Second String Soulmate

Photograph Of Her

2010-10-16T18:34:00.000-07:00

by Doc Luben 10-2010

A redheaded woman takes a photograph of herself in the mirror. She wears a flannel shirt, black and white, and there is the sound of rain. The photo is of herself peering at herself through a camera. She thinks that she has too many freckles. She loves her red hair but does not think of it as hers. She thinks of it as the kind of hair a very beautiful redhead would have. Her lips are full and it makes her look sad, and she is sad, but does not think the two things are related.

The rain clouds have made the windows dark. She keeps the lights off in the house, she likes that it is daytime and nighttime at the same time. Seeing the photograph she thinks that it is the first time she has ever seen what she looks like; it worked because she was taking the photograph instead of being in the photograph. She could see herself instead of a copy that someone else wanted.

Now she wants to do this with other things. She wants to do the same thing to her couch, to see what the couch is really like, see what she has been missing. She wants to take a photograph of the couch showing itself to the couch, but it won’t work because the couch is not reflective, so all she can do is take a regular picture of the couch. With a lot of sweating and grunting she pushes the couch in front of the mirror, but the photograph still does not look like the truth. She sits on the couch and tries again. Now it is a picture of her sitting on a couch. The sound of rain has stopped.

She needs to get this right, now. She lies down on the couch and tries to be comfortable, tries to really be lying on the couch and not faking it, but it does not work and she does not even pick up the camera. She takes off all of her clothes and lies on the couch, trying to touch as much of the couch as she can, to bring out its full couchness. She takes a photograph. It is less a photograph of the couch than ever.

She thinks now the problem might be scale, that she is smaller than the couch so the couch can only be the background. She thinks she needs to try things smaller. It is already dangerous because there are two pictures of her looking exactly like her, and in one of them she is naked, so now there are two of her, the naked one and the first one with the flannel shirt. She folds her clothes into a tight square and leaves them behind the couch. She does not want to risk making another version of herself.

She sets her phone on her freckled belly and points her camera at the mirror, but the phone is also a camera and she already has a picture of a camera in the first picture with her. This is becoming complicated. She tries a pencil, but cannot control the frame: if her pubic hair or nipples are in the picture, then it becomes a picture of her nipples or of her pubic hair, and if it is only her skin and the object, then it is just a regular object and it is just like taking a picture.

It makes her more and more angry that objects cannot take pictures of themselves, and that their reflection is exactly the same as they are, except that you cannot touch them. She has been naked now for an hour, with the phone and the pencil and a playing card and a bottle of aspirin, and she feels cold. She doesn’t like that all of the small things are making her into background. She decides the only thing that can work is something no bigger and no smaller than she is, so she calls her ex-boyfriend.

She tells him she is naked and has a camera and needs him to come over. He is the kind of ex-boyfriend who wants to be a regular boyfriend and so she knows he will come. She sits on the couch, then lies on the couch, looks at herself in the mirror and tries to make her being on the couch as real as possible.

He knocks on the door and now she is afraid to answer, she realizes what everything looks like, and will never be able to explain fast enough what she has discovered, maybe, about how things look. She tries to think of a way to say it fast, but a minute goes by and maybe two minutes and she has not answered the door or called back to him.

The ex-boyfriend opens the door anyway because he knows what she is like. He comes to the bedroom and does not seem too surprised to find the couch there. She sees him and she feels like she is about to cry. She crawls to the arm of the couch and pulls him by his shirt and puts her body against him.

He is the same size as her and that is the main part of why she dumped him, but she was nice and did not tell him, she said it was just time and that she was going to be healthy and alone. She said it like that, like dumping him was something she was just trying, so that he would not cry too much. Now she takes off his shirt and measures her arms against him and feels her hands around his back the same as his hands around her back. She brings him down on to the couch and makes him naked and moves on top of him. She tries to be natural, tries to really be lying on him and not faking it. His penis is very hard and he is kissing her very hard and she moves herself down onto his penis, trying to take him inside of her for real, not just because he is there and she wants to feel this, but because it is really what she is doing. She tries to touch as much of him as possible, pressing her feet against his legs and her thighs against his hips and her face against his neck.

She looks in the mirror and there she is, looking just as she is supposed to look, pale and freckled and clinging. She wants to take a photograph, but the camera is on the floor and she can’t stop moving on him and she is afraid of making another version of herself. Without the camera she can’t tell what she really looks like or what she is doing, and she knows it would not help, because now he is here and he would have to have a camera, too, they would somehow have to have two cameras that are also one camera, and even then they would be fucking, it would be a picture of fucking, or two different pictures of fucking, but the fucking would be right there always in front, fucking will always be the smallest thing and everything else will always be background.

Then they are finished, and she lies on top of him, staring at herself in the mirror, with her freckled back and her lips that look sad but not the real sad. The woman in the mirror looks like she wants something, like she is angry that she did not get what she wanted. The man underneath her holds her so tight, his arms all the way around, like he is trying to be held up by her, trying not to be lying on the couch at all. She puts her fingers on the camera, but does not pick it up. She is convinced that the reflection in the mirror is the real picture of her, just like the pencil, the same object, exactly like the one out here except that it cannot be touched.

poems and things by Doc Luben

Yes, I'm Pretty, Can We Talk About Something Else?

2010-09-09T19:35:00.000-07:00

(rebroadcast)

Sometimes this feels like a fools errand. Writing about love-- what is there to write about, anyway? I can't imagine what more to say about the world of love and sex, or about the world in general. The trouble with all of it--- that is, the trouble with taking all of it and writing about it in an entertaining and enlightening way--- is that when I take a step back and think about it clearly, it all seems so terribly simple. Find a friend who makes you tingle a little, make an arrangement with that friend to screw on a regular basis, and also as a matter of convenience spend additional time with them. If you start feeling attached, then spend more time snuggling and agree not to fuck other people. And then, you know, let them watch your DVD’s and sleep in your house and help name your pets and, if you are really perverted, cook dinner for them sometimes instead of ordering Tai. Why do we make it so difficult? How can this very simple process become so complicated?

Here is one way: every single day, you are a new person. You are YOU, in the technical sense, but how you feel and what you think and how you want your genitals licked will suddenly be different. And because love and sex (at least good sex) are a fine and strange alchemy of chemicals and spools of thought, you never know what change is going to make the whole thing go bad. Tender and comforting lovemaking can oh so quickly become dull and passionless intercourse. Loving the same movies can land you one day realizing that what you do together is watch a lot of movies. Find yourself a free spirit lover and then wake up one day to the terrifying truth that “free spirit” means they could leave you any second.

It is this wicked little paradox, where the ideal lover is one who gives you space and lets your be yourself, but you also need to be TOGETHER, you need to be doing it in the same space and the same drumbeat, otherwise what is the point to begin with? Casual sex is righteous and lovely, but passion comes from digging deep and being scared. But the last thing you want is a mate who you are scared with all the time. Except that is exactly what you want. And, also, not at all.

I have an incredibly beautiful friend--- like, so pretty that it makes your eyes tear up--- and of course, she thinks she is very plain and it makes her kind of confused and suspicious that people keep telling her how gorgeous she is. One day I told her that the trouble is that BEAUTY, by its nature, includes an element of surprise. The sunset is beautiful because it only happens for a few minutes, only when the clouds are in the right place, and you rarely are looking when it comes. It is almost impossible to look in the mirror and see yourself as beautiful because you have seen yourself before, and what’s more, you can feel your own bones and blood and dry skin--- you are always there to yourself. The very definition of beauty includes being taken aback by a shine that you did not expect.

Love is the same way. Most of the time, a huge giant ocean of most of the time, that you are with someone, there is nothing to be too worried about. When someone is fucking you, you can probably take it as given that they want to fuck you. Rationally, it isn’t really hard to tell if someone loves you-- its obvious; they tell you, they do things for you, they want your attention, they dress up like a school girl and get on their knees and beg for your cock. But you are always going to be afraid that it isn’t enough, you are always going to wonder and worry and hope for more proof because that is what love IS. Love IS the parts of a relationship that go beyond what you expect. It is impossible to get your head around love because what love IS is the part that you can’t get your head around.

And that creates a lot of tension. And confusion. And fear. It makes even the most casual relationship one that can drain you and makes you wonder who you are. And it makes even the most long and established relationship seem like “what the fuck, why doesn’t this make sense yet?” Because the parts that make sense already make sense. All of your energy goes into the shit you don’t get.

The wise fat men in the east say that “life is suffering.” Guess what. Love is too. Get used to it.

Medium Rare

2010-06-29T18:15:00.000-07:00

I have a friend (let’s call her Sparky) who hangs out mostly with me and my mostly arts-addicted, mostly queer, mostly anti-normal social cohorts. And every now and again, when we are talking about relationships, she admits, with sheepish embarrassment, that she wants to have a normal, traditional, heterosexual marriage. She wants to be monogamous and share a house and have her own biological children. When she says things like this, she kind of squints her eyes and looks down toward the floor, very much like a puppy about to get smacked with a newspaper.

I don’t spend a lot of time in the mainstream world, but I know enough to know that is still what most people want. Even if they don’t think they want it, or they don’t want it when they were younger, that is what most people are going to go for. And a lot of people talk about it with embarrassment, like giving in to a normal relationship is giving up the keys to the clubhouse.

I am not troubled by people wanting marriage and kids and family and all the stuff that people want. It sounds pretty nice. What troubles me is when people get ideas in their head about exactly how a relationship is supposed to be and look and feel. That is where the nastiness starts. People begin to compare their real life to their imaginary life, and deduct points for each thing that doesn’t match up.

Sparky wants a nice normal married life. She also is planning to have a solid career while her man is a stay-at-home dad. There are places, and not on the other side of the world, but places just down the road where that idea alone would be more shocking than any cock shoved into any ass. Where even saying such a thing would be considered an armed assault against the forehead of GOD ALMIGHTY.

There is no such thing as giving in to a normal relationship, because there is no fucking thing as a normal relationship.

My relationships have always been very specific, with rules and titles put together as we went along, usually because they demanded it that way. Between long-term lovers without commitment, and affairs at various levels of betrayal, and passionate platonic friendships, and dating lesbians, and passionate platonic friendships with sex, I have rarely in my whole life played a role as simple as “boyfriend.” And it isn’t because I don’t want to--- I have done it and I could happily do it again, with the right person. It just hasn’t often been where I landed.

