Can you have sex with someone who has a different political belief to you? In short, the answer is yes. You can, providing all parties are consenting, sleep with whomever you like. You can sleep with a married Republican octogenarian if you want. (Two of those three things used to be my type!) The real question here is: should you?
Let’s start with the obvious: Single-issue disagreements are inevitable between two people who are breathing and interesting. In fact, hot sex can be born out of disagreement, of difference: You show me your relaxed attitude to animal testing and I’ll show you my plastic straws. I joke, of course. I am a flawless person with flawless politics and only paper straws.
But passionate disagreement can create a hot kind of foreplay. A friend of mine (who has a lot of very hot sex) told me that the perfect question to ask on a date is: What’s your most problematic opinion? A litmus test, apparently: If their opinion is truly horrific, then you can avoid a disaster; if it’s just a little naughty, then the sex will likely be good. The tease, the cheekiness, the challenge: It’s all part of those sweet sweet tantalising fucks you happily tell your friends about. A hot fuck I once had believed in tax breaks for super-rich business owners on the basis that all their employees pay tax. I of course think this is stupid and that the rich should be forced to redistribute their wealth or, there should be, you guessed it, bloody revolution. Naturally, I gave him impeccable head.
In fact, finding someone with identical political views to you can be a complete turn off. Sitting there over a natural wine thinking ‘Is this really what I sound like?’ as he talks about Trotsky and Maggie Thatcher. Oh god, a mirror to myself! That’s the last thing I need! Once I was speaking to a man and I said “what turns you on?” and he said “nuance”—block!
But here’s where the crucial definition of this difference must be outlined. A little difference within the same camp is healthy, happy. It creates something productive, some friction—and isn’t that all sex is? But too far apart and you swim into impossible waters. Disagreement might be essential, but fucking across the great left-right divide is ill-advised.