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Greed and lust: The new family values

Traditional British family life is in a state of crisis after more than sixty years of bad influence from across the pond, writes The Rockall Times family health specialist Don Voyeur, whose wife Jocelyn drew attention to the problem over breakfast on Wednesday.

The rot started in the 1940s when an unprecedented invasion of uninhibited American males arrived on these shores for the first leg of a gung-ho European tour, but scored such a resounding hit with the womenfolk that they decided to linger, some of them for several years, engaging in one torrid fling after another and forsaking what might have been even more exciting adventures across the Channel. The now ancient survivors of that liberating vanguard still shake their heads in amazement at the lack of competition they faced from the local male population, who by all accounts were "a bunch of cissies" more interested in "Gerry" than pussy, who had taken their women for granted for so long that they would often sit on one by mistake and make an offhand apology before tapping the nearest upright chair on the shoulder, instructing it to look sharpish and fetch them a nice cup of tea.

For the neglected and sat-upon young creatures themselves it was a bright new dawn. They had real men to pamper them, men with great wads of dollar bills who could buy them coveted nylon stockings and precious lipsticks from a mysterious military emporium known as the PX, men who could tickle their fancy with Hershey bars, M&Ms and other exotic aphrodisiacs, and who initiated them into French kissing on the doorstep at the end of the first date, something the reserved homegrown lad would never dare, wary of the premature spurt of passion that the collision of tongues and light brush of hand upon breast might unleash. The horny young GIs in contrast were blissfully unconcerned — much better-equipped, they were confident of plenty more where that came from.

But above all it was the ravishing undergarments, the pristine ensemble of white cotton T-shirt and crisply starched boxer shorts set against tanned muscular limbs that melted away the last trace of resistance on the part of the giddy young English rose, swept off her feet already by an intense whirlwind courtship. She gasped and went all wet inside, reaching down to frantically unclip her new stockings and yield to the insistent probings of the rampant young buck who tore off the dripping pair of worn-out knickers that he could get her a dozen more of any day of the week and plugged her aching hole with a rock-hard prong that he wielded with exquisite deftness of touch, skilfully bringing her to a quaking orgasm.

It was a watershed moment in history. The lust for self-fulfillment on this side of the Atlantic was awoken and could not be put back in the box. The American ideals of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" were inseminated in that very box and would henceforth gnaw away at flagging imperial notions of honour, decency and restraint, long used as a disingenuous excuse for poor performance by a host of inadequate British males, from premature ejaculators to poofs.

The immediate post-war years brought continued austerity, unrelieved by the attentions of those lustful emissaries of Uncle Sam who had escorted so many grateful young girls over the threshold of inhibition into a gleaming pleasuredrome of money, sex and whiter than white cotton freshness. They had sadly packed up and gone home, and the dismal native lads who crawled out of the woodwork to replace them conspicuously failed to change their parsimonious habits or their dowdy intimate apparel. Increasingly they received the sharp end of the tongue from their once docile wives and sweethearts. An infamous mocking reproach was heard from Cleethorpes to Skegness during the summer season on disappointing boarding house holidays: "A sorry excuse for a man you are! Underpaid, undersexed and as for your disgusting underwear..."

These were dangerous words, directed with caustic spite at the humble string vest and traditional sagging smalls — yellowing relics of the old proletariat that had performed such a useful function in dampening down any excess of ambition on the part of the wearer, repressing any intemperate surge of libido in the breast of the onlooker.

By the late 1960s the derided string vest was firmly on the way out and Americans were flocking to the British Isles in droves espousing their rapacious creed, turning home-grown attitudes to sex and money upside down. Henceforth it would no longer be enough for the head of the family to keep the bailiffs from the door and the children out of the workhouse. No more would he sit back in his personal armchair and open the newspaper of an evening with a grunt of relief at his nine-to-five duty discharged, pondering the choice of nooky or cocoa to come in the marital bed, with no more variety envisaged on the side than a fortnightly visit to a favourite back room boudoir in Soho. He would have to work harder, much harder than that, to prove his manhood in the rampant commercial jungle that was spreading across the land, where success was measured solely by the combined weight of wallet and balls. He'd have to not only earn lots more than his neighbour Jones but boast about it to Mrs Jones, leaving her no option but to invite him into her bed, the first of a string of affairs with sexually charged women on increasingly equal terms, each party using the other to its own advantage in a naked, competitive scramble up the corporate greasy pole.

Now the revolution is nearing completion, Jocelyn noted, citing the evidence laid out on the front page of The Daily Mail and continuing as the predominant theme through dozens of articles with the promise of more to come the following day. Men, women and children, entire families are shamelessly enjoying the sheer thrill of accumulating huge piles of wealth for its own sake, for no other purpose than to flaunt it. A new millionaire is born in the square mile every eight minutes and in Docklands every five. For those top-earning executives, traders and financiers money has become the ultimate drug and they'll do anything to get it by whatever means they can, wherever they can find it or smell it, and from whoever's offering it, on the table or under the counter no questions asked. They've abandoned their nearest and dearest to pursue a life of sleazy double-dealing, cheating and self-gratification. Sex has become the ultimate drug and they'll do anything to get it by whatever means they can, wherever they can find it or smell it, and from whoever's offering it, on the table or under the counter no questions asked.

But amid all the tributes to unbridled capitalism and lascivious lust there was a personal story of a slightly different tone that caught my eye, the salutary tale of a Mayfair publishing tycoon who in his late fifties thought he had arrived at the very pinnacle of achievement, who sauntered in and out of the most ostentatious parties with a succession of beautiful models on his arm, the envy of the media world, and yet was troubled by a still, small voice whispering in his ear that he'd actually missed out on the one truly important thing.

Jocelyn watched me for signs of a reaction. This was the article she had clearly wanted me to find...

The publisher owed everything to the winner-takes-all philosophy that had first blown in from across the pond with those pioneering GIs of yesteryear and which he had so expertly mastered to rise to his present heights. Surely now was was the moment to pay tribute to that special relationship in the clearest way possible, and take unto himself one of those increasingly popular but still hugely expensive imports, an American wife.

It was a fatal decision. I read with alarm the downward spiral of events from that ill-advised moment of hubris, which shattered the lives of two living legends of commerce and politics who could have been best mates but were now engaged in a merciless war of attrition, each of them meanwhile engulfed in his own private torment, the one over his lack of virility, the other with no worries on that score but cruelly separated from his beloved little lad.

I put the paper down, deeply shaken. "Those poor blighters," I told Jocelyn. "We can't leave it like this. I must do something to help."

"Will you, Don? I was so hoping you would." She pressed my hand and lips with her own in gratitude. Already a plan was beginning to form in my mind.

Coming soon

The kiss-and-tell diaries of Stephen Quinn.

Previously

• American baffled by row over UK spoilt brats
• No laughter please: we're British
• Voters express fury at US election débâcle

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