That is why I have done so much thinking and observing and writing, and tried very hard to see how things are instead of how they are supposed to be. There are a lot of puzzles I haven’t solved: it’s a simple fact that almost everyone cheats, but that doesn’t exactly make cheating “okay.” Most people have one or two friendships that include a dump truck of sexual tension, but does that mean they are not real friendships? Sex itself is weirdly meaningless and also charged with attachment and intensity, and that is even BEFORE you get into the wild swapping of sexualities and genders that can happen to the most unsuspecting.

The imaginary world of normal doesn’t exist and never has. There is a lie hidden inside the word, the lie that somewhere right in the middle is a spot where nothing ever goes wrong, where if you achieve the absolute average you will begin to glow and be content until you die peacefully on top of a pile of well behaved grandchildren. That spot doesn’t exist.

And if it did, wouldn’t it be the most horrible place in the world?

Twilight Revisited

2010-06-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

Below is my first post about Twilight, just when the first movie was being released. A lot has happened in the world of culture since then, most of it having to do WITH Twilight. So I hardly think there is more that I could say about it that hasn't been re-hashed to the point of horror. In fact, if anything, I've grown softer on the subject: I've started to think Twilight may not be so bad.

This is not because I am less cranky: it's the opposite. I am a decidedly contrary person, and I am hearing all the time from people who not only claim to hate hate hate Twilight, but sincerely seem to believe in their hearts that hating Twilight makes them better human beings than those who do not hate Twilight. So my instinct is to react against that.

Don't get me wrong: the books are terribly written. The movies are a bizarre combination of dull, overwrought, bitter and sugary artificial. And the "message" of the franchise is indeed a poisonous one.

But I am a populist, and it is hard for me to deny zeitgeist. There is something powerful about these stories, once that gets very young people insanely excited; and I do not like the idea that my role is now to be the old man who says "oh, these dummy head kids today, they just don't know how good things is supposed to be." I read romance novels in high school. I was a fan (correction: a salivating, obsessive, over-the-moon fan) of Phantom Of The Opera, which I now think may be every bit as clumsy, poorly written, and misogynistic as Twilight. (though, to its credit, the Phantom loses and ends up a lonely monster: the happy ending of Twilight is that the abusive boyfriend marries the girl and keeps her forever.)

I guess what I am saying is, I can't muster up--- I don't WANT to muster up--- that kind of mean spirited Cheerleader-Picking-On-Nerds vibe for something that I now suspect is not really very evil, it is just childish. And I have spent my life being a champion of childish things.

Of course, it would be impossible not to make fun of something that gives you so many different angles to shoot at, that fails to hit nearly every target it aims for. And I will go to the movie and make fun of it and keep riffing on it until we've all thought of all the jokes we can possibly make. But I'd like to think those jokes will be good natured. I can't believe I am so smart as to be above it all, better than all the stupid girls who think this is something good. Whatever perverse train of thought brings us all together in the movie theater this week, I will go with a sense of sharing spirit for--- admit it or don't--- my fellow Twilight lovers.

And, when we are all in hell, burning and screaming and taking writing classes from Stephenie Meyer, we will know each other as friends.

* * * * *

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Edward Cullen Can Suck My Cock

Something terrible and threatening is approaching, and it has inspired me to come out of hiding and return to the Blog, after a long and unexcused hiatus. The terrible threat to us all that is arriving? Yes, it is the movie Twilight.

I know that Twilight is not new. And I know that there are more than a few crimes committed by the novel in question; the overuse of adverbs alone may qualify as a civil rights violation. (really, Stephanie, there is no need ever to use the words “whispered quietly.”) And also, I am a vampire fan. I am a SERIOUS vampire fan. I did no fewer than SIX independent study courses in college on vampire mythology, so both my Vamp-Love and my total Dork-wad credentials are firm.

With all that in mind; I HATE the modern Young Adult Fiction creation of the Vampire as a sexless, self-righteous, pretty-boy-with-no-testosterone cock tease. It makes me want to scream. It isn’t just stupidly shallow, it is also deeply anti-feminist and, worse, simply dishonest.

It would be different if there was any disguise to the fact that “bloodlust” is just a metaphor for regular lust. But it is, and always has been. Drinking blood stands in for fucking. And in this story (as in Buffy, I'm sorry to say, and many others) the “hero” is required to swear off the drinking of blood in order to be "good". Yes, Edward Cullen is a pretty boy who has sworn never ever to commit the sin of having sex with a poor helpless girl. And it is bullshit.

It is bullshit because sex isn’t evil, and it isn’t something that a boy does to a girl, and it doesn’t drain you of life and free will and decency. More importantly, it is bullshit because it is bullshit: it is a lie. In real life, when people fall in love, they get physical. They make out. They see each other naked. They touch each other's bottoms (it's true!). And these stories are here to tell you that if you do that (which everyone does) you are nasty nasty bad bad. The real hero of these stories isn’t the Male Vampire who has so nobly given up blood/sex/maleness. The hero is the girl, who is SO passionate, so sensitive, so special, but still has such a very very clean vagina.

That isn’t something to look up to. You don’t get to walk around being all proud of how passionate AND how chaste you are. Chastity is for chumps. Passion is sex. Passion is touch. Yes, there is a kind of passion that is platonic and not about fucking, but that isn’t what these stories are about. These stories are about the ancient, hateful little idea that REAL love is only love without sex. That the BEST love is love where you keep your little cold genitals firmly clamped down.

But in real life, girls fall for pretty sparkly boys, and then they FUCK them. That is the way it should be. No, you don't have to do the full penis-in-pussy action. But that is the message of these books: ANY sex is bad sex. Heavy petting may as well be slitting your throat. Anything that involves anything beyond staring mournfully at your "lover" is forbidden. But girls in real life, they deserve to get lubed up and pleasured. Even if it breaks their hearts. Even if it is sticky and painful and dangerous. To love someone without getting physical isn't noble, it is silly and childish. Luckily, in real life, it doesn't happen. Which is why these books are not just shallow, they are a bit dangerous. Because real girls in real life ARE making out with their boyfriends. They are getting fingered and enjoying it. And Stephanie Meyer is here to tell you that you should be ashamed of yourself.

I do understand that these characters are in high school. I have news from the world, friends: by high school, our sex lives are in full swing. A thousand years of trying to deny it hasn't made it any less true.

Twilight goes beyond the fairy tale as wish fulfillment. It is a sneaky little parable about the virtue of sexual repression, where real love-- the kind that includes fingers in holes and tongues on nipples and genitals drenched in fluids--- real love is considered a form of evil. It’s hard for me to think of any idea more mean spirited than the idea that all girls should be looking for a boy who would never dare let his animal side loose on her.

Not to mention, the men in these stories pretty much always substitute human blood with animal blood. And if you follow the metaphor... well, we have got a lot of pretty boys who like to fuck bunny rabbits.

Love isn’t sexless. Girls, if you meet a boy who is SO SO pretty that you can’t stand it, and then find out he has “sworn off” his animal instincts, that isn’t the start of a beautiful tragic romance. It is the start of the most boring boyfriend ever.

Kiss The Turkey

2009-11-26T09:29:00.000-08:00

-
Retro Blog: from my journal, Nov 22 2006

If God is a turkey
Life is an oven range
Love is the roasting pan
You are the stuffing

Last year I cooked a turkey alone in my trailer at Ghost Ranch. This year, I am back in California, and that means the wild and crazy boot-scootin Thanksgiving razzmatazz: a ritual of food and fun that my family has, over many many years, completely failed to perfect. Four Thanksgiving meals at four different houses in three different cities. It has been the journey my sister and I have taken since we were young. Now, one could say that it misses the entire point of Thanksgiving, which is that everyone is supposed to come together. But, no, we are the legacy of American divorce, so we have (as the children's books told us) extra parents to love. More holiday chefs than a Mormon compound.

But Thanksgiving, for all of its trappings and all the time spent on the freeway, still gets under my skin. There is nothing more important to me than gratitude--- it is the core of my whole belief system--- and a day dedicated to thankfulness can't help but move me. I suppose most people focus on the parts about food and football and Native Americans and eating pilgrims, but... when you think about it, Thanksgiving is the only holiday left that hasn't been turned into nothing but a marketing event. It isn't commercial; it is still human. It isn't about what people buy for each other, it is about what they DO for one another: cooking, entertaining, getting together and sharing. Halloween is good for drinking and being ridiculous (which I guess is the other core of my belief system), and then Thanksgiving is all about the deeper message. And then, of course, it is followed by the horror that is Christmas. So for me, Thanksgiving is essentially the end of the holiday season. I got all my eggs in one basket. (that's right, Easter. Suck it.)

If you are reading this blog, you've got a hundred million things to be grateful for. Even in the hardest times. Its a beautiful world, my friends. Take the time to tell it so.

Don't just eat, dear ones. Eat like you mean it.
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Chuck Klosterman Can Suck My Cock. (If He Wants To.)

2009-07-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know that this blog usually wants to be dirty and wicked and funny, and lately I have been more serious. (and a little more absent. Um…sorry. The truth is that I just do not love you.) And I promise more nitty gritty sex talk with lots of judgment and creative euphemisms in the very near future. But not today.

A few weeks ago I got to listen to a mother and daughter who were trying on dresses. The daughter, mid-teens, was pretty excited to be getting a new dress (for the Renaissance Fair! Precious.) and had it narrowed down to one dress in two different colors. And her mother was clearly trying to do a good job of teaching her progressive thought techniques; she would ask her daughter to look at the two dresses, imagine herself in the future wearing the green one, then imagine herself in the future wearing the blue one, and which one made her feel better? I think at one point she even asked her daughter to close her eyes and visualize herself in each of the dresses. It was all very thoughtful. It was all very sincere. And I wanted so much to step in and save the poor girl from the rotten thing that was being done to her.

The poor girl just got more and more tense and frustrated. Of course she did. Because her mother, with the best of intentions, was trying to teach her something useless: The idea that even the most trivial decisions are vitally important, that you should put lots of energy into casual choices, and most of all, the Big Lie that so many of us embrace: that in everything we do, one thing is RIGHT and the alternative is WRONG.

Here is another one which has been on my mind; I’m about to leave on a two month long performance tour with an amazing person, and we will be in the car together for a couple of hundred hours in that time. And so there is some level of high stakes involved in weather or not we like the same music. Luckily we do… mostly. A lot of it, actually. But some of the things I love the most, the music that I not only like but LOVE and am inspired by and feel deeply in my soul… she cannot stand the shit. I mean, she not only isn’t interested, she dislikes it enough that it bothers her to have it on. It hurts her brain.

