Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lay
5/23/04
CHECKMATE & STALEMATE, GAME OVER
or
EPITAPH FOR A DEAD SEX LIFE WALKING
or
FREEDOM'S JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR NOTHING LEFT TO LAY
It went like this. After a few dates we had a nice meal, and somewhere in there she mentioned that what happens a lot with her is that eventually guys who spend time with her drop her because they realize it's never going to get sexual. So I read between the lines and knew for a certainty I was never going to sleep with her. But what the fuck. Maybe it wouldn't have been good if it HAD gotten sexual. And here's another thing: What did she want from me if she didn't want sex (the rule is, though there are millions of exceptions, women don't WANT sex for sex's sake, men do. For women, sex is a means to other ends. Women see sex as a trade commodity for use in bartering for other, more desirable goods & services. Sex, like greatness, is thrust upon women.) I guess she wanted what women like to call friendship, and men call what they put up with in hopes of getting laid. I have a talent for befriending women. This means they like my company but don't want to fuck me. Or at least, the ones I want to fuck don't want to fuck me.
This raises the question: Doesn't a straight man deceive himself when he befriends a woman he claims he has no hope of fucking? I'm not talking about a woman with whom a man has a friendly social, professional, or familial relationship. I'm also not talking about friendships with ex-wives and girlfriends with whom the sex is clearly history. I'm talking about the blurring together of friendship and flirting. I'm talking about a woman who is a sexual deadend yet who is attractive. What happens when a man spends time with such a woman is that he feeds off the buzz, he is teased, he lets himself be teased and even savors the tease, but the teasing remains a tease and the aftermath is a letdown and putdown.
Women are adamant in asserting that it is imperative to get, pronto, out of deadend sexual relationships----for example, years-long affairs with married bosses. So once a man realizes that his putative friendship with a woman is a sexual deadend in the sense that it's never going to lead to sex in the first place, shouldn't he just pull out before incurring greater emotional and self-esteem losses?
Some men might argue that even friendships with women that lead to sex also begin with a tease and eventually lead to letdowns and putdowns. After the climax, or after the first thousand or ten thousand climaxes, inevitably comes the anticlimax, or the denouement, or the falling action. Of course, with older men there is literally and unavoidably a falling action after every climax, unless they're scarily jacked up on a double dose of Viagra. It's only young men who can be drug-free yet remain standing immediately after a climax. Women, on the other hand, can climax and go ON climaxing--maybe because they don't have to erect anything to do it in the first place. Well, OK, the little man in the boat stands up. But he's so small it's not a major engineering project to re-erect him. And that's a good thing. If he were any taller, the boat might capsize.
The rule in my aged case is, fewer and fewer women want sex with me, but I still want sex with them, though I want sex with fewer and fewer of them, and I want it less frequently than I once did, though I still want it frequently. I suppose there are still a few women (fewer and fewer every day) who would want sex with me if they got to know me, but they aren't the women with whom I would want to have sex. Therefore, I'm doomed to have sex with no one for the rest of my life unless I figure out a way to enjoy having sex with women with whom I don't presently WANT to have sex.
I suppose I could practice the opposite of aversion conditioning, positive Pavlovian conditioning, to persuade myself to have sex with a woman willing to settle for me. Every time I imagined having sex with this woman who didn't meet my standards, I could picture myself also having sex with a woman who DID meet my standards. I'd be in bed with both of them at once. Eventually I would associate the unattractive woman with the tumescence provoked by the attractive one. And so, after a fashion, the unattractive woman would become attractive, the turn-off would become a turn-on. I could use the woody stirred by the attractive one to fuck the unattractive one. The unattractive one would have two things in her favor that the attractive one didn't have: she would be WILLING and REAL. But why would (wood) I want to be with a woman pathetic enough, desperate enough, degraded enough, to settle for me? I wouldn't, of course, no matter how willing and real she might be. What's that line they used to use in the Army? "I wouldn't fuck her with YOUR dick." I want a woman with STANDARDS. I don't meet the standards of any woman who meets my standards. I wouldn't want to belong to any woman who would have me member in her member. Gridlock. Stalemate. Checkmate. Game over.
