I'm A Slut
The morning after, I am maddeningly itchy.
This is not itching of the embarrassing localized variety, the type which makes one wonder if the previous evening's rum 'n Coke-fueled bacchanalia also included a surprise sidecar of contagion.
This itch is all-encompassing. Tiny welts cover my skin. As soon as one has been clawed into submission, another is already screeching for attention.
I consider lolling naked in a wading pool full of calamine lotion.
I debate snorting a few crushed Benadryl through a sippy-cup straw.
In a moment of inspiration, I flop to the carpet and commence writhing, an ecstatic self-flagellant of the Church of the Itchy Fucking Proboscis.
In retrospect, I should have used bug spray. Lots of bug spray. I should have located an industrial drum of pure DEET and upended it over my head in honor of my triumphant BugBowl victory.
Bug spray. That, I realize, grinning and making carpet-angels with my itchy limbs, is my only regret.
Female sexuality is a razorblade-seeded apple, a cup of Jonestown Kool-Aid, a banana split with a scoop of vanilla, a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of Semtex.
In other words, sweet, sticky and explosive.
No one fucks in a vacuum. Much like Britney's parenting acumen (breaking news: Sean Preston, 25.3 pounds, carried in Snugli only weight-rated to 24 pounds!), the entire subject has been analyzed, politicized and proselytized into the ground.
No matter how private the act, you can rest assured that every sigh, heave, word muttered and scream uttered has been debated by experts and ordinary schmucks across the moral and political continuum. Culturally, we're much like a five year-old - simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by sex, not to mention utterly incapable of resisting the allure of a closed bedroom door. This carnal curiousity impacts every member of society (surprise, your blow job is on JumboTron!). However, it is women, the gender not possessed of a chromosome with a delightfully authoritative lower prong, who bear the brunt.
First and foremost, there's the "You Might As Well Suck Off the Washington Monument" conundrum. For many (but no means all) Third Wave women, sex is as rife with sinister implications as the avant-garde play which so often preceeds it (marginally-related note: am I the only person who has ever gotten some immediately following a viewing of "Boys Don't Cry"? "Wow, that was... um... wow." "Oh, yeah. Say, wanna do it?"). As delightful as your partner's penis may be individually, it is a member of a Penile-Industrial Complex which includes date rapists, ass-grabbers, men who've uttered the phrase, "She was asking for it", men who are firmly convinced that a female president would be outmatched, overwhelmed, prone to bawling during State of the Union addresses and, every twenty-eight days, threatening to deploy ICBMs to Switzerland unless they send over some fucking Nutella immediately.
And then, of course, there's Receptacle Theory. Sadly, this belief is not limited to conservative wingnuts who hunt squirrels with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. It goes a little somethin' like this: One needn't look too closely to see a violent aspect to penetrative sex. Outside of some particularly festive fetishistic circles, the squishy, vulnerable penatradee role is typically filled by a female. Together, these two themes merge, mutate and lead to the notion that a woman's emotional nature is analogous to her physical one. You're a gash, a walking wound, tender and sensitive. You are the bagel, the doughnut, the torus of timidity. You are, and perhaps I should go have a snack before formulating any further metaphors, the slab of prime rib and not the rivet-handled knife. You don't take, you give. You don't invite, you consent. And in matters of power, politics and lustful grappling, you will never, ever have the upper hand.
What sane female, it's implied, would endure all that sticky debasement solely for her own gratification?
At worst you're a whore, lacking the requisite moral fiber to keep your virtue safe from unscrupulous men bearing love, comfort, flattery or high-test Columbian White.
At best you're an overly-indulgent mother, grudgingly allowing her mischievous boy to swipe a cookie from the jar without swatting his hand.
You just can't win.
Unless, of course, you can.
"You like that, you slut?", pants my companion for the evening. "You whore? You... you... fuckin'... prostitute?"
Well, as a matter of fact... yes.
