AFTERTHOUGHT
Women in peril
JOHN WELLS
Women who take certain newspapers may be in danger of chronic neurosis, hysteria and premature insanity. That is the shock revela- tion issued this week by the BMA that could send -women of all ages scurrying to their newsagent, street corner stand or local delivery boy to ask the vital question : 'How do I know whether the newspaper I am at present taking is "safe"?' Already many newsvendors are being besieged by distraught women who shoulder aside male customers, overturn stalls and hang shriek- ing from the frayed lapels of the newsven- dors' overcoats, begging to be told the truth. But the answer is not a simple one. As one newspaper seller expressed it: 'How the bloody hell do I know?'
Whatever the pressures on those who sup- ply papers to the public, controversy among the experts continues to rage unabated. Basically the problem is that some newspapers contain more 'oextragen' than others, and that those with the higher oex- tragen content seem from research ex- periments to be more likely to cause permanent damage to regular newspaper takers. Oextragen itself is a highly inflam- matory substance that stimulates the sexual responses to an almost unbearable degree, and it has been used as a circulation booster for many years. Where it differs from other circulation stimulants is that it may have unpleasant side-effects. Based exclusively on female contraceptive material, like the 'pill', it has its most powerful effect on men, ac- tivating what is known among newspaper manufacturers as the 'universal availability fantasy', a fundamental drive in most male sexual introspectives.
The newspapers' effect on women is more unpredictable. In some cases it merely re- inforces the sense of security and in- dependence already experienced by users of the contraceptive pill. In others it may, ac- cording to the experts, undermine the con- fidence entirely, produce morbid feelings of guilt and hypochondria, and at times even bring about the extreme conditions, after long indulgence in high-content newspapers,
of madness and coitus tremens et tamquant interruptus. It is this danger specifically that has caused such concern among the medical
profession, and this in its turn, perhaps inevitably, has brought down a deluge of angry denials, abuse, and counter-charges from the newspaper makers.
One oextragen manufacturer working for a newspaper firm which specialises in a very high-content product spoke to me frankly in his plate-glass walled laboratory high above London's Fleet Street. 'Basically my friend,' he told me, offering me a teacup full of raw whisky and a bent Woodbine, 'I fail to see what all the shemozzle is about_ Here you have various perfectly harmless components, right? You have the contraceptive pill—nothing wrong with that: you have pills for headaches, pills for heart conditions, pills for gout: nobody cares a tuppenny cuss what damage they may do you, what the doctors say about them, whether they turn your water mauve, nothing : when they do, or somebody drops dead from taking them, then there's a bit of a stink for a couple of days but otherwise that's that.
'So. You've got your harmless little pill. Right. Then you take your next component, which is basically your Woman bent on sex- ual indulgence. Nothing interesting about that either. Thousands of them walking about everywhere all the time. Then there's your doctor. Examining women all day long, nothing wrong with that. It's his job, and good luck to him. Then there's your Pope.
Nothing wrong with him. A bit photogenic perhaps, but basically just a nice old man toddling round about his own business and not kicking up a rumpus. But then you come to the crux . . .' The manufacturer took his feet off the desk and led me to a newly pro- cessed delivery in another part of the laboratory. 'Put them all together and boom.
Chemical reaction fantastic. That's your oex- tragen. Bishop and Actress syndrome, voyeuristic complexes, scientific sado-maso- chism: radio-active and almost infinitely self-proliferating. So it kicks the circulation. So it sells. And with harmless components like that, who's complaining?'
It may be argued, of course, that the newspapers' advantages so outweigh their disadvantages that the risk of insanity in a few isolated cases is a small price to pay. One person who would disagree is Dr Kleinwort Pinsel, who has been carrying out intensive tests over the last few years on women who take high oextragen content newspapers. 'If you were having to see, as I am having to see daily, morningly, these poor women who have taken their newspaper and then are lurching about and gnawing at their finger- nails—natter natter natter pill pill pill pill—it is enough to make a man as you say lose his marble. Stimulate the circulations with any filth you can lay the hands on, but on this pills material for God's sakes a total pan.'
But a total ban may well be difficult to en- force. In the meantime many women will be
wanting to change the kind of newspaper they take, and they should bully their newsagent until they get expert advice. Clearly, as experts have emphasised, nothing can undo whatever damage the high-content newspaper may have done already, if indeed the possibility of any such damage exists. They are advised to take a low-content newspaper, at least until more concrete evidence is forthcoming. But care will be needed to change over without too violent a shock to the system. What experts are all agreed on is that to stop taking any newspaper at all without some other precau- tion is to court almost certain pregnancy.
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