Total number of women with standards who meet my standards and are willing to sleep with me? Zero. Total number of women with whom I'm willing to sleep who are willing to sleep with me? Zero. Total probability that I will again have sex with a woman before I die? Zero.
This is a kind of freedom, if freedom's just another word for nothing left to lay. Sexually, given the hopelessness of my prospects, I have nothing left to lose. Yet I am not free of desire. I still desire. I simply know that my desire is pointless because it will, or at least may, never again be consummated. Or is that consume? In any case, it's mighty thin broth. Thus undernourished, will I waste away, sexually and emotionally and creatively and spiritually? Maybe I already have. "If you don't use it, you lose it."
What am I living for if my sexual prospects are so dim? I don't know. But clearly I'm no longer living to get laid.
Are people who get laid more alive than people who don't get laid? Sometimes. But I can think of millions of examples of people who get laid constantly who are utterly lifeless burn-outs.
Maybe I need to narrow my question. Given that the hope of sex, and romance, has been a fundamental part of my outlook for decades, can I live in a world which no longer offers that hope? I guess the answer is to separate sex from romance. That is, how can I hope for romance without sex? Well, plenty of things are romantic yet sexless. For example, taking a rocket to the moon. As far as I know, the astronauts didn't have sex with each other or themselves onboard the Apollo Flights, yet their journeys were romantic. How could going to the moon NOT be romantic? But I have no hope of going to the moon, either.
What does that leave? Writing. Writing is always a tease, writing can deliver a consummation and a climax, writing restoreth my soul, and God knows it regularly lets me down. So it is romantic, at least for me. I find romance, and a reason to go on living, in my writing. I know that there are writers who live more complete lives than I do. They find romance in their writing AND in their sexual relationships---and they HAVE sexual relationships. But I guess I'm more like Christy Brown, the paralyzed Irishman who could only wriggle his left foot yet who managed to write with it. Unless Christy was doing surprising things with that foot, he didn't have a sex life either, and was forced, like me, to find all his romance in his writing----that is to say, in the play of his imagination.
--FIN--
CHECKMATE & STALEMATE, GAME OVER
or
EPITAPH FOR A DEAD SEX LIFE WALKING
or
FREEDOM'S JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR NOTHING LEFT TO LAY
It went like this. After a few dates we had a nice meal, and somewhere in there she mentioned that what happens a lot with her is that eventually guys who spend time with her drop her because they realize it's never going to get sexual. So I read between the lines and knew for a certainty I was never going to sleep with her. But what the fuck. Maybe it wouldn't have been good if it HAD gotten sexual. And here's another thing: What did she want from me if she didn't want sex (the rule is, though there are millions of exceptions, women don't WANT sex for sex's sake, men do. For women, sex is a means to other ends. Women see sex as a trade commodity for use in bartering for other, more desirable goods & services. Sex, like greatness, is thrust upon women.) I guess she wanted what women like to call friendship, and men call what they put up with in hopes of getting laid. I have a talent for befriending women. This means they like my company but don't want to fuck me. Or at least, the ones I want to fuck don't want to fuck me.
This raises the question: Doesn't a straight man deceive himself when he befriends a woman he claims he has no hope of fucking? I'm not talking about a woman with whom a man has a friendly social, professional, or familial relationship. I'm also not talking about friendships with ex-wives and girlfriends with whom the sex is clearly history. I'm talking about the blurring together of friendship and flirting. I'm talking about a woman who is a sexual deadend yet who is attractive. What happens when a man spends time with such a woman is that he feeds off the buzz, he is teased, he lets himself be teased and even savors the tease, but the teasing remains a tease and the aftermath is a letdown and putdown.
Women are adamant in asserting that it is imperative to get, pronto, out of deadend sexual relationships----for example, years-long affairs with married bosses. So once a man realizes that his putative friendship with a woman is a sexual deadend in the sense that it's never going to lead to sex in the first place, shouldn't he just pull out before incurring greater emotional and self-esteem losses?
