Bowie Style

these girls try to get me over to the other side again,
‘C’mon, David, it isn’t all that bad, I’ll show you’,” he
said later. Sex was never just a gimmick for Bowie.
His work is littered with innuendo and graphic sexual
references, and his narcissistic and voyeuristic
tendencies are well documented. After discovering
sex at 14, he recalled that, “My first thought was, well,
if I ever get sent to prison, I’ll know how to keep
happy.”
For many years, particularly during the Seventies,
Bowie consumed groupies with the enthusiasm of a
Viagra-chomping rabbit. But a keen appetite for
carnal pleasures hasn’t prevented him from enjoying
– and in one or two cases enduring – several
meaningful, long-term relationships.
At London’s Cafe Royale for a Just A Gigolo press call, with
co-star Sydne Rome, Valentine’s Day 1979.
In 1976, when Bowie was probably at his most
cynical, he was asked about love. “Never have been
in love, to speak of. I was in love once, maybe, and it
was an awful experience. It rotted me, drained me,
and it was a disease… Being in love is something
that breeds brute anger and jealousy, everything but
love, it seems.” His comments suggested a deep
psychological need to protect himself from emotional
pain – rejecting ‘love’ offered the same kind of
protection that Warholian strategies conferred on his
public life.