Bemused, I wonder if he's consciously trying to be as misogynistic as possible. Is this a blow job or a piece of performance art? I consider asking if he'd like to pause and retrieve a thesaurus ("Harlot! Libertine! Hold on, gotta turn the page... wench!"). Uttered by the wrong individual, this derisive litany would be more than a bit disturbing. Coming from a slyly funny academic (whom I've personally seen reading "Horton Hears a Who" to a sleepy toddler), it's amusing and, strangely enough, incredibly arousing. If the heart works in mysterious ways, it's only taking cues from its southerly compatriot, the groin, who works in some truly mind-bending ones.
Sometimes, head is just head.
Sometimes, what's IN your head is more or less the only thing that matters.
Afterwards, the car's windows glowed and sparkled white, sodium-arc streetlights illuminating our accumulated frantic breath. I reclined, kicked my foot over the passenger's head rest, smiled, felt utterly, goofily alive.
Talk-show hosts, eyebrows contorted into permanent furrows of concern, love to discuss the myriad of misguided reasons why women sleep around. "Sometimes, it's peer pressure," they intone, "Sometimes, just wanting to be loved, supported, understood." Parents, educators and the federal government all devote an unholy amount of energy to keeping the legs of America's young ladies firmly closed. Casual sex is a dangerous, messy, potentially deadly enterprise; no place, it would seem, for a lady.
It can also be phenomenal. Sweet, sticky, explosive... and a superpower. If done right, flexing one's feminine wiles feels fantastic. It's like a slow, sultry yogic stretch. Education sharpens the mind, exercise sharpens the body, sexuality sharpens the spirit (as well as making one's neurons fizz and crackle like Pop Rocks). It's like being Cleopatra and the Sphinx, simultaneously.
We took a convoluted walk afterwards, traipsing across dew-soaked neighborhood lawns and darkened baseball fields. Plump, brazen mosquitos dive-bombed every inch of my bare skin. I can only be so mad at them, as each and every one of the poor bastards probably expired of alcohol poisoning shortly thereafter. At one point, the conversation turned to science, and when asked for my favorite scientist, I scrunched up my brow, wracked my slightly-pickled brain and finally shrieked, "Richard Feynman! Richard Fuckin' Feynman!"
Particle physics and perversion. Two extremes of the human experience. One muggy, mosquito-filled night.
I liked it. I liked it very much indeed.
This is not itching of the embarrassing localized variety, the type which makes one wonder if the previous evening's rum 'n Coke-fueled bacchanalia also included a surprise sidecar of contagion.
This itch is all-encompassing. Tiny welts cover my skin. As soon as one has been clawed into submission, another is already screeching for attention.
I consider lolling naked in a wading pool full of calamine lotion.
I debate snorting a few crushed Benadryl through a sippy-cup straw.
In a moment of inspiration, I flop to the carpet and commence writhing, an ecstatic self-flagellant of the Church of the Itchy Fucking Proboscis.
In retrospect, I should have used bug spray. Lots of bug spray. I should have located an industrial drum of pure DEET and upended it over my head in honor of my triumphant BugBowl victory.
Bug spray. That, I realize, grinning and making carpet-angels with my itchy limbs, is my only regret.
Female sexuality is a razorblade-seeded apple, a cup of Jonestown Kool-Aid, a banana split with a scoop of vanilla, a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of Semtex.
In other words, sweet, sticky and explosive.
No one fucks in a vacuum. Much like Britney's parenting acumen (breaking news: Sean Preston, 25.3 pounds, carried in Snugli only weight-rated to 24 pounds!), the entire subject has been analyzed, politicized and proselytized into the ground.
No matter how private the act, you can rest assured that every sigh, heave, word muttered and scream uttered has been debated by experts and ordinary schmucks across the moral and political continuum. Culturally, we're much like a five year-old - simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by sex, not to mention utterly incapable of resisting the allure of a closed bedroom door. This carnal curiousity impacts every member of society (surprise, your blow job is on JumboTron!). However, it is women, the gender not possessed of a chromosome with a delightfully authoritative lower prong, who bear the brunt.
