PART ONE: COOKIE MONSTER IN A KISSING BOOTH
It should be acceptable for men to openly discuss sex.
It should be even more acceptable for men to discuss love.
And most of all, it should be acceptable for men to discuss friendship.
This man's about to do all three.
Perspectives voiced in this series of essays are mine and (often, it seems) mine alone. I do not claim to speak for all men; in fact, I usually end up spreaking against most of them.
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To those who say men never shut up about sex, I hear you. Like starving people and food, right? It's all they ever talk about. But not really. Not (haha) deeply. And especially not sex and how it may interlink with love and/or friendship. None of these are fit topics for a man to discuss, for reasons that have always escaped me.
I am not suggesting the details of your sex life....what you do in and out and in and out (and in and out) of bed/floor/backyard hammock should be public. Gods, no. It's intimate information that only you and your partner have a right to. Sorry to disappoint you if you're looking to hear about who I've been with and what specific chandeliers we've swung from.
Now that I've disappointed you, I hope I don't offend you by telling you what you probably already know: I practice ethical non-monogamy (ENM), and have for ten years now. I won't dwell on this: search "polyamory" on this blog and you can read for days. It really did seem as if I was a "lifestyle ambassador" there for a while. I feel like I should formally apologize for that. 'Mine is not a better way; mine is only another way.' What looked evangelical was really just me trying mightily to clear up a whole lot of misunderstandings. The biggest one: it's not cheating, it's building a web of interconnected relationships and letting them settle wherever feels natural for all involved: there will be much more about this in the next entry, "Love". The second biggest misconception, and what drove me away from identifying as polyamorous: I'm not trying to get my dick wet. The ONLY true detail I will give you is that I have a LOT less sex than almost anyone knows. I bet it's less than you have and I'd win that bet nine times out of ten.
I might have had a (w)hole lot more sex if I could stomach (or even accomplish) doing it casually. The reason why I can't is apparent in the last sentence: I have always regarded "casual" as a synonym for "meaningless". "A game of poles and holes", I've called it. That's because sex, to me, is the most intimate thing two people can do together. As I love to say, other forms of intimacy are "into me see"; sex is literally "into me be".
I realize many, perhaps most people don't feel as I do on this. For many, sex is just this thing that feels good, maybe like how any other shared activity among friends feels good? But then there are marriages in which extramarital sex is fine but "feelings" aren't. This is particularly common among swingers. I mean, you can see where the disconnect is for me. "Sure, sleep with her, but you better not care about her." WTF?
Prostitutes almost uniformly regard a kiss as A LOT more intimate than any amount of parallel parking could ever be. For the same reason, passionate kissing is rare in porn. I get it. FOR ME, it's not true. I have kissed a whole lot of people with whom I've never tested a single mattress, I mean, duh.
Deliberate wide exposure to different people and attitudes broadened my mind considerably on this. I'm unsure I could have sex myself with a mere friend -- if she expressed an attraction, depending how vividly, I would almost certainly have no issue, but the aftermath might be messy. All I ask is that you demonstrate I mean something a wee bit more than a dick to you. I don't feel like that's too much to ask. Dicks are everywhere; you don't even need men attached to them. In fact, I have it on good authority that B.O.B., the Battery Operated Boyfriend, is better in bed than most men could ever hope to be. Men, you know what this means, don't you? She doesn't need you to be satisfied sexually. She never did. That industrial juicer she's wielding that you think of as your rival? That's your teammate. Develop some chemistry between all three of you and she'll thank you later, after she regains her breath.
I no longer get het up about you enjoying casual sex even with total strangers, so long as it's consensual and clean. Just yesterday I ran across a demisexual sex worker, a concoction I would have thought impossible. (Demisexual: capable of arousal and sex if a strong emotional connection is present, and usually incapable if not; in other words, me. ) This sex worker said her demisexuality made her very good at her job, because she felt no attachment at all and just regarded it as an acting performance. I asked her how she got aroused if she wasn't even attracted to her clients and she told me her body just does it without her feeling much of anything.
I found myself wondering how many intimate interludes I had been part of wherein my partner didn't feel much of anything. I know it's happened; I hope it hasn't happened in at least 25 years.
Somewhere in THE STAND by Stephen King -- can't recall if it was Harold Lauder talking, but it sounds like him -- a man was musing about how the human penis is as simple as contraption as is allowed to exist in nature. You stimulate it, it responds.
Not mine. Not always. And it's not erectile dysfunction. It's an almost impregnable barrier called desire. Not mine...yours. Mine doesn't exist without yours. Show me yours and by golly sonny Jesus I'll show you mine, but if you ain't got none, hun, neither do I. No matter the shape of your buns.
