Sexual intercourse came to an end
in the twentieth century,
or that’s how it seemed to me,
between the topless swimsuit trend
and the coming of HIV.
The thing which remained unspoken
but everybody did
when each of us was a kid
was nonetheless the chief token
for sentiments which hid
behind modesty’s complex charade.
But then things turned around
and everybody found
it to be unavoidably hard
to ignore either the sound
or descriptions of the act.
Nothing was left unsaid,
and so it was that instead
of performing it in fact
it moved into the head.
So sexual intercourse came to an end,
and in its place there was porn.
Far fewer children were born
between the massage parlour trend
and the debut of Shane Warne.