First and foremost, there's the "You Might As Well Suck Off the Washington Monument" conundrum. For many (but no means all) Third Wave women, sex is as rife with sinister implications as the avant-garde play which so often preceeds it (marginally-related note: am I the only person who has ever gotten some immediately following a viewing of "Boys Don't Cry"? "Wow, that was... um... wow." "Oh, yeah. Say, wanna do it?"). As delightful as your partner's penis may be individually, it is a member of a Penile-Industrial Complex which includes date rapists, ass-grabbers, men who've uttered the phrase, "She was asking for it", men who are firmly convinced that a female president would be outmatched, overwhelmed, prone to bawling during State of the Union addresses and, every twenty-eight days, threatening to deploy ICBMs to Switzerland unless they send over some fucking Nutella immediately.
And then, of course, there's Receptacle Theory. Sadly, this belief is not limited to conservative wingnuts who hunt squirrels with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. It goes a little somethin' like this: One needn't look too closely to see a violent aspect to penetrative sex. Outside of some particularly festive fetishistic circles, the squishy, vulnerable penatradee role is typically filled by a female. Together, these two themes merge, mutate and lead to the notion that a woman's emotional nature is analogous to her physical one. You're a gash, a walking wound, tender and sensitive. You are the bagel, the doughnut, the torus of timidity. You are, and perhaps I should go have a snack before formulating any further metaphors, the slab of prime rib and not the rivet-handled knife. You don't take, you give. You don't invite, you consent. And in matters of power, politics and lustful grappling, you will never, ever have the upper hand.
What sane female, it's implied, would endure all that sticky debasement solely for her own gratification?
At worst you're a whore, lacking the requisite moral fiber to keep your virtue safe from unscrupulous men bearing love, comfort, flattery or high-test Columbian White.
At best you're an overly-indulgent mother, grudgingly allowing her mischievous boy to swipe a cookie from the jar without swatting his hand.
You just can't win.
Unless, of course, you can.
"You like that, you slut?", pants my companion for the evening. "You whore? You... you... fuckin'... prostitute?"
Well, as a matter of fact... yes.
Bemused, I wonder if he's consciously trying to be as misogynistic as possible. Is this a blow job or a piece of performance art? I consider asking if he'd like to pause and retrieve a thesaurus ("Harlot! Libertine! Hold on, gotta turn the page... wench!"). Uttered by the wrong individual, this derisive litany would be more than a bit disturbing. Coming from a slyly funny academic (whom I've personally seen reading "Horton Hears a Who" to a sleepy toddler), it's amusing and, strangely enough, incredibly arousing. If the heart works in mysterious ways, it's only taking cues from its southerly compatriot, the groin, who works in some truly mind-bending ones.
Sometimes, head is just head.
Sometimes, what's IN your head is more or less the only thing that matters.
Afterwards, the car's windows glowed and sparkled white, sodium-arc streetlights illuminating our accumulated frantic breath. I reclined, kicked my foot over the passenger's head rest, smiled, felt utterly, goofily alive.
Talk-show hosts, eyebrows contorted into permanent furrows of concern, love to discuss the myriad of misguided reasons why women sleep around. "Sometimes, it's peer pressure," they intone, "Sometimes, just wanting to be loved, supported, understood." Parents, educators and the federal government all devote an unholy amount of energy to keeping the legs of America's young ladies firmly closed. Casual sex is a dangerous, messy, potentially deadly enterprise; no place, it would seem, for a lady.
It can also be phenomenal. Sweet, sticky, explosive... and a superpower. If done right, flexing one's feminine wiles feels fantastic. It's like a slow, sultry yogic stretch. Education sharpens the mind, exercise sharpens the body, sexuality sharpens the spirit (as well as making one's neurons fizz and crackle like Pop Rocks). It's like being Cleopatra and the Sphinx, simultaneously.