This is one of the other things people don't get about me. When I don't go gaga over random celebrities, or even weirder to me -- fictional characters -- people assume I must be gay, not noticing I don't go gaga for any random celebrities or fictional characters even if they're male like me. Or they assume I'm asexual, which is MUCH closer to the truth, but still not right.
I seized on "demisexuality" when I ran across it for the same reasons anyone adopts a label. It's a relief to know that if I'm broken, at least I'm not the only broken one. But I'm not a born demi. I made myself this way.
There's a very good reason buried in my high school history: I wasn't always like this. There was a time when every woman who shared a class with me shared a hell of a lot more in my fantasies. I was much more typical of the male of the human species. And then came the day of the kissing booth and adult Ken was born. If you don't know the story, I do urge you to read it: it explains a lot. The more I reflect, the more it explains.
That ancient kissing booth is why I just can't kindle a fantasy about anyone (or anything) I know doesn't want me fantasizing about them. The thought can't even form in my head. This includes every woman I don't know, all but three, at present, of the people I DO know, and also most of the somebodies that I used to 'know' (even in the Biblical sense). On the flip side, it's ALSO why if you initiate sex with me I'll tumble in short order, possibly even if I'm not really ready. Tell me you want me and I'll perk up. Show me you want me and I may not stand against you. Being desired is...desirable.
That kissing booth is, of course, why consent is paramount to me now. I never got in so much as a word of trouble from the school for my behaviour...I didn't have to, the whole place saw my horrified reaction when the women started crying...I ran bawling out of the cafeteria. But I got in trouble with myself. That incident installed any number of checks on my libido that need to be patiently unlocked. It's at least three or four times before I'd feel sure enough you wanted me to initiate anything myself.
It's why I'm terrified of "using" somebody and disgusted at the thought of being used. Because I used those women to make up for what I felt at the time was about eight years of stolen kisses, and they did not consent to that.
And I've finally internalized, deep down, just how much it poisoned my attitude about casual sex. It's truly as if I thought everybody else had my kissing booth experience and didn't change a thing about their approach to women. Which is flatly ridiculous. I mean, I'm not other people. Like DUH! Why do I keep forgetting something so freaking obvious?
I said in that linked blog that I would scrub that day from my life if I could, but you know -- without those tears I might have become something worse. I do regret, however, how JUDGY I was up until far too recently, how quick to assume motives that didn't exist, and how much pain that caused.
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I discovered my genitals pretty early. Both boys and girls typically masturbate in the womb...suffice it to say you notice right quick how good it feels to play with it. Here's a bloody weird confession: the first bunch of time I recall it getting hard were directly in response to Cookie Monster.
So I didn't want to fuck the puppet, or be pegged by the puppet. I didn't even know what sex was at four: my "pee-pee" was just this thing that flopped around between my legs and produced "pee" every so often. But for unknown reasons, watching Cookie Monster devour anything inedible caused my pee-pee to get hard. There's an episode where Cookie and Harry "share" a bicycle that may as well have come off the favourites list on this four year old's version of Pornhub. I just rewatched that...not so much as a twitch, but....the vestiges of one? Like, something seems vaguely exciting in how wrong that is.
No idea where that came from. I've joked that a psychologist would have a field day.
Yeah, those actions in grade nine have loomed very large over my life. Cookie Monster, not so much. I think I know why that is: I kind of focused on him before I knew anything at all about sex. Couple years later, who knows, I might have ended up with one hell of a rare kink. As it is, all I have to thank ol' Cookie for is a powerful oral fixation.
STUFF I'VE LEARNED:
1) The filthier the sex act, the more intimate it feels to perform it (if it's fully consensual).
No, you don't get to find out what I'm referring to because (a) you didn't say the magic word; (b) there IS no magic word; see, it's none of your beeswax and (d) I said it largely to make a point related to the point I just finished with. If you engage in some kink I don't get...hey, there are lots of things I don't "get". Doesn't delegitimize any of them. Not for me doesn't mean not for anyone. It bothers me to no end it took me so long to get here. I'd keep thinking, "yeah, I get this point" and then some other "weird" thing would catch my attention and out would come the judgment again.
2) Laughing during sex is intoxicating. Just be careful you don't snap your cock in half.
2a) A good way to accomplish 2) is to find a funny song with a good rhythm and sing along as you frolic. I leave the soundtrack up to you, your choices are infinite. Baby Shark. Wait, that one actually IS erotic for a large number of married men with children of that age: hey, sweetie, the kids are going to be busy for the next half hour: would you like some gland-to-gland combat? Hell yeah, don't mind if we do do do dodo dodo!
3) For at least some people in my experience, "I've got a headache" -- so long as it isn't, you know, a migraine -- is a good reason to have slow, gentle, loving sex. Sex is good for headaches for some people. No, wait, bad for headaches.
4) If you can't cut the mustard, you can always (mmmm) lick the jar.
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