Terence Blacker: Does 'terror sex' prove the world has changed?

Strangely, and some might think shockingly, there is already talk in America of something called "terror sex". In the days following 11 September, it was reported in the more daring quarters of the American press that some New Yorkers were taking, all too literally, their leaders' call to come together at a time of tragedy. The internet magazine Salon was told by a woman in her twenties that "just about everyone she knew was having what her friends called 'terror sex'." It was incredible, intense, she said, "like it was the end of the world".

Strangely, and some might think shockingly, there is already talk in America of something called "terror sex". In the days following 11 September, it was reported in the more daring quarters of the American press that some New Yorkers were taking, all too literally, their leaders' call to come together at a time of tragedy. The internet magazine Salon was told by a woman in her twenties that "just about everyone she knew was having what her friends called 'terror sex'." It was incredible, intense, she said, "like it was the end of the world".

Attempting to explain what historians and biologists already know – that desire is closely associated to a fear of death – Salon turned to the cliché of the moment. Nothing was ever going to be the same again. "The world has changed, and so have relationships."

I wonder about that. Surely, what that particular story shows is precisely the opposite: however appalling the disaster that has befallen it, the modern world can re-assert itself at startling speed. People in New York like life fast, hot, illicit and new. Far from being a sign of change, terror sex is part of a great tradition.

The question is whether we should hear about it. If, as we are told, we are on the brink of war, should not journalists and columnists be attending to weightier matters, be more generally respectful and straight-faced? Already some surprising voices have applied the Nothing-Will-Ever-Be-the-Same rule to comment and reportage. According to Graydon Carter, former editor of the satirical magazine Spy and now door-keeper at the natural home of the higher froth Vanity Fair, the seismic change that has taken place represents "the end of irony. Things that were considered fringe or frivolous are going to disappear."

It has not taken long for the full fatuousness of that portentous announcement to become clear. Over the past few days the very best of the fringe and the frivolous have appeared in the media, sharing space with the latest horror stories and battle plans drawn up by over-excited hacks. Posh refers to Becks as Golden Balls. Lady Victoria Hervey may, or may not, have had a boob job. Princess Anne's daughter wears a navel ring. Gazza's on the booze. Beryl's off the Booker shortlist. Nigella went blonde, but luckily – phew! It was only a wig.

I like all this. It is the world in which we live and, quite unexpectedly, that seems like something to be treasured. At times like these triviality, gossip and glitter remind us every day of humanity's capacity for life, laughter, food, sport, sex and the idiocies of show business.

It is not the end of the frivolous, and should not be the end of irony. There is something sinister in what Graydon Carter said – in the drive towards seriousness at all costs and in the pressure on writers not to undermine morale with awkward questions or inappropriate perspectives. Last week Time magazine referred to the "vain stupidity of ironists", but it is precisely those people, one suspects, who are most likely to scrutinise the dangerous ambiguities in what Donald Rumsfeld has described as the "new vocabulary" – to explore what that much-used term "freedom" now means, for example.

Yet perhaps, in one area of everyday public life, there has been change. When the aristocracy of the fringe and the frivolous put on a celeb- rity TV benefit last week, the show contained genuine and welcome surprises. Americans were reminded that there was no intrinsic or general connection between the faith of Islam, represented by the appearance of Muhammad Ali, and the terrorists who claim to act in its name. Even more miraculously, there was among the actors and singers none of the emotional showboating once popularised by Bob Geldof and Billy Connolly.

Maybe, at last, we have begun to grow up.

terblacker@aol.com