Some men might argue that even friendships with women that lead to sex also begin with a tease and eventually lead to letdowns and putdowns. After the climax, or after the first thousand or ten thousand climaxes, inevitably comes the anticlimax, or the denouement, or the falling action. Of course, with older men there is literally and unavoidably a falling action after every climax, unless they're scarily jacked up on a double dose of Viagra. It's only young men who can be drug-free yet remain standing immediately after a climax. Women, on the other hand, can climax and go ON climaxing--maybe because they don't have to erect anything to do it in the first place. Well, OK, the little man in the boat stands up. But he's so small it's not a major engineering project to re-erect him. And that's a good thing. If he were any taller, the boat might capsize.
The rule in my aged case is, fewer and fewer women want sex with me, but I still want sex with them, though I want sex with fewer and fewer of them, and I want it less frequently than I once did, though I still want it frequently. I suppose there are still a few women (fewer and fewer every day) who would want sex with me if they got to know me, but they aren't the women with whom I would want to have sex. Therefore, I'm doomed to have sex with no one for the rest of my life unless I figure out a way to enjoy having sex with women with whom I don't presently WANT to have sex.
I suppose I could practice the opposite of aversion conditioning, positive Pavlovian conditioning, to persuade myself to have sex with a woman willing to settle for me. Every time I imagined having sex with this woman who didn't meet my standards, I could picture myself also having sex with a woman who DID meet my standards. I'd be in bed with both of them at once. Eventually I would associate the unattractive woman with the tumescence provoked by the attractive one. And so, after a fashion, the unattractive woman would become attractive, the turn-off would become a turn-on. I could use the woody stirred by the attractive one to fuck the unattractive one. The unattractive one would have two things in her favor that the attractive one didn't have: she would be WILLING and REAL. But why would (wood) I want to be with a woman pathetic enough, desperate enough, degraded enough, to settle for me? I wouldn't, of course, no matter how willing and real she might be. What's that line they used to use in the Army? "I wouldn't fuck her with YOUR dick." I want a woman with STANDARDS. I don't meet the standards of any woman who meets my standards. I wouldn't want to belong to any woman who would have me member in her member. Gridlock. Stalemate. Checkmate. Game over.
Total number of women with standards who meet my standards and are willing to sleep with me? Zero. Total number of women with whom I'm willing to sleep who are willing to sleep with me? Zero. Total probability that I will again have sex with a woman before I die? Zero.
This is a kind of freedom, if freedom's just another word for nothing left to lay. Sexually, given the hopelessness of my prospects, I have nothing left to lose. Yet I am not free of desire. I still desire. I simply know that my desire is pointless because it will, or at least may, never again be consummated. Or is that consume? In any case, it's mighty thin broth. Thus undernourished, will I waste away, sexually and emotionally and creatively and spiritually? Maybe I already have. "If you don't use it, you lose it."
What am I living for if my sexual prospects are so dim? I don't know. But clearly I'm no longer living to get laid.
Are people who get laid more alive than people who don't get laid? Sometimes. But I can think of millions of examples of people who get laid constantly who are utterly lifeless burn-outs.
Maybe I need to narrow my question. Given that the hope of sex, and romance, has been a fundamental part of my outlook for decades, can I live in a world which no longer offers that hope? I guess the answer is to separate sex from romance. That is, how can I hope for romance without sex? Well, plenty of things are romantic yet sexless. For example, taking a rocket to the moon. As far as I know, the astronauts didn't have sex with each other or themselves onboard the Apollo Flights, yet their journeys were romantic. How could going to the moon NOT be romantic? But I have no hope of going to the moon, either.
What does that leave? Writing. Writing is always a tease, writing can deliver a consummation and a climax, writing restoreth my soul, and God knows it regularly lets me down. So it is romantic, at least for me. I find romance, and a reason to go on living, in my writing. I know that there are writers who live more complete lives than I do. They find romance in their writing AND in their sexual relationships---and they HAVE sexual relationships. But I guess I'm more like Christy Brown, the paralyzed Irishman who could only wriggle his left foot yet who managed to write with it. Unless Christy was doing surprising things with that foot, he didn't have a sex life either, and was forced, like me, to find all his romance in his writing----that is to say, in the play of his imagination.
--FIN--
posted by mobydoug at 3:38 PM
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