I relate. I find piano jazz to be not just boring, but actively grating. Last week, one of my friends quite literally passed out from shock when she learned that I pretty much hate reggae. (and yes, I took advantage of her. Because that is what men do.)

Many years ago, I made a firm choice that I was not going to be one of the fuck-face douche-lickers who treat personal taste as a matter of righteous rage. I can give a fuck whether or not someone likes Battlestar Galactica, or They Might Be Giants, or the profound and deeply amazing works of Eliza Dushku. Sure, I have more fun with people who love the same things I do, but I don’t think that anyone is shallow or wrong or (worst of all) stupid for liking things that are different from what I like.

I do think it is revealing, though. It is amazing--- not sarcastically "amazing", but really fascinating and curious--- to me that something which is so beautiful to me can be the opposite to someone else. I like to be reminded that people are truly, substantially different. Not just superficially, but all the way down to the bones. Modern psychology and modern culture are so fucking dedicated to the idea that there is a THING which is CORRECT. That everyone needs to be shooting for the same kind of relationship. That sex should be vigorous and cinematic and everything else is deviant. Even the idea that “great art” is “universal” is one that offends me.

A lot of people throw around one of the world’s worst euphemisms, which is the word “Healthy.” A Healthy Relationship. A Healthy Self Image. A Healthy Lifestyle. It’s all just code for I Am Right And You Are Bullshit Until You Act Like Me.

The Big Lie, I think, is that we all want the same thing. We don’t. We don’t want the same music or food, we don't want the same weather or literature, we sure as hell don't want the same bodies or faces or lifestyles or orgasms.

My entire life I was raised with the idea that the only way to be happy is to be constantly looking inside of myself, constantly examining what I feel and correcting myself for whatever it is that makes me feel badly.

It is bullshit. Yes, you have to know yourself. It takes some work to be honest. But it takes just as much work to make sure that your eyes are focused outward, because the world outside of your brain is a billion times more beautiful and complex and breathtaking and interesting that thinking your own same thoughts over and over. You've got to be honest about what you feel, but every single thought about what you should feel is useless to everyone living on the whole entire planet.

The way to be is to BE. Enjoy what you enjoy. Hate what you hate. Love who you love. Masturbate with whatever embarrassing object you like. Try to get it on with every single person you are turned on by, and if that person don’t make you happier, tell them to fuck off.

Or don’t. Enjoy being miserable. If that is what you want, who am I to tell you that you are “supposed” to be happy?

It's Fun To Have Sex With Other Humans

2009-07-20T14:53:00.000-07:00

Recently a friend and I discussed the possibility of people dating outside of their Attractiveness Strata. What do you do if you are only attracted to people who are better looking than you are? Do you go for it? Or do you adjust your expectations and try to make do with the people who are within your own sexual class?

Overall, my advice is pretty simple: go for it. Always always go for it.

The reason I can say that with confidence is because there is no actual damage in going after anyone. It doesn’t hurt you. Getting rejected is a great deal less painful than hiding in a corner and wishing you were thinner.

And it isn’t like you always have loads of people you have to choose between. On any given day, the odds are damn slim that that you have stumbled across a single, available person whose gender and sexuality matches up to yours. So you might as well play for the win every chance that you get.

But I do think that people hurt themselves sometimes by limiting who they are willing to consider. There are a lot of areas of life where folks have a tendency to confuse what they think they want with what they actually want. If you want to fuck someone pretty, then that is perfectly fine, and just like in the children’s books, you can probably get it done if you believe in yourself. (this from the popular children’s book “Andy The Anteater Totally Gets Himself Some Hot Poon”)

But what you really want is someone who is going to give you the kind of relationship (or just the kind of sex) that you want. And for that, you want to cast a wide net. Talk to people for a bit. Get to know them a little. The key phrase here is A LITTLE. It doesn’t take much time (I’m talking a few minutes) to know what someone is like. If you aren’t turned on, then shift gears and move on to better hunting. But I think, in EITHER direction --- either too hot or not hot enough--- you’re making a mistake if you rule anyone out without at least throwing out some feelers, and seeing what they do with them.

The most interesting thing about this topic is how it came to me to begin with: the person who originally asked me “do you think I go for people who are too hot for me?” did so after she had gone on a series of dates with people that she was not turned on by. She didn’t like them, and somehow she suspected it was because SHE was not attractive enough.

About 90 percent of dating stress comes from self-sabotage. The weird and happy truth is this: whatever you are doing, you probably aren’t doing anything wrong. Dating is a game of chance, you win when luck says you’re gonna win, and mostly you just have to figure out a way to keep from driving yourself brain-crazed in the process.

It doesn’t matter how pretty or perky or petite you are: there is never a good reason not to go for what you want the most. Maybe you aren’t a stunner who can have anyone (hint: there is no such person.) Maybe you ARE in a lower class of lookers, and maybe the number of people who will be attracted to you is fewer than your smooth skinned, trampy pal. It doesn’t matter. The only thing you should ever ask yourself is who is good enough for YOU.

Also, you’re sexier than you think. I promise.

The Discreet Charm Of The Cheating Bastard

2009-05-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

So I wanted to take a day here and expand on what I like to think of as “The Rules For Cheating.” These are not instructions for how to cheat, and certainly not instructions for how to cheat and get away with it. They are more a set of rules for how people need to behave in relation to cheating, if they want to live healthy and productive lives in the process. And by “live healthy and productive lives” I mean “not annoy the fuck out of me.”

There is really no reason people can’t live relatively happy lives either as a cheater or with a cheater--- or with a cheater as a friend, sister, boss, priest, therapist, etc.--- provided that some guidelines are followed. I’ve never been able to make a firm decision about whether or not cheating is to be taken seriously. I can’t answer the big questions: is monogamy some kind of moral imperative, or a necessary peace-keeping social agreement, or a misogynistic mind-fuck designed entirely around the belief that women are property. (a belief that is alive and well, thank you, in every single culture on earth.)

What I do know is that ALMOST EVERYONE cheats. And almost everyone is the victim of cheating. And that very very few people who have cheated ever, ever feel that they have done anything wrong. You could chalk that up to the human capacity for denial, but when almost everyone is in agreement on a point (i.e. it is correct and necessary for me to fuck other people) it is hard not to be tempted to believe it.

Also, before I present the rules, I will admit that I had some pretty spectacular episodes of cheating when I was younger. And I will never do it again, not because of any philosophy but because 1) it is too hurtful and I don’t like to hurt people, 2) having to tell a lot of lies causes your life to get very boring very quickly, and 3) there are plenty of other reasonable and honest alternatives.

Okay, so these are the rules I have so far, presented in no order whatsoever, except for the first one being the most important:

1) If you lie about it, it is cheating. There is no need for a grey area. Whether it is emails, snuggling, a little bit of head, or a gentle ass-fucking, if you LIE to your partner about it, you cheated on them.

2) If your lover cheats on you once, and you stay together or get back together, then you have shown a respectable degree of maturity and faith. If your lover cheats on you twice and you stay with them or get back together with them, you have given them permission to cheat on you as much as they want for the rest of your life.

3) Rule number 2 is not cancelled if you marry the cheater: it is doubled. If he fucked your best friend and you marry him, you can’t act all shocked and betrayed when you come home and find him bush-deep in your sister.

4) If you got caught cheating and you broke up, then that is THE reason you broke up. You don’t get any other reasons. If someone says “why did you break up?” and you answer by telling them about how difficult the relationship was, you are a liar. It is like carpet-bombing a town, and then claiming that you don’t live there because it has bad mail service.

5) If you DID NOT get caught cheating and you break up, have the goddamned decency not to tell them you cheated on them.

Here, I need to make a very important aside: if you get it on with someone, and then immediately break up with your partner (within one or two weeks) then I think you are not a cheater. Yes, it sucks, yes, it is not ideal. But you did so much better than almost everyone else that you should buy yourself an ice cream. Just please have the decency to never tell your ex-partner what you did. (this rule only applies if it was your first time. If you have been cheating for a few months or years as a way of shopping around for your next S.O., then you are pretty much the worst kind of cheater. You should not date anymore. Buy a cat. And fucking feed it, you selfish douchenozzle.)

And yes, to address the counter-argument: in this case, it is much much better if they find out from someone else. It is a fuck load better to find out someone lied to you and fucked you over than to have them tell you to your face how much they don’t care about you. Let your break-up be a nice, happy lie. You owe it to the poor chump you are casting off.

The following rules address friends and family:

1) You can’t really expect your friends to cover up your cheating. Sorry. If you are going to cheat on your boyfriend and your friends know, then you can’t bring your boyfriend to parties anymore. It is not nice.
2) I’m going to keep the same rule for friends as for lovers: if your friend cheats once, then they really do deserve sympathy and support and understanding. If they continue to cheat, then you should no longer feel responsible to treat their relationship as though it is serious or meaningful.
3) This one is painful, but true: loyalty is a character trait, not a special bonus prize for the favorite. If your friend is regularly lying to their mate, then they will absolutely lie to you too. Any time it suits them. Never doubt it.
4) If your friend is openly cheating, they are doing it because they enjoy it. It is not a betrayal of trust for you to tell ANYONE, no matter who, about all of their cheating. That is what they are hoping for, that is the drama they lust after. (it is a different story if you have promised them confidence: of course you shouldn’t break a secret if you got it by promising to keep it secret. But if the person in question is flaunting their cheating ways, then NO ONE is responsible for not talking about it.)
5) You should not ever tolerate your friend getting offended because you insult their virtue, or their honesty, or their relationship. I truly do believe that you can have a respectful, loving, and supportive relationship with someone who is a cheater. But you are under no obligation to play into their make-believe. Relationships, including friendships, should be honest or not exist at all.