We took a convoluted walk afterwards, traipsing across dew-soaked neighborhood lawns and darkened baseball fields. Plump, brazen mosquitos dive-bombed every inch of my bare skin. I can only be so mad at them, as each and every one of the poor bastards probably expired of alcohol poisoning shortly thereafter. At one point, the conversation turned to science, and when asked for my favorite scientist, I scrunched up my brow, wracked my slightly-pickled brain and finally shrieked, "Richard Feynman! Richard Fuckin' Feynman!"
Particle physics and perversion. Two extremes of the human experience. One muggy, mosquito-filled night.
I liked it. I liked it very much indeed.
Labels: Best Of, Dating/Mating, The Compleat Thumbscrew
posted by thumbscre.ws at
7/13/2006
37 Comments:
I really liked that post. Sometimes sex is just sex, and it's fucking awesome.
Thanks for sharing.
I'm glad we're not related, because I wouldn't have wanted to miss reading that.
Awesome, I'm jealous!
I am so jealous... I wish I could feel that alive...
I don't know you, and I've only been reading your blog for a few months now. Keep that in mind as I say what I will say next. I'm about to judge you and I don't even know you, and yet I feel compelled to shake you and tell you to be more careful! I don't know if your post was fiction or not, but doing it in a car (as an adult!) is seriously uncool. How embarrassing would it have been to be picked up and charged with public indecency? I'm not tell you to wrap up your sexuality and throw away the keys, I'm suggesting that you do it indoors where voyeurs have a harder time watching.
I wondered how you were going to get around the whole family-reading-your-blog thing. Did it work?
I was trying to guess where the other link went, but couldn't get it, so I had to click. Genius!
Well, it worked for me, at least.
I don't understand or agree with posting intimate details of one's sex life in a public forum. Contrary to my children's belief, physical intimacy was not invented by their generation. We knew about these things way back in the dark ages. We fully enjoyed exploring our sexuality--we just didn't pull up our knickers and immediately whip out a laptop to document each event for our friends, enemies and however many variously interested strangers may be lurking out in Cyberland.
I have to admit it... I'm completely confused. Is this free expression, exhibitionism or simple revenge? I'll take my most erotic experiences to a lifelong friend or to my grave, thank you.
But when you're whoring around, do your BIG, BRASS BALLS get in the way? Or is there a special kind of fetishist doing the happy dance right this very moment with matching mosquito bites and a bruised lap area? The alternate link was genius indeed.
Well Mom, it's not as if her post included prose like "he thrust his throbbing member into my warm, wet, waiting body." There were no details, except mental ones.
Oh yeah, and I hate you because you're such a fucking great, gifted writer.
Christina - hey, if I was sensitive to being judged, I wouldn't work in a public forum, y'know? So don't worry about it, m'dear. In any event: don't worry, I cover my back (and my other bits). No arrests impending, I promise. Any and all of my liasions are safe, clean, discrete and over in time for me to wake up with J.Q. the next morning and blearily feed him his morning graham cracker-stravaganza.
DocM: I considered password-protecting it, but that was AFTER it'd been up for a day, so I figured the cat was probably already out of the bag. I may still lock that sucker up, though; I am having somewhat more self-doubt about this than I did about the event in question.
Momma: like we've discussed, we may never see eye-to-eye on this one, but this was a great, well-written comment. While I think there's quite a lot of exhibitionism going on in the bloggy world these days, I don't really feel that I ever post to appeal to anyone's prurient interests. I may be deluding myself, but I prefer to think of myself as a much, much less-talented David Sedaris - pathologically incapable of resisting good material, WHATEVER the source. Actually, one of the things which has evolved in my writing is the fact that I no longer write for a specific mental "audience"... just myself. Hence the lack of taboos. I can definitely see the logical and emotional merits in saying, "Well, then PUT THEM IN A PRIVATE JOURNAL!", and damned if I haven't thought of it myself. Yet, like Sedaris, I don't.
PygWife: I don't know about matching mosquito bites; I DO know there is a brainy man somewhere in New England who is still somewhat pleasantly stunned that a woman would volunteer to "go get the chess set from my car's trunk" with him but - GASP! - have ulterior motives.
Dorkiest seduction EVER.
