Hi! Welcome!

This is long overdue.

There is no other proverb that I’ll utter with a doleful shake of head, eyes downcast in amusement after someone regales me with their downfall back into reality after uncharacteristic, extreme behavior: horniness kills!

Beyond its obvious eroticism, it’s the abstract idea that when you blindly take something – a relationship, an ambition – to the extreme, you will lose sight, sense, feeling, of who you are.  But “horniness kills” implies a state of mind when our sexual arousal becomes a personal distraction, a haze which singlehandedly drives every decision we make until doused with a bucket of cold reality. 

I’ve had this dril tweet bookmarked for months. I’m just relieved to use it atp.

It’s a simple, never clever but always honest expression that helps me make sense of the world. It’s the ultimate unifier, too; we’ve all found ourselves in places where we don’t recognize ourselves until we come out the other end, regretful and ashamed but all (or none) the wiser. You can’t part the red sea of horniness — you must wade through it to find the light at the end. 

Let’s use it in a sentence. 

Jack and Jill went up the hill 

To fetch a pail of water;

Jack fell down and broke his crown,

and Jill came tumbling after.

Up Jack got, and home did trot,

As fast as he could caper,

To old Dame Dob, who patched his nob

With vinegar and brown paper.

Jack and Jill, at first glance, just seem like children on an errand. They’re to fetch a pail of water (for sport or pleasure, we may never know). Injuries aside, here is the key detail: “Jill came tumbling after,” implies that Jill, whose name appears just twice, followed Jack to fetch the pail of water. She’s tumbled after Jack and we don’t even know why she’s partaking in the water fetching, except that she’s doing it on account of Jack.

We don’t even get a proper resolution to her fall! At least Jack gets bandaged up by his presumed guardian, old Dame Dob, but Jill’s state is never revealed. “Tumbling after” feels a lot more active than merely falling down, and Jill deserves her flowers for pursuing Jack so faithfully. In short, Jill wanted to accompany Jack to fetch a pail of water (horny) and when he stupidly fell first, she tumbles after him (kills). 

The expression is omnipresent in the content we watch. It’s why Love is Blind can still find participants willing to brave the arena of reality television to find a forever partner – until the fog of reality television lifts and the divorces flood in at the one year mark. It’s why we tuned in week after week to watch the Roy children self-destruct just to gain their father’s approval. 

At the same time, we’re living it out: watching politicians chase their tails in the pursuit of power at the detriment of all of us and of course, periodically discouraging your friends from hooking up with someone Historically Terrible.

I’ll be here every week, writing about my favorite moments of people pursuing their most carnal desires and the subsequent fall (tumble) that inevitably comes after. Tell your friends, tell your lovers, and thank you for reading.