And that is the crux of the matter. Relationships that are not honest are stagnant, they are hurtful, and most of all they are boring. But there is something important to remember here: it isn’t your place to judge anyone else’s relationship with ANYONE. It isn’t your job to cover up for them, but it also isn’t your role to go fix part of their life that has nothing to do with you. Don’t mess around with grown people’s business. You aren’t going to be the wise miracle savior who makes their relationship better and purifies their soul. You are just going to become one more shallow part of a shallow drama. Don’t do that to yourself. You deserve better.
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We Now Return To Your Regularly Scheduled Human Being

2009-05-21T23:07:00.000-07:00

The vicious cycle of depression isn't that hard to understand. (otherwise called The Downward Spiral, or to those of us who are too familiar with it, just "the spiral") It goes something like this: you have a couple of days during which you don't feel very good and are not thinking very clearly. During those days, you probably do one or two stupid things, like being cranky with your friends or calling in sick to work. Then you feel bad about the bad thing you did, which makes you even more sad. And because you are depressed, you overreact to the bad thing you did, so you try to apologize to your friend, and she probably looks at you like you are a little bit crazy and has no idea what you are talking about, which makes you think... damn, she must REALLY be mad at me to be acting so weird. Which makes you be more needy, and more cranky, and feel worse. And it goes on and on from there. You feel bad, you fuck up, you feel bad for fucking up. Add to that the special treat that, since you are a depressive, you also probably feel bad FOR feeling bad. Which allows that spiral to spin downward very quickly.

And some very perceptive scientific research has identified a consistent symptom of depression which may be the linchpin of the mental part of the disease: the depressive mind can't tell the difference between pain that is temporary and pain that is permanent. It is an inability to distinguish the proportion of things. Sad now means sad forever. Friends being a little bit awkward equals friends hate me.

I fight the downward spiral a lot, and I fight it hard. I am mostly successful. (NOW I am. In years past, it usually got the better of me.) But I am coming clean tonight and admitting that in the past few weeks, I think I have become pretty negative. I've been hazy and awkward and kind of whiny and just... negative. To the point where the people I love have felt awkward being around me. Which causes the spiral to kick in: my friends feel awkward, which makes them act a little awkward, or even (perfectly reasonably) avoid me for a few days, and when I see them doing that, it makes me paranoid and needy and even MORE negative, and a-wash-a-rinse-a-repeat until you have no skin left on your skull.

To me, that is where I draw the line in the sand on depression: when my shit becomes other people's problem. Most of my close friends understand that I can say "hey, I need to go to my room and curl up and be alone with Pearl Jam" and they know I am fine and will be feeling brighter in a few. But when I start behaving in a way where they can no longer tell how much I adore them and am grateful for them, then shit has gone too far. And for the precious and wonderful people who have gotten sprayed by my little raincloud, I truly apologize.

It has gone too far for ME, too. Because that really is not who I am. I may not be someone who is "polite" or "nice" (which, really, who would want that?) but lately I have felt like I am starting to be mean. Just a little, but enough that I want to nip that weed right now. I am not someone who has sympathy for anyone who has a negative attitude about their life, and I damn well sure am not going to tolerate that kind of nonsense from myself. That is not me. I am a warm and happy and loving person. I live for silliness and joy and the big dig for shiny.

So I just want to let people know, I'm coming up out of the cellar. I know it wasn't long, and I am not going to be dramatic and beat myself up about it. (that would be a tricky way to defeat the purpose.) I'm just changing gears, and getting back to basics. Because it is always basics. So, no more Mr. Nice Guy With A Fucking Attitude. Consider the channel changed.

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Dating Advice For Bruce Wayne

2009-05-12T14:03:00.000-07:00

As part of my new series offering advice geared toward important public figures, I offer this dating advice for Bruce Wayne in the hopes that you, too, might find something you can use.

Dear Bruce,

Think you are the billionaire playboy that other billionaire playboys envy? Well, you might just be overlooking some of the little things that keep you from landing that special someone. Don't just glide along while other men fly! Here are a few tips you may be overlooking:

Money and good looks aren’t enough (I know! I’m shocked too!) Cultivate hobbies and personal projects so she knows you aren’t depending on her to make your life meaningful. No girl likes a brooder!

Even a simple girl who loves a nice fire wants to break out and get crazy sometimes. Be ready to get dressed up and have a night out when that’s what she’s asking for. Pay attention to the signals!

If you take her to a big top-floor party, don’t leave her to fend for herself among all the strange men and women in your world. At least check in with her regularly, or you might find some other rascal trying to steal her away from you!

They may not mention it, but women like some attention to personal style. A nice V-neck sweater might win that warm approval that you didn’t even know you needed.

Sure, you have friends, and she understands--- she likes it. But they can’t hang around the house all the time playing on your computer.

Everyone has professional ladders to climb, but if your work responsibilities are leaving you too tired to fulfill her in the sack, you need to think seriously about what is important to you: a bunch of guys in suits? Or building real relationships that will last a lifetime?

Girls may not be as impressed as you’d like with all of your "amazing" toys and gadgets. You don't want her telling her friends about all the junk you keep around the house, do you? Consider having a nice private room set aside so that your more peculiar and child-like things aren’t always on display.

It is important to show you are still friends with your ex, but only up to a point. No woman will put up with you rushing off to answer the call of some dramatic ex-girlfriend who has herself in a bind.

Don’t get discouraged! You won’t be able to keep hold of everyone, but there are plenty of new adventures to take on! And you never know, some of those old flames may come back to take another shot at you. Keep that chin showing! Nobody wins every time they step in to bat.

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How Many Soulmates Does It Take To Sink The Titanic?

2009-05-07T16:44:00.000-07:00

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I've always been very interested in the idea of life having phases. Not just the huge eras, like Middle Age or the mythical Randy Teen-Ager, but the way that life moves over smaller periods--- a few weeks, a few days, a collection of months. The posturing of astrology is all about phases, about trying to assign meaning to periods of time, because it isn't very satisfying to feel like things just happen. I don't find that there is any fun to be had (or any practical use) in trying to predict the phases. But I am always on the lookout for them. I am always looking to assign a pattern. I'm always looking to declare a context.

I bring it up because right now, for myself, I'm pretty much at a loss to name the game. I don't have any sense of what I am about, or what the purpose of this phase in my life is.

I've had a long stretch of not getting any action--- romantic, sexual, casual, serious: none of the above. I won't say how long it has been, except, possibly, to make a note that is has been a much much shorter time than would be indicated by the amount of drama I am about to assign it. But it is pretty rare for me to have nothing going on. Usually there is at least someone, someone who I am flirting with or fooling around with or seducing or even just fantasizing about seducing. (Oh, yes, I am perfectly capable of having these relationships by myself when it is necessary.) There is almost always at least one person who, even if there is not a lick or smooch or tug, there is at least a real possibility that it might be headed in that direction.

But right now, there is nothing. No one. There is no one I am even distantly romantically engaged with, and there is absolutely no one that I have any kind of physical relationship with. And I have got to tell you, it feels awfully strange. Sure, it is lonely, and all that entails: flesh-hunger, fear of being alone permanently, more flesh-hunger, general boredom. But the peculiar thing is, it also makes me feel disconnected from everyone else. Not just from the people I could hypothetically be getting it on with, but also from all the non-sexual, non-romantic people I know: All of my perfectly platonic friends and acquaintances, as well as from other artists, and entertainers, family, strangers...

It feels like all of the other people--- not all of the people in the world, but all of the people I could possibly care about, which is both a large number and a very small percentage--- all of them are riding in a giant ocean liner, cruising the big glorious dangerous fascinating peaceful unpredictable sea. And I am in a little boat riding alongside. I'm perfectly safe and I even have a radio to talk to the people on the cruise ship. And I am absolutely welcome back on the ship any time. But the ship won't stop or slow down to help me get back on board.

I heard last night about a wedding where the bride and groom composed their vows around the story of The Velveteen Rabbit--- that antique children's book about a sadly non-anti-bacterial toy bunny who is made real by the love of a little boy. In the story, the rabbit only actually becomes real after the boy has gone away from him forever, which I think makes it a questionable choice for a wedding. But metaphorical vagueness aside, naturally the idea was that finding true love had finally made them come alive, and all the nonsense that entails.

A single, uninvolved person at this juncture might have occasion to be a little bit offended (if not holy fucking shit outraged) by the idea that we are hard lifeless objects, devoid of actual being, who can only hope that one day we will be pulled out of storage. Pretty mean thinking. But I hate to admit... it doesn't feel entirely unlike that. Of course I have all manner of other things about my life which are rich and beautiful and frankly exhausting: I have writing and performing and incredibly close and intimate friendships and work and drinking and watching porn and cooking food (not at the same time... maybe punctuation would have been a good idea here...) BUT, there is a fundamental part of the human experience in which, right now, on this day, I am not participating. And that is a cold feeling.

It makes me think about older people. People who really are at a time in their life where all of that is over (probably?). It is a little bit terrifying to imagine. One hopes that the solace once you reach that phase of life is that there are other people you know who are in that phase too. But of course the truth is, for some people there are not. Some people really are just alone. I imagine many of them find a way to be content. Actually, it is ridiculous to think I can imagine it at all.

I have to stress that, right now, for me, it is not an overwhelming source of pain. As I said, I am fairly certain that even without regular intervals of my cock getting tenderly hoovered, I do indeed continue to exist. And I am oh-so-constantly aware that by not being in a relationship, I am being spared all kinds of stress and insecurity and expense and logistical complexity. But it feels undeniably strange.

I expect that the reason matters of love get bent and blown far out of proportion is because many people just do not tolerate this feeling well. For a lot of people this would be an emergency situation. For me... yes, it is scary. Yes, it feels sad. But also, it simply is what it is. Whatever the future is going to be, right now, my life is extraordinarily lifelike.

But, you know... if you are up there on the ship, and you happen to see some kind of rope lying around...

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Who Is Doc If Doc Is Not Love

2009-04-20T14:23:00.001-07:00

I just have to say, friends, that I don’t really know what the nature of this ongoing blog is going to be, if indeed there is an ongoing nature. It is all well and good for me to continue ranting and unraveling about my gritty yet idealized notions of love and romance, but there is only so much of that I can do before I am going around in circles. Plus, you know, sometimes I have a bit of that ol’ fashioned feeling of loneliness. Because however much I may get naughty with language and toy around with words like they are an engorged clitoris, I'm not really joking about this stuff. I mean it. I believe it. I have no idea if I have the singular one-and-only correct appraoch; but I surely do believe that the history of Love as a power struggle is a load of unholy crap, and that we are constantly living under the shadow of that history, and that... well, when it comes to the big hard truth, most of the time we are full of shit.

