Heavy Breathing

SIGMUND Freud, ever keen to expand his spurious collection of psycho-sexual theories, was once informed by a female patient who had witnessed her uncle having his evil way with a young servant girl that she had gone on to develop asthema. Freud assumed, therefore, quite erroneously, that asthema is a psycho-somatic disorder and that "its gasps and wheezes reproduce the overheard sounds of intercourse."

I do wonder, you know, if in a parallel universe somewhere there aren't scores of noisy fornicators who have become completely overwhelmed with lust simply on account of having heard someone in the throes of an asthema attack. In fact it reminds me of the old joke about the octogenarian who used to make love to his wife in time with the slow, rhythmic clang of the local church bell. One day, or so the story goes, a fire engine rushed by and he suffered a heart attack and died. I wonder what Freud would have made of that?