After the war, the fantasy of being Lawrence of Arabia had no practical application, and it was time to invent another version of it. He enrolled as an anonymous aircraftsman (though making sure to inform all his famous friends and in a pinch ask them for favours). Loneliness and profound uncertainty about his sexuality remained constant. He could not bear to be touched. In Seven Pillars he recounts that a Turkish governor sodomised him. Some have suggested that this was a masochistic fantasy but Korda gives good grounds for believing that it really happened. He also examines the strange relationship of Lawrence and John Bruce, a barrack-room friend. On the strength of a preposterous tale about an Old Man determined to correct Lawrence's bad behaviour, this fellow regularly birched Lawrence severely but had no other physical contact. Never mind the hyperbole intended to elevate Lawrence to the position of all-time hero and genius. In the end, Korda arouses pity for someone so determined to punish himself — and everybody else — just for being who he was.