Most people, though, do not believe that. They believe that love is perfect and beautiful and destined and that whatever you do under its influence, you have no control. More important, that you are not responsible. And even if they do not beleive that, it seems like most people cannot get behind my Big Fat Idea that when it comes to SEX and LOVE, it is ONLY worth it if it makes you greater--- stronger, happier, more empowered--- and not less. And you aren't less responsible in matters of love. You are far, far more responsible.

Or to put it another way: I don't know if I have ever met anyone who feels, as I do, that love itself simply is not a virtue. Love isn't God. It isn't an umbrella to catch and shield. It is just a word that describes a particular combination of ideas. Like Physics. In fact, almost exactly like Physics. Except that math doesn't work on it.

I don't know if it is the big fat TRUUUTH. But it is the honest-to-goddess way that I experience the world.

So it is easy to feel that what I am doing is… well, whatever the opposite of “Preaching To The Choir” is. I guess that would be preaching to the congregation. And much like a congregation in a dark ol church, people may sit and listen, but no one has any intention of making any effort to change their relationship with god.

Writing advice is a bit of an evangelical act. And writing the sex and love blog has turned out to be a lot the same as writing my old personal diary blog was--- all this being public makes me feel a lot more alone. Because normally I can go through the world kind of feeling what I believe and thinking in small general bursts about what I believe. But actually sitting down, thinking it through, writing it out, going into detail… it just makes me so acutely, intensely aware of how much what I believe is nothing like what other people believe. How much what I WANT is different from what other people want. And that isn’t a problem because I an anxious about people reading the blog and disagreeing with it. Of course they will. That doesn’t cause me pain.

What does cause pain is taking a look at everything I feel and want and believe about love and sex and life on the plus-one side of things, and then comparing that to the wants and beliefs of most everyone I have ever met. And realizing that, wow, if the goal is to find someone who shares the same values…. Then I am in a deep, deep valley of distance.

Basically, writing a blog about love makes me all too aware of how unlikely it is that I, personally, will ever find it.

I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just considering that if I am going to keep doing this (which I am) then the subject matter is going to have to be a hell of a lot more broad. Because day after day of focusing (albeit in a roundabout way) on all of the things which will most likely keep me cooking permanent dinners for one, that might be just too much of a weight to carry for a side-project.

So that is me checking in. Ol’ Doc might be going through some re-branding. But never you fear: no matter what I am writing, you can be pretty sure it will include entertainingly judgmental tantrums about how other people should be living their lives. Including, and especially, you.
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2009-04-13T14:29:00.000-07:00

4-13-09

There are a million thousands of them and only one of me.
they hide, sometimes right on the television where
No one will suspect that they are real.
They sometimes appear in numbered formation. usually they
Ramble about slouched and barely awake in front of the mirror.
They pause too long and too often. They rarely drive at an appropriate speed.

Even the ones who pretend to be gentle are almost always
Concealing secret hostility. They talk about your mother’s cooking
Claiming to know all of her temperatures, all of her spices.
They punch you in the face with their wisdom and dare you
Not to take it seriously.
Taking it seriously is the most dangerous thing you can do.
They claim they want to share.
What they want is for you to carry the trinkets they’re afraid to throw out.

Like most things, people recognize you by how you look.
They see where one part of you stops and the next begins
And assign value based on how well you are broken.
I want to be known by my rambling vastness.
I want to be judged by where I do not pause.
You can tell the path in the woods because
Nothing grows on it. It makes it smooth to walk.
I claim my birthright as a squirrel.
I choose fingernails stained with the blood of climbed trees.
I want to shove it all in my cheeks
Spit it back half chewed just as things start to get cold
Get clean get all polished oh how I hate the stink of your polish.
I’ll let you see what I am instead of how well I reflect.
Working to remove flaws is working to eradicate trust.
To love beauty is to live for sadness.

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Sleeper

2009-04-11T15:53:00.001-07:00

4-11-09

Here is the thing about sleeping: you can hear everything. This has been proven by science. You think that sleep is like a switch being turned to off, but it is nothing like that at all. The little electrical picture of your brain is still all lit up, and when someone says your name, or puts down a teacup near you, the lights flare up brighter. Except one little part, one little corner near the back of your brain, which is the corner which decides if you are awake or not. When it says you are, the other lights in your brain carefully move around you. They keep thinking. They keep deciding what is true and what isn’t. They keep choosing people to be in love with and different people to imagine sex with, and a dog you had once for six months before you realized that you weren’t that generous of a person, and one of the characters from your favorite television show who, no matter how much you pretend otherwise, you do not know how to tell apart from a real person in your life. Your brain has clever systems to decide what is a threat and what is not a threat and what may be a threat but is less important than being awake tomorrow.

You hear the traffic outside the window, if you live on a street with traffic. I live on the main street of my city and sometimes I forget to close my window but my mind is nice to me, nice enough to pretend that it doesn’t hear anything, sirens and old brakes and the way that just moving air aside is impossibly loud. Laughter in the living room that I do not know the cause of and would not know how to be a part of, my brain chooses not to let me know it is hearing. Your mind chooses to flip itself over and care more about what you imagine than what is real. It lets you care more about what you wish you remembered, instead of what you do.

A lover laying next to your can pour words into your ear while you sleep, and without knowing you are deciding, you decide, whether to pretend to be asleep, or to be asleep. If you pretend you can listen to the secret things they want to say to you, and they will say things they never say when you are awake because those things are too tender and to say them is to enter a permanent state of holding your breath. Or you will choose to stay asleep. You will still hear everything. You will simply stay silent to yourself, because your body needs to rest and your mind stands guard and when your lover whispers in your ear it lets you believe that this is not a threat.

This Is Not A Meme

2009-04-06T15:21:00.000-07:00

Twelve Points Of Interest (about myself):

1. There are only 129 thoughts in my head, which I rearrange into different configurations to create the impression of great depth and complexity. I do not know if this number is higher or lower than average, or if perhaps there is a different system I am not familiar with.

2. I love poetry precisely because I am utterly unenchanted with it. I have no intrinsic love for what it is, what it looks like, what it represents. Every individual poem has to earn my love from scratch. Especially those I write myself.

3. Sometimes I regret my good sense of direction, because I am enraptured by the feeling of being lost.

4. I love my body very much the way it is. I do not find it gross or offensive. I want to lose weight because of the relentless prejudice, but I will miss the weight when it is gone. At least I will still have the beautiful, unfashionable hair.

5. When I perform among poets I feel like an imposter. In a good way. I like getting away with it. I think poetry is the opposite of what I am. Poetry is all about honing down to the most distilled idea. Everything good thing I have ever uttered is the result of an unnecessary tangent.

6. I hate jokes. I love it when people are funny, but when they start to “tell a joke” my heart sinks. Listening to a joke feels exactly like being stuck in traffic.

7. I am lost in love for someone who will never have any idea how deeply I want them. Even though I tell them regularly. I think my love for them will haunt me for as long as I am alive.

8. I have a Little Mermaid valentine’s day card, in pink with glitter, up on the wall at my workplace desk. I placed it behind the computer tower where I can see it but no one else can. This accurately sums up my relationship to the everyday world.

9. My mother told me that when I grew more mature, I would stop identifying personally with inanimate objects. I’m older now. My car is named Stella and I think of her as a lover.

10. The way things get divided into tens makes me sleepy. Especially lives. Thinking of myself as “in my thirties” just confuses me and others. I want to start describing my life in eras, like they do with dinosaurs.

11. I can think of two women and one man who I met only once, and have had a relentless crush on ever since. I do not know if this is normal, but it somehow makes me feel very wicked.

12. I am starting, for the first time, to really understand how useless it is to evaluate my life in terms of what I don’t have. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. The fifth surprise is that there is no fifth surprise.

(12.5. Sometimes at work, as I walk by the mannequins, I give them a gentle caress. It is embarassing. But it is necessary. We're in this thing together, after all.)

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Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Fucking Me Until Sunday.

2009-04-04T16:42:00.001-07:00

Hello, friends and lovers. I am back again, in my own precious industrial voice (not my vaguely-awake wandering poet voice) to offer the advice that makes your sexy sexy world go round. Yes, I am leaping back into the Blog fray, and I think it is time to make a commitment. If you stick with me, I will stick with you, okay? Check back at least once or twice a week and I will give you new thoughts to get your brain noodling and make your genitals smarter.

The question today is less of the how and more of the who. How do you choose WHO?

We should all be so lucky as to have more than one potential lover knocking on our pants. (or even…*sniff*…our hearts) and sometimes when I even hear the question it makes me angry. Like, who the frak are you to complain about having too much affection and too many hot sweaty bodies to choose from? But in truth I think that we all face this question at least a few times in our lives. (and, secretly, we face it constantly) Which one do I go with? The safe and stable home muffin? The sexy scary orgasm warrior who will probably break you? Or the sensitive smarty who makes you laugh like crazy but maybe doesn’t do it for you in the “oh-I-wish-I-weren’t-so-shallow” physical attraction marathon? There are a thousand different flavors and sometimes it is all a body can do not to grab and handful of dice, throw them in the air, and make a run for it while everyone else is looking down and counting.

This applies equally to choosing a long term partner as it does to choosing a two-night stand* or a sordid end-of-the-season fling. I’m pretty dedicated to the belief that the process for making those choices is the same: the process to choose a fuck, a lover, a partner, a friend, an employer, they all are basically the same. You gotta ask yourself the same questions.

A lot of people devote a lot of thought to this. They weigh the options. They make lists. They talk around and around in circles until everyone (most of all themselves) are sick to death of hearing about it. And then there are just as many who simply stumble forward with Frankenstein-like grace and hope to face-plant into the best bed-mate.

My advice for this is spot-on simple: go for the person who fuckin’ steps up to the plate.

You can spend all the time you want weighing the features and profiles. But relationships never ever some down to what you think about the other person. They don’t even come down to how much you want them. It comes down to what they actually do. What you do to each other.

So that is your answer. You decide what kind of relationship you want, and then you take the person who is offering you that. Right now. Not the person you hope will maybe offer it, or who you think you might be able to convince. And what they offer, it doesn’t have to match up perfectly with your perfect image. But I say, twelve-and-a-half times out of thirteen, you are going to get the biggest payoff if you go for the one who GOES for it. The one who STEPS UP and makes you an offer, front and center, balls and bagels.