Caer: thank you for defending my honor... as sullied and mosquito-bit as it may be. Although lord knows I've considered writing for men's mags to get writing experience and pay the bills. How hard can it BE? Answer: turgid, rock-solid, granite-like... mwa ha ha ha.
Oh my God. I clicked the wrong link.
Love your writing. Thanks for sharing such a wonderfully scintillating experience. Some days I feel exactly the same and would never be able to put it into words like you have.
But, I believe the worst seduction EVER is when I told my now-husband that we just HAD to stop off at his apartment to feed his pet rats before going to my sisters for dinner. He kept saying "But they're fine." "No, I think they are out of water, we should go see." "I guess, if you insist."
Both of us complete dorks - match made in heaven.
I love your writing. I love your blog. I long to write like you; however, my capacity for clever asides is severely lacking.
If you want to write a book, you should and then it will be published and then I will buy it and I will tell all my friends to buy it and we will all revel in your genius writing ability and the world will be a better place.
I have mixed feelings about this one- your writing style is, as with all of your posts, awesome... but I can't help feeling like I misjudged you as someone who would not write a post like this one. I feel a little like Mom does. There are ceratain things that I would never put online (or have put online in past journals and reaped the consequences). My feeling is that you can curse as much as you want, describe any illegal activity or the nastiest sex act in graphic detail... just not your own, because they are yours and that is what makes them beautiful. Those things are for you and only those whom you deem worthy of knowing. I guess what I'm saying is that with your writing abilities (which, in agreeance with Caer, I fucking envy so much) I would have expected something written with less factual detail, but more emotional and senses detail- the great thing about your writing is that you don't need to go into specifics like this in order to make your readers feel exactly what you describe. I think that you will refine your writing with each post and the praise or criticism that follows. Sorry this one had to be negative. We're still Milk Sisters!
Man. I want to have casual sex now. Great post.
Wow. Love this post. No real details, but just enough info for a slight blush.
Great post. Private yet... voyeristic.
Awesome writing, great post, and very, very happy for you : )
Love you. Love your blog.
I wrote my own "nursing a monkey" post, and had pictures too, but was too shy to put them up. I think you are putting yourself out there as a writer, and you are just amazingly talented.
Better, dare I say, than David Sedaris, because not so overstated, and Sedaris is one of my own (Greek!) and I am particularly partial to him.
Man, if the site goes password protected I'm going to be sad. This is me, beginning my barrage of comments so I can get a pw and still get in on the juicy gossip. :) Der -- just realized I don't have a Blogger ID so, pffft
Yum. Love it. "Sweet, sticky, and explosive" is dead on.
Richard Feynman is MY favorite particle physicist, too! Closely followed by Leon Lederman. Barbara McClintock or Lise Meitner are tied for my all-time fav scientists. Got to represent teh geek sistas, y'know.
Oh, yeah. And congrats on getting some. I think it's perfectly bloggable material.
"You whore? You... you... fuckin'... prostitute?"
Reminds me of that episode in Sex in the City where Charlotte's otherwise perfect guy can't come without saying things like this to her.
So are you going to see him again?
I love your writing, and I love this post. I've been there myself, and you captured it perfectly.
Women's sexuality *is* that charged, and you have the comments to prove it. Thanks for sharing this with us! I recommend sending it to Ms. Magazine or Bitch or Off Our Backs, etc -- this piece deserves a wider audience.
You rock.
I dropped my laptop laughing at "Grandma's" comment.
Wow. Awesome post. I hope, when I finally get laid again, I can write something half as good.
... and sometimes a rivet handled knife is just a rivet handled knife.
Great post.
I take back what I said before. I let my mind's eye view of public consensus get in the way of being objective. Write whatever blows your skirt up, Jul! And fuck 'em all!
By the way, who said anything about password protection? The goal IS to get your writing out there, isn't it?
i like this post, its raw and real with just enough detail
i agree with the last comment write whatever you want
keep on writing for yourself
This post made me laugh so hard I peed a little.
