the following day." Which, presumably, is to find another line of work.

Great Peril

In general, we here at This Week in Sex are firmly against censorship, mainly because we find most censors to be prissy know-it-alls who want to protect you from their own most shameful fantasies. But we're not absolutists about it, and there are instances in which we wholeheartedly support censorship. Like, say, when there's danger involved.

Case in point: a sex shop in Phnom Penh — in fact, Cambodia's only sex shop — was raided and shut down this week just a day after it opened, according to a Reuters report. Now, on the surface this sounds like just another overzealous government censorship bureau looking for a way to kill time — and we admit, that's what we thought too, at first. But that was before we heard about the danger. "These things are dangerous to Cambodian women's health and Cambodian culture," said local police Chief Yim Symany, who spearheaded the raid in which authorities carted away boxes of rubber penises and vaginas, condoms, batteries, and assorted Chinese aphrodisiacs. "There is medicine to keep sex going longer. If people use this medicine, it could be dangerous for them." And that's not all that's dangerous. Pointing to a wall full of sex toys, the chief reportedly said "This is very dangerous. Look how large those rubber penises are. They are not going to fit anywhere."

Quotes of the Week



"These guys are polite, they're sweet, but they've got no balls. You want to take them home and fucking give them a glass of milk. You wouldn't want to fuck them."