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Another Valentine's Day has come and gone. Chocolates were purchased. Flowers procured at the last minute. Proposals were made.

All across the globe, couples engaged in premeditated, pre-processed, spontaneity-free sexual congress. It was Valentine's Day, after all, the night the western world sits in restaurants and stares across the table at the object of its affection thinking, "In three hours, if there isn't a fight, I'm going to have part of my anatomy enmeshed in part of their anatomy."

This Valentine's Day, however, was a troubling new development. People were dumping on the act of having sex in your car. One national media outlet ran a lame "Is it a good idea to have sex in your car?" video segment. Though I was perturbed by the stupidity of the headline – if it's consensual, it's always a good idea to have sex – I was most dismayed by the attack on car sex.

The woman in favour spoke of "being with your sweetheart and showing that you love him anywhere and everywhere" (I've actually had car sex and believe me that's not what it's about) and the guy who was against car sex said he was opposed because it is difficult and cramped. Note to nerd: How can you tell when you're having great sex? It feels difficult and you start cramping.

Then the newspapers were filled with reports of a B.C. RCMP officer who was being docked 10 days pay for having sex with a subordinate officer in a police patrol car two years ago. Hey, British Columbia RCMP – if you don't want people to have sex in your patrol cars don't make them so sexy! Flashing lights, handcuffs, strong sturdy exterior, pressed uniforms, hats, who can resist?

The anti-automotive Valentine's Day vibe let the air out of my tires. It's bad enough that, as a car lover in a car-hating world, I have to hang my head and wear a scarlet "D" for driver. Now it looks like it is open season on car fornication. Is nothing sacred?

So it's up to me (again) to champion freedom, to summon the ghosts of bucket seats and fogged windows and defend the pursuit of paradise by the dashboard light. To tell the world why car sex is not only good but should probably be mandatory. So, I present my completely unbiased treatise.

Why You Should Have Sex in Your Car:

  1. Because you have to. You have sex in your car for one of two reasons. You’re making love in the back seat because you are so turned on you can’t wait to get home or to a hotel or because you don’t have a home or hotel to go to. It’s the urgency and naughtiness that makes it so good. That’s why car sex has always been the preferred practice of teenagers, adulterers, twentysomethings living with their parents and married couples trying to act like teenagers or adulterers.
  2. Gets the most out of your automobile. Next to our houses, cars are our largest investments. Yet for all the money we spend they sit hours, unused and empty, taking up space in our driveways. Car sex is a way of getting the most out of your automobile dollar. Imagine if someone told you that you could buy a car that was also a studio apartment? You’d be thrilled. So, every time you copulate in your car imagine that you are making $300 back on your investment.
  3. Good for the environment. There was a time when it was considered okay to have sex in your car while you were driving – a period that ran, roughly, from 1921 to 1993. Of course, those people thought you could become a communist by sitting on the wrong toilet seat and were certain that by 2012 we’d be flying around wearing jetpacks. We’re more enlightened now. Every second you spend having sex in a parked car is a second that your car is not emitting noxious fumes into our delicate atmosphere. Are you as freaked out by this non-winter as I am? Then pull over, turn off the ignition and ignite some passion.
  4. It’s a recession buster. The global financial crisis is helping spur a car sex renaissance. The Independent recently reported a boom in car sex along the Via Manzoni in Naples. In the 1980s, this beautiful strip was bumper to bumper with car-encased lovers, who, due to the bad economy, were forced to live at home with relatives. It was so that popular savvy hucksters set up makeshift stands selling lovers scotch tape and newspapers (to block out the windows), cigarettes, coffee and liqueur. Times are worse now and they’re back at it. “For me, the car always had a special charm,” one 30-year-old told the Independent. “It's like the belly of the beast: a space hardly five feet in width where anything can happen.”
  5. It’s still sex. What if you had the chance to have sex in a car and you passed on it. “A car’s not the right place to have sex,” you think. What if you then get in a car accident and die? Do you really want to go to Heaven (or down to Hell) knowing that you had the chance to have sex and passed it up? Do you really want to spend all eternity being mocked by Voltaire (he could be in either) for being too much of a prude to have sex one last time before you died? Voltaire was one of the greatest thinkers of all time and he never had the chance to have sex in an automobile. Do you think you’re better than he was? So, the next time you have the chance to have sex in a car do it, if not for yourself, the environment or the global financial good, do it for Voltaire.

Follow Andrew Clark on Twitter: @aclarkcomedy

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