JILLY Cooper’s 80s bestseller Rivals has been turned into a Disney+ romp. But what’s the appeal of her racy world of upper-class intercourse?
It’s sexual forelock-tugging
Jilly’s books get off as much on the class envy as the penetration. Oh, that your life consisted of parties with the polo set and debutantes in 100-room manor houses! No wonder republicanism’s never got much traction in Britain when half the nation dreams of being bent over a horse trough by a social superior and given a damn good rogering.
Well-bred genitalia are a class above
The whole premise of Cooper is that sex between the upper crust is intrinsically more interesting than the rutting of proles. Why? Your average polo player is probably more buff than the typical plumber, but he’s got the same cock. It doesn’t have extra clitoral stimulation attachments.
The word ‘bonkbuster’
In fairness Jilly dislikes the term, but does she actually think her caricature-filled books with soap opera plots are good? If you want to be taken seriously, don’t write Riders, write The Cement Garden. And don’t call it book one of ‘the Rutshire Chronicles’.
Very dated
Back in the 1980s, the dirty bits in Rivals, Pat Booth or James Herbert were all we had for stimulation. Now it feels obsolete. And Jilly herself seems intent on proving the erotic limitations of prose, with imagery like ‘his leaning tower of pleasure’ and ‘the slippery cavern between her legs’ making lovemaking sound as sexy as potholing.
Weirdly repressed
There are still ample punishments for those having the wrong sex with the wrong people. Shaming is very much a driver of plot, though Rivals wraps it up in a bollocks story about the world of 80s TV where Rupert Campbell-Black makes his fortune by discovering Roland Rat.
Not in the least relatable
87-year-old Jilly’s erotic universe deploys tried-and-tested turn-ons like posh girls in jodhpurs and handsome bad boy aristos. Your own sex life will fall short. There’s no way you’ll get your wife into riding gear unless you buy her a horse, and your husband will never be distantly related to the Duke of Wellington, even if he wastes years on genealogy.
F**king Disney
Disney isn’t noted for its erotic output. Worse, Disney is on a losing streak of ploughing millions into Star Wars and Marvel shite nobody watches. Want a show that combines the unwatchability of The Acolyte with the sexual charge of the later, bad series of Bridgerton? You’re in for a treat.