If you find yourself wondering a lot “I really dig so-and-so but I don’t know what he wants…” then throw that weight overboard. Anyone worth being with will let you know what they want. Or at the very least, when you show them what YOU want, they will have the guts to take you up on it. Or to turn you down right and proper. It works both ways. If you make a clean firm offer and the person you are talking to waffles and wimbles and wants to think about it--- take your toys and go home. Tell them to give you a call when they have grown a set of reproductive organs.*

That’s all. That’s my whole system. Anyone who is half-assed going into the bedroom is going to be half-assed in the bedroom. And no matter who you are, what you look like, what you THINK your options are… there is ALWAYS, friends, ALWAYS a better use for your time than fucking someone who doesn’t mean business.

-------------
COMING SOON:

Orgasm Theater: Hey, You’re Missing The Best Part!

Making Love More Like Science Fiction (aka The Sonic Screwdriver)

Creepy Toys You Both Can Uneasily Enjoy

*I've decided to start promoting the Two Night Stand as the gold standard for meaningless sex. One night is just not enough risk to be fun.

**Yes, I recommend you use these exact words. It turns people on. Usually.

Groundhog Day

2009-04-03T21:49:00.000-07:00

4-3-09

At the end of winter,
I poked my head out to look at my shadow and
Yes, she was totally my type.
It barely took half a clever line to get her to come
back down into the hole with me
We shared poems, travel stories
and sex, the kind that you are not supposed to like
the kind that is sleepy and happy
the kind that hums instead of screams.

-

Things That Skunks Like

2009-04-02T23:29:00.000-07:00

4-2-09

Things That Skunks Like

Lettuce.
Other skunks.
Skunk Blogs.
Coveralls.
Theorizing about Skunk subtext in
non-skunk movies.
High-Fives.
Harmonicas.
Failblog.
Leaping upon their lover in a sudden
spate of untamed kisses and giggles.
Rasputin.
Your face.
The L Word.
Claiming that celebrities are
secretly skunks, even if they wouldn't
have a chance with them anyway.
Xena/Skunk Fanfiction.
Skunk activism.

-

Poem One Of Thirty

2009-04-01T22:48:00.001-07:00

Lots of people (I am made to understand) are writing one poem a day (at least) every day for the month of April. These are posted unedited in their first draft.

4/1/09

There might be more, but if there is
we never seem to find it.
More quarters can lead to more games, more sips of sweet,
more candy, more voices across metal wires.
She told me to submit but I think she was
just asking me to use more punctuation--
like many before her, she believed that she would like me better with
more shape, that conducting me would be like
conducting a woodwind section and not like electricity.
But I keep those urges to myself,
the ones that tempt me to tell the naked people next to me
what their skin makes me feel, what I think, what wants bring
me. I don't tell people what words rattle loudest.
Never. I don't know who does or if anyone does

what I imagine is the best thing
but I like layers of meaning inside layers of meaning which
is more to say
that I like the trickery of honesty. I like
the way it worms. How you can use
truth like glass to bend light,

with the right true words you can make
anything a more convenient size.
Perspective is a tasty weapon.
You can hold true in front of bigger true and hide it.
You can wrap it around
things that are tiny and make them
big enough to hold, to raise, to throw.

--

The Beast Wants You To Eat It

2008-12-01T21:09:00.000-08:00

So, the question on the table tonight is timeless. And by timeless I mean cliche. Not that cliche is anything to be embarrassed about; when it comes to love and sex and the business of soulmating, sometimes it is just a question of finding the right cliche for you.

The question is this: How do you tell the difference between actually falling in love, and just wanting to be in love?

That one is a kicker. So many others have already given so many useless answers to it. But it just so happens that I have a couple of feelings on this very topic. I can certainly let you know without reservation that if you are asking the question, you are asking the wrong question.

The answer from square one is yes, you just want to be in love. That is how you got yourself into whatever embarrassing and, hopefully, sticky naked mess you find yourself in. You want to be in love. Everyone you date, everyone you fuck, you want to be in love with them. Even if you can't imagine it ever happening, even if you already hate the person and know that loving them would be the grossest, stupidest, most time-wasting trash walk of your life, part of you still just wants to be in love. We can only thank the great busty Goddess above that most of the time, it doesn't happen.

But here you are; you've got someone, and you can't stop thinking about them, and they are making you talk in circles, and dream of a stupid boring future together, and touch yourself in naughty ways. And you want to know if it is love. "REAL" love. The Big Fat Thing that everyone is always fucking talking about.

There is no such thing. There is no "actually" falling in love.

I've written about it a lot. I know. But it's not for nothing that this is so important to me. This isn't just a matter of correct vocabulary. I'm not just being one of those self-righteous pricks who corrects people's grammar. It is actually important. That insidious little phrase "In Love" is a sneaky mind fuck, and the purpose of it is to try and give yourself cover to do things that are not good for you, or not smart, not moral, or whatever other self-punishing shite it is you want to get away with. People want to use "In Love" as a reason to ignore what they already KNOW is the right thing to do. Oh, ain't we all just in love, ain't we all just helpless.

But you always choose it. You choose who you are going to pursue, you choose who you are going to fuck, and you choose who you are going to open up and love. We all do. We go for the people who make us feel the most safe, the most stimulated, the most smart or turned on or validated or free. Or, if you want to be icy true about it, it is even more humiliating: we pretty much go for the people who we think are going to go for us. That's the dirty secret of coupling. You want to fuck the person who you think WILL fuck you. You fall in love with the person who you think might love you back.

The trouble is, once you let those feelings start rolling, no one fucking knows how to stop them. Even if the situation is hopeless, even if you really should know it is over. Once your little hormone response system has got it wired that Billy would be a good fuck, it is almost impossible to turn that switch off.

And the point of all that? Just as useless as every other answer to the question in question. Which is that, yes, you choose it because you want it and yes, you don't have any control over it. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he is fucking you in the ass.

But being not in control gives you so much power. Because how you feel will take care of itself. And you can focus all of your energy on what you DO.

There are questions you CAN ask that are actually useful. Like this:
Is this person honest with me?
Do I feel happy when I am with them?
When I am NOT with them, does knowing them still make me happy?
Do they want the same kind of sex that I want?
Do they share as much as I do?
Do they want to SEE me as often as I want to see them.

And on and on. And just so you know, we don't grade on a fucking curve. If the answer to ANY of the above questions is "No," then you get to trash the poor sod wasting your time and go molest a newer, fluffier bunny.

Whenever anyone starts asking questions about "In Love" or "Real Love" or the like, what I think they are really asking for is just permission. Permission to go for what they want, to make a real shot for the person they dig, OR permission to lose some half-mate who they kind of like but mostly fear they can't do better. Whichever is the case, it is a waste of time. No matter how many people give you permission to do what you know is what you want, you still are going to have to find the balls to do it yourself.

So you have my permission. Permanently. If you need more specific permission, please, write to me, call me if you have my number, and I will tell you specifically why you have permission and why anyone who says different can suck my modest cock. In the meantime know this:

You don't ever have to figure out what is right. You don't have to figure out what you "really" feel. We are blessed with the miracle of having been created by evolution, and because of that we are WIRED so that what we WANT is the same thing as what we NEED. So go for what you want. It doesn't matter if it is real by some esoteric, poetic standard. If you want it, then go after it. If going after what you want means shoving off some dead weight, then that may be more complicated, but it doesn't change the principle. Pursue what you desire. If you don't get it, then look around and find something else you desire. And take off running, jaws wide open.

Sound exhausting? Good. Because just as God gave us the gift of evolution, you can give yourself the greatest gift of your life: rid yourself of the idea that you will ever be satisfied. Love isn't something you get to slip into and enjoy. It is something you get to chase and spear and eat and chase again.

Don't wait for permission. You know what you want. Start hunting.

--
--

Edward Cullen Can Suck My Cock

2008-11-19T12:56:00.000-08:00

Something terrible and threatening is approaching, and it has inspired me to come out of hiding and return to the Blog, after a long and unexcused hiatus. The terrible threat to us all that is arriving? Yes, it is the movie Twilight.

I know that Twilight is not new. And I know that there are more than a few crimes committed by the novel in question; the overuse of adverbs alone may qualify as a civil rights violation. (really, Stephanie, there is no need ever to use the words “whispered quietly.”) And also, I am a vampire fan. I am a SERIOUS vampire fan. I did no fewer than SIX independent study courses in college on vampire mythology, so both my Vamp-Love and my total Dork-wad credentials are firm.

With all that in mind; I HATE the modern Young Adult Fiction creation of the Vampire as a sexless, self-righteous, pretty-boy-with-no-testosterone cock tease. It makes me want to scream. It isn’t just stupidly shallow, it is also deeply anti-feminist and, worse, simply dishonest.

It would be different if there was any disguise to the fact that “bloodlust” is just a metaphor for regular lust. But it is, and always has been. Drinking blood stands in for fucking. And in this story (as in Buffy, I'm sorry to say, and many others) the “hero” is required to swear off the drinking of blood in order to be "good". Yes, Edward Cullen is a pretty boy who has sworn never ever to commit the sin of having sex with a poor helpless girl. And it is bullshit.

It is bullshit because sex isn’t evil, and it isn’t something that a boy does to a girl, and it doesn’t drain you of life and free will and decency. More importantly, it is bullshit because it is bullshit: it is an lie. In real life, when people fall in love, they get physical. The make out. They see each other naked. They touch each others bottoms (it's true!). And these stories are here to tell you that if you do that (which everyone does) you are nasty nasty bad bad. The real hero of these stories isn’t the Male Vampire who has so nobly given up blood/sex/maleness. The hero is the girl, who is SO passionate, so sensitive, so special, but still has such a very very clean vagina.

That isn’t something to look up to. You don’t get to walk around being all proud of how passionate AND how chaste you are. Chastity is for chumps. Passion is sex. Passion is touch. Yes, there is a kind of passion that is platonic and not about fucking, but that isn’t what these stories are about. These stories are about the ancient, hateful little idea that REAL love is only love without sex. That the BEST love is love where you keep your little cold genitals firmly clamped down.

But in real life, girls fall for pretty sparkly boys, and then they FUCK them. That is the way it should be. No, you don't have to do the full penis-in-pussy action. But that is the message of these books: ANY sex is bad sex. Heavy petting may as well be slitting your throat. Anything that involves anything beyond staring mournfully at your "lover" is forbidden. But girls in real life, they deserve to get lubed up and pleasured. Even if it breaks their hearts. Even if it is sticky and painful and dangerous. To love someone without getting physical isn't noble, it is silly and childish. Luckily, in real life, it doesn't happen. Which is why these books are not just shallow, they are a bit dangerous. Because real girls in real life ARE making out with their boyfriends. They are getting fingered and enjoying it. And Stephanie Meyer is here to tell you that you should be ashamed of yourself.

