“The result was like driving in a speeding car through a beautiful landscape: I had an impression of all the exciting hills and valleys, contours and colours, but I was moving too fast to be able to take a good look. I often regretted not being able to know my lovers better - though I had to take considerable pains to prevent them from knowing me too well. Women have the habit of leaving a nightgown, a makeup case, a pair of nylons, at their boy friend’s apartment; steadfast Scottish-Canadian girls even left their diaphragms with me. Hiding the belongings of one from the eyes of another was difficult and nerve-racking - along with the problems of timing, confusion of identities and constant lying. Nor was I always successful: there were the inevitable slips and scenes. Once I was caught by failing to explain successfully why I had put a diaphragm in an old shoe box, under a pile of laundry. I’d remembered to hide the thing all right, but had forgotten to put it back in the bathroom cabinet before its owner’s next visit. I became jumpy and listless, a physical and mental wreck, unable to have a good time, let alone be happy. Yet I couldn’t stop. After all, wasn’t I lucky, being able to go to bed with nearly all the women I wanted? I used to envy myself in the pit of my misery. More and more, I found myself drawn to women who were themselves getting battered by life.”

— Stephen Vizinczey, In Praise of Older Women