Stephanie G. Manda's little sister. She made me come and read, and now I am hooked.
Casey: hear, hear! I tried justifying myself to my parents by saying, "But what if HENRY MILLER didn't write about HIS intimate life?!", but they weren't hearing it.
Mer: hee... it was the LEAST-sinister, disturbing filthy-talk ever... actually pretty, um, intriguing. I've seen this guy maybe twice a year over the past decade (at parties and such); I'm not gonna seek him out, but if he happens to show up at, say, Halloween, I will not be adverse to letting him get in my candy corn costume.
Kateri: dang, girl, I can hardly wait! Hop to it! ;-)
Junket: really?! I guess I am more persuasive than I thought. Or a better writer.
Steph: AIIIIIEEEEE!
While I am glad you like the site, it is just VERY weird to imagine you reading it! I know you're a grown-up now (and getting your OWN freak on, no doubt), but part of me will always imagine you as a little junior-high kid flinging paperbacks at Manda!
Yay fucking!
I loved that. To be quite honest, I don't see how it is inappropriate or inappropriately revealing--it feels much more essayistic than that. Of course, I may not be the best judge of such things, as a search of my own website would probably reveal dozens of entries about my cervix, but really, I thought your piece was excruciatingly well-written and immediate, but perhaps because it was so polished, it felt less Paris Hilton and more Philip Lopate, if you know what I mean.
Oh, bleedin' HELL, Jul! I just read it to put an end to my shell-shocked imaginings, and it wasn't DIRTY or NASTY or TRASHY!!! It was explicit and sensual, yeah...but not in a cheap, offensive way. And your writing was, as usual, bread for a starving soul.
Why the hell did you have to put in that "FAMILY OUT!" link? Why did you term your writing "patently offensive?" What were you so afraid of us reading? We were 60's kids, for Chrissakes! At one time, sensual discovery was a top priority in our lives.
These days, we are more concerned with being wise than wanton. This is natural--we are wrinkled and somewhat sweet grandparents. Our lives have changed, not for the worse but in accordance with the passage of time. Our thoughts and speech and actions are more appropriate for older people. But that doesn't mean we are fragile and unsophisticated!
Look... next time, a simple "adult material" link would suffice to warn the more thin-skinned in our family. Your parents, however, are not afraid of thinking, of remembering or of our children experiencing life to the fullest extent.
GO FORTH, YOUNG ONE! Crush mosquitoes between your nubile breasts! Drink out of jock straps! Hang some wet towels off of male stalks! Do not be ashamed! (But DO be careful!)
Dude. You are my hero.
Alexa: as my adopted sister, I love you and I love your cervix, too! Um, that was intended in the least-creepy way possible.
At the blogger's brunch recently, there was lots o' cervix-talk going on. I was stunned to discover that I was the only person who had given mine an exploratory jab immediately following childbirth. Well, I was CURIOUS! The fact that the damned thing still EXISTED after being expanded to ten times its normal size and accomodating a fur-bearing little beastie was amazing in and of itself.
Mama: in the words of a seven year-old Junket, when informed by a classmate that sex was "dirty"... "It's not dirty, it's EROTIC!"
Point well-taken: my warnings made this piece out to be much worse than it was. But I'm glad you read and enjoyed it.
"Hang some wet towels off of male stalks"? BWA HA HA! See, people?! THIS is where I get it! Blame (or praise) Priscilla!
MWDB: no, someone who can produce Squig is MY hero! :-)
Hi, I've never commented before, but after this sweet and gorgeous post I have to direct your attention to THIS like-minded Rachel Kramer Bussel piece from the Village Voice:
http://www.villagevoice.com/people/0629,bussel,73845,24.html
"No one has the right to tell you how to fuck." hear hear.
Great post, loved the writing ... and I agree with pretty much everything you said.
Whoo hoo hooo! If the experience matched the prose (which it sounds like it did), then I say again, whoo hooo!
I am all for post-separation casual sex (preferably with younger men). You have described why better than I ever could, though.
Go, girl!
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