I do understand that these characters are in high school. I have news from the world, friends: by high school, our sex lives are in full swing. A thousand years of trying to deny it hasn't made it any less true.

Twilight goes beyond the fairy tale as wish fulfillment. It is a sneaky little parable about the virtue of sexual repression, where real love-- the kind that includes fingers in holes and tounges on nipples and genitals drenched in fluids--- real love is considered a form of evil. It’s hard for me to think of any idea more mean spirited than the idea that all girls should be looking for a boy who would never dare let his animal side loose on her.

Not to mention, the men in these stories pretty much always substitute human blood with animal blood. And if you follow the metaphor... well, we have got a lot of pretty boys who like to fuck bunny rabbits.

Love isn’t sexless. Girls, if you meet a boy who is SO SO pretty that you can’t stand it, and then find out he has “sworn off” his animal instincts, that isn’t the start of a beautiful tragic romance. It is the start of the most boring boyfriend ever.

--

God Put That Rock There For A Reason

2008-07-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

We indulge today in a one-time Re-Post to introduce new readers, and refresh the old ones who still aren't quite up to speed.

***********

Okay and hello. My name is David, most people who care call me Doc, and I am fat, very sexy, wicked funny, I frequently know what I am talking about, and I like to be called dirty names.

Now, let us immediately get down to business:

If you are over the age of fourteen and you do not masturbate, you are missing the point of being alive.

This goes especially for girls, who I frequently ask if they touch their little kitten or not, and I am shocked, shocked!, by how many of them say they can't be bothered. Sisters, in this day and age, you cannot claim to be an empowered woman if you depend on anyone else's fingers to get you wet.
But I'm not just picking on girls here. I understand there are lots of people both of the boy and girl type who don't give themselves the shudders. And whatever the reason is---
...it may be because you are embarrassed,
or some twisted old Christian has made you think it is forboden by a big cop in the sky,
or because you are married and you think you are done with all that...
--- whatever the reason is, I think that if you don't stroke your fireplace at least every now and again, you are estranged far and away from the purpose of your birth. Which is to squeeze as much enjoyment as possible out of this impossibly cruel ride we call life.

If you do it and you just lie about not doing it, then... well, you and I can have words about that later. For now, I'm glad you are at least a stowaway on our happy little boat.

I want you to have pleasure. Oh yes, I do. I want you to have pleasure because I care about you. Also, because I don't want you to lose your shit on the waitress who brought you sauteed instead of steamed veggies. That makes me tense. And then I have to masturbate more. And there is only so much time in my already full whacking day.

But mostly, I want you to give yourself pleasure for the following two reasons:

ONE: If you don't masturbate, you have no idea who you are, or what is in your brain, and therefore you are not contributing your proper share to the evolution of humankind.

TWO: In the likely event that you and I hook up some day, I don't want to waste the first six months of our relationship teaching you what you like and don't like. Of course I will do it if I have to--- I mean, we're here already, aren't we. I'm not going to kick of you of bed for failing to eat your own crackers. But if at all possible, I want to get down to the dirty hardcore right away. If for no other reason than your boyfriend will probably be home any minute.

I don't think that sex is everything, and I don't think that orgasms are everything about sex. Far from it. And I don't like to judge people on single characteristics--- I understand that there are hip country music fans, and that there are un-mentally-retarded republicans, and that there are a very, very small number of people who don't like Buffy The Vampire Slayer but aren't killjoy douchebags. But on this one issue, I am pretty firm (oh yes, I went there.):

If you are not masturbating, you not only aren't having as much fun as you SHOULD BE and DESERVE TO BE having, but you are just not carrying your weight when it comes to making the world a better place. And if you don't care about making the world a better place, you still have your own self interest at stake. If you can't practice a little self-discovery when the gratification is so immediate, then where are you going to be when it comes to the real work of a relationship? or even worse, facing and defeating your darker demons?

(the lighter demons you can live with. In fact, feel free to incorporate them into your masturbation. Win win.)

So please: lay down (on your back, for all you first timers: it's much easier) close your eyes, call up a nice little mental picture of that boy or girl you love to look at but would never want to talk to, and do a little poking around down there. There's treasure to be found. There's gold in them there hills.

COMING UP SOON:
Your Soulmate Needs You To Wank It.
Vibrators: Thus Spake Thy Clitoris
Learning To Love Your Gay Sex Fantasies

Naughty Boy

2008-07-02T19:37:00.000-07:00

Well, now, for God's holy sake, it has been just a little bit too long since I have written any words here on this beautiful blog of wisdom and bodily fluids. And I am not going to get off the hook right now, either. Can I tell you that I have an excuse? I can TELL you that. And it is possible it would be true. The honest and confessional truth is that there have been one too many things actually going ON in my life; not that I have been too busy, but there have been a small string of love-and-sex related events that have cropped up over the past 17 days, and as as result I have been afraid to come a'knocking on my blog's back door. I've been worried that if I did write a nice juicy entry, that, try as I might, I would not be able to keep from writing about the real-life things and people who have been at the front of my mind. That I might try to send secret coded messages, little toxic nuggets of passive-aggresive candy. So I have avoided these pages, without even knowing I was doing it.

It is funny, and it speaks to the business of love in at least a roundabout way: because in this case, my fear was truly that I would get up to some kind of mischief behind even my own back. And isn't that why love is so scary? Because when it comes to love and the closely related hunger for flesh, you just can't trust yourself. You can't even trust your own motives. There is no way to tell what kind of mud-drenched and beast-filled jungle your heart will go tromping off into the moment you take your eyes off of it. And once it is out of sight, you have no idea when (or even if) it will come back.

But there is more. There is always more. If life has taught me anything, it is that anything you are avoiding is something of great interest and power. So, yes, my argument for this evening is that my recent avoidance of this blog is just a sign of how fucking good it really is. So take that to bed with you tonight. And in the meantime, I'll get back in the kitchen and start cooking up some new sexy goodness for all you out there in the Land of Confused Cool Lovers and Losers.

Keep your eyes peeled, keep checking back, and while you wait, think of something really, really dirty to do with an American flag and sparklers. Then do it. Preferably in front of children.
-

Matchmaker Matchmaker

2008-06-15T17:41:00.000-07:00

Matchmaker Matchmaker

I've been thinking about it for a long while-- actually, for a few years. Because I have a lot of friends, and beyond friends I know a lot of people, who are in these relationships that started very young, or who are themselves simply very young but in very long term commitments. And at the same time, I know a lot of people like me who are 30something and are, frankly, nowhere near settling down. And I wonder, are they stunting themselves in some way, or am I myself stunted? Is one way better? Is a young person who settles down too soon missing out on vital experience that will make them either A: Happier or B: A better person (I know I am in the minority in believing those two things are closely connected.) In fact, the whole question in general of how long people should stay in relationships or how quickly they should just get on with their life is a big one. A complicated one. And after much deliberation and talking to people and writing and meditation, I have come to the following conclusion:

It really absolutely doesn't matter.

People's relationships, whether they know it or not, are kind of a sidenote to their life. I know that sounds callous or cold or bitter, but I don't mean it that way. But the more I see, the more I see that the mates in a person's life are all kind of the same. Someone who likes skinny, sardonic geeks is going to date skinny sardonic geeks, someone who likes silly and immature is going to date silly and immature, someone who likes dark and manly and solid (in either male or female flavors) is going to hook themselves a dark and manly and solid mate. The differences are pretty cosmetic. The only thing that makes people different is the work they do on themselves, for themselves.

There are patterns, but those patterns don't change with quantity. If a girl has a missing father issue, she will play it out the same way whether it is with one man or with 5. If a boy suffers from Peter Pan syndrome, he can get nurtured and supported for 6 years or get dumped a dozen times, and it will not accellerate or slow his growth. It doesn't make a difference if your shit comes up 1000 times with 100 different people, or if it comes up 1000 times with the same person--- it is still the same story, and you still only have yourself to answer to.

Relationships don't help you mature. They don't help you learn. At least they don't do so any more than anything else does. If you aren't dealing with being in a relationship, you are dealing with being by yourself, and guess what? It is exactly the same work. How do I spend my time? How do I motive myself? What do I want to be like in the world? What do I need to do to take care of myself? Relationships don't help you feel satisfied. You can only do any of those things for yourself. If you are not ready to face the next issue on your list, then you will find a way not to face it. And if you are ready to do the work, then you will do it.

That doesn't mean, of course, that you shouldn't work diligently to break your friends out of their crap relationships. A bad habit is a bad habit, whether it takes the form of a pot addiction or dating a cheating sleaze of a boyfriend, and as a friend you shouldn't go silent on either one. Anyone who clings to something which isn't making them happy is losing time and not doing much for the world. All I am saying is, there isn't a course that is the right one to take. There isn't a correct way to do this.

Relationships, I mean. Fucking, there is definetly a right way and a wrong way. Which is a topic for our next discussion.

Doc Versus eHarmony

2008-06-05T10:26:00.000-07:00

I took a friend's recommendation and filled out the eHarmony.com questionnaire to receive my free personality and compatibility profile. (It was made by science!) I did this partly because I cannot afford therapy, but mostly because I was hoping it would yield ironically humorous results that I could then write about on my blog. (like when I took that funky "put the colors in order" test and it told me I was a twisted and primitive human being who would never be happy and that people don't like me for very good reason. All of which any astrologer would tell you is called a "Sagitarius.")

(If you don't get that joke, really, pick up any astrology book. Seriously. If astrologers had the power to confine all Sagitarians to a permanent underground quarantine, they would do it. (But my god, the interior design down there would be fantastic!!))

Just so you know, I am not one of the many people who eHarmony has rejected. I am frankly embarrassed that I wasn't. Also, for the record, I am a big fan of on-line dating. I don't know about on-line matchmaking, but for on-line dating, I say go for it: I have evidence to support great potential. Look for sites that are about "DATING" not about "LOVE," and that have a sense of humor.

