Twenty years ago, when I was at secondary school and much wiser than now, I was a major fan of creating schedules, or “time tables” as I called them then. My time table involved going to sleep at 10:30 PM, waking at 5:30, taking five minutes to brush my teeth, 25 minutes to exercise, studying for an hour, etc. I will admit that I was no better then at following those plans than I am now, but I was quite enamoured of the idea.

Then I learnt about sex, and scheduling sex turned into an intractable problem for me. I wasn’t actually having sex; my interest in sex was entirely Platonic. But I had decided that preparing time tables and leading one’s life according to them was a good way to lead one’s entire life, and I couldn’t understand how one could have sex at all if that were the case. The problem, as I understood it, was that the decision to have sex would be an impulsive one, and the act would take 20-25 minutes at the very least, if not more. If one got the impulse after one went to bed, it would mean that he (and she) would have to get less than eight hours of sleep, which was obviously unacceptable.

I don’t think I ever resolved the problem.