Description
A new coffee table book by David Weale.
HITCHED is a collection of short stories and impudent, sometimes scurrilous, quips I have harvested from Island conversations over the past forty-five plus years on the topic of sex, courtship and marriage. There are also a few of my own tossed into the salad for good measure.
Views on sexuality, courtship and marriage have changed spectacularly over the lifetime of most of us and many of the quotes here are from an earlier time. They reveal the dilemma of being romantically inclined and sexually tuned within the morally starched and religiously-divided culture that existed into the 1970s and beyond. It was a culture where the Victorian granny-quilt of secrecy and shame was thrown across the mating urge to the extent that matters shouted from the housetops today were whispered behind hands, or not spoken at all. Indeed, it was a culture where until the 1960s many Islanders were unable to bring themselves even to say the word ‘sex.’ I know that like most other Islanders of my generation I spent a large portion of my childhood and adolescence trying to get information however I could, even resorting desperately to the dictionary and ‘doctor book’ for assistance.
If you, dear reader, are looking for a serious discussion of sexuality this is not the book for you; rather, it is an opportunity to smile, even giggle, at what was once so sombre and scary.
David Weale is an Island writer, social historian and storyteller, and the editor and publisher of RED magazine.