Sadly, the authors at eHarmony don't seem to find much funny about what they do. The in-depth personality assessment that they promise pretty much adds up to the same old "You enjoy people! You enjoy new ideas! Sometimes when you don't eat you are hungry!" To give full and proper credit, I would say the profile was roughly accurate. However, despite the lack of much deeply compelling revelation, here follows a few of the finer points and my response to them:

The first group of words describing me included "Understanding," "Gentle," "Kind-Hearted," "Understanding" (yes, twice-- pause and love the irony) "Sensitive" and "Gullible." At first I said "what the frack?" But then I assumed everyone gets "Gullible," on account of having just taken an hour answering questions on eHarmony.

More:

"Selfish people might be embarrassed by you"
on account of I am so giving. I haven't observed this being true, but I get a gleeful thrill out of the notion of people being embarassed by me. Which kind of makes me selfish.

"Maybe they'll think you're a phony, that you use your altruism to get others indebted to you so they'll then owe you a favor"
I wish "a favor" had been in quotes, followed by "(if you know what I mean.)"

"For those people you help you will be the friend they need, there at the right moment to help them when they've stepped into yet another thicket of pain or confusion. They will be grateful...for the hand you extend so they can find their way, with your help, out of whatever tangle they've gotten themselves into."
Dude, clearly my friends are losers.

"Some people trust their current ideas and beliefs the way a climber trusts the mountain."
And some people know the mountain is a no good, two-timing rat. Fucking mountain. I don't trust it as far as I can throw it.

"Despite some negative responses to your style of thinking, many people will find your progressive thoughts and vivid imagination quite attractive." Let's go to the judges: OOO, good thinking, but no points for style.

"Even some who are less curious than you will be impressed by your courage to think and believe what is for them unimaginable...For these people you might become a mentor into the wilder side of thinking and believing, and nudge them toward the creative and progressive ideas that you find so interesting"
Oh, how I swoon at the thought that I occasionally give shallow people a nudge.

"On Emotional Stability you are: SOMETIMES STEADY, SOMETIMES RESPONSIVE"
"Responsive!!" This is one of the finer euphamisms I have ever encountered. "Get the thorazine, he's gone responsive!"

"Lucky you! You enjoy your own company as much as you enjoy the company of others...What a great combination to enjoy being outgoing and to be just as comfortable being reserved. Lucky you!!"
Dude, eHarmony is totally getting passive agressive on me. I know sarcasm when I read it. Maybe eHarmony has some issues of its own it needs to look at?

By the way, just like in the case of "selfish people", in every one of the five categories, the profile suggested that others are likely envious of how generous/balanced/creative I am. In fact, because I ride the middle in each category the system thinks that laid back people will be jealous of how energetic I am, and passionate people will be envious of how laid back I am; or that emotional people will think of me as being in my head, and intellectual people will think of me as an emotional loose cannon. So basically, according to eHarmony, having a balanced and well adjusted personality is a recipie for being hated by everyone. Any thoughts on this?

On to my ideal mate:

"she is also someone who's comfortable with a certain amount of moral ambiguity"
Yes!

"is comfortable with a future that's somewhat undefined."
Rock on!

"She'll enjoy talking to you but won't pry too deep if you're not in the mood for conversation."
Does this kind of woman exist? No, seriously. Anyone?

"She can generally see the humor in almost any situation, like people who contradict themselves or even a trip to the doctor."
I like that they included examples, in case this profile was for someone who doesn't know what humor might be about.

"She can think up creative solutions to a problem but doesn't discount the tried-and-true answers."
I'm so fucking envious of people like that.

"Appearance: You need a woman who can appreciate everything you bring to the table. She's interested in everything about you, like your personality, intelligence and humor."
Keep her laughing, fatty.

"She'll do one thing until something better comes along and then take advantage of what life throws her way" In other words, I hope you enjoy meeting her next boyfriend.

"Your ideal mate generally won't seek revenge against her enemies."
Generally. Am I dating a member of the Legion of Doom?

"Obstreperousness:"
Yes! My ideal mate is a dinosaur!

And the grand finale!!

"You will be most satisfied with a woman who will tolerate you."

Sigh.

Near, far, whereeeever you are, my tolerance for you will go on.

-

We Are Vagabonds, We Travel Without Seatbelts On

2008-06-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

I suppose it is only natural that the majority of my advice in these virtual pages is directed at the early days of relationships--- advice for working through the early kinks, advice for people who are figuring out how they want sex to work and how to make it work, advice for sorting through relationships that have yet to fully cement. It may seem obvious-- the early phases are the most unsteady, and the least experienced people need the most advice. But I also think I give my opinion from an unusual position; as a slightly older man who is still single, I may not qualify as an oddity but I am definitely in the small minority. Even if you take into account the divorced masses, mid-thirties and single is an uncommon species. So I am not trying to sell a secret program here: I don't have a Get Hitched Quick scheme. I don't even assume that the correct goal is to get yourself firmly and committedly coupled: relationships come in so many different flavors and I think everyone should be looking for the one that is right for them. A lot of misery in love comes from trying to fit the mold. Whatever your particular image is of what makes for a perfect mating, the odds are you aren't going to stumble into it. You may not even actually want it. But my point is, yes, I put a lot of my focus on the areas that have the most natural anxiety: sexual performance, overcoming head-games, and learning to recognize when you are miserable and should do something about it. Oh, and the delicate process of getting the fuck over yourself. That one doesn't change much with age.

But what advice can I give to people who are, actually, exactly like me: people who are older--- not old or even middle aged, but well past the age that most folks love train has left the station. What can I tell people (and I know a good number of them, even in real life) whose worst fear is that they will end up like me? Grown-up, sprouting grey hairs and laugh lines, well past my sexual prime and still walking that uphill path alone.

The best I can tell you is this: it gets easier. Maybe I can't speak for everyone--- I've met a lot of people my age who are lonely and stressed-out motherfuckers. But for me, and most people like me, you start to sort some things out. You start to learn what you really want and not stress so much about what you think you are supposed to need. You learn to value relationships in a new way, because you no longer take them for granted, and somehow that makes even losing people easier. People love to spout that what does not kill you makes you stronger. I don't know what stronger means, but I know that I am not so scared, that I understand that being rejected or betrayed will hurt, but it won't be as bad as it seems. I can take greater risks than I ever did when I was a lovesick kid. I don't waste a lot of time trying to be cool and attractive. I just get down to the business of opening up, without all that protective gear to slow me down and make me clumsy.

I still feel lonely and bored and horny, but I also get it that no one thing is a matter of life and death. And the biggest thing I have learned is that relationships are relationships. It isn't about chasing an object of desire. It is about whether two people make good for one another. Even if you are only looking for a few nights of physical pleasure, you still learn to look for people who feel the same way that you do, who approach the game with the same energy, because even a single hot hook up isn't worth it if you can't share it honestly. And when you are looking for something deeper, you look for something deeper, not just something more pretty and exciting.

Aloneness gets a lot less painful. And so does togetherness. It's not a bad deal. I don't have any envy for people who found great love a decade earlier than I have. They get their rewards. And I get to enjoy mine. And when love comes, I don't panic. I know what to do with it. I'm ready.

Advanced Clitsmanship

2008-05-22T21:32:00.000-07:00

I do have to say that I have a lot of sympathy for both the clitoris, and those who are asked to go in search of it. On one side we have the clit herself, a extraordinary and unique piece of evolutionary engineering, but forced for her own protection to live in a secret hidden chamber just upstairs from the entrance to the more popular party. Like the cursed Cassandra of myth, the clitoris knows all but has no way to tell it to the men (who seem to have other conquests on their mind, in any case.) But then there are the dreamful males, perhaps few, perhaps more than we let on, who want to please and want to satisfy and are happy to patiently labor with finger or tongue for the sake of love and cute whimpering. I remember what it was like before I knew. We are told to go forth and seek the little pleasure beast--- and lemme tell you, we aren't given a lot of information to go on. As a man there is nothing we are told in sex ed, or can read in romance novels, or even see in porn that would lead us in the right direction. Based on what little vital info you hear about the clit, it's impossible to imagine that it is where it is. Why not inside? Why not at least at the top or the bottom? What exactly are these pussies trying to pull? We go in search of that little woman pretty much knowing only what country she is in.

It doesn't help that the clit's very existence is kept pretty well secret until it is almost too late. This goes for boys and girls, though the girls have a bit of a probability advantage. But just when you think you have learned what sex is and what it is for and pretty much how you are going to do it, just at the metaphorical last moment (and, often, the literal last moment) out comes the shocking truth: Like the lead in an M. Night Shaymalan film, there's a shocking twist! (Bruce Willis is the clitoris! We should have known...take a look at him.) Just when we think we are ready to go, we learn that everything we thought we knew is only half the story. That's right, boys, the phone call is NOT coming from inside the house!

The trouble is this: girls talk to girls, and that is all well and good. Girls don't talk to boys, because it is embarrassing and scary and, on the rare occasion that a girl does talk frankly about her sexuality or sexy parts, boys are likely to be unfathomably nasty about it. (oh, there is that one special kind of laugh--- low pitched, animalistic--- that men reserve for laughing at girls' body parts. It is a horrible sound. Someone should develop a shock collar.) And then, boys and men don't talk to each other. Because every dude wants to (and is expected to) present the image of being a naturally amazing lover, no one wants to ask how it is done.

So here is the homework assignment, for everyone: talk it up. Starting as soon as you know where the Shiver Bunny is, start telling people. Seek out especially those who are younger and less experienced than you: older sisters tell your younger brothers, female friends ask your male friends if they know. (If they do the horrible body-part laugh, don't talk to them anymore, ever. Also stab them in the balls.) Men, figure out how to describe your clit-finding trick, and share it. Share it with younger boys AND with girls, who know where it is but may have a hard time with practical instructions.

Everyone, everyone, needs to learn how to do Vagina Hands. Just cup your hands together with your thumbs in between, and you get an eerily accurate model of the pussy.

Anyone can do it.

This is also useful for helping to show where the g-spot is (is it toward the front or back? Yes, front. Show him with your Vag Hands!) and suggesting other things you might like done (or not done) down there. It is a very simple and beautifully non-dirty way of showing whatever needs to be shown. It isn't embarrassing, it isn't gross, it isn't like a juvenile notebook sketch or a creepy clinical drawing. Even parents can use Vagina Hands with their children and it is perfectly nonthreatening.

We are in this together, and we should do all we can to make it as smooth as possible. (yes, pun intended--- who do you think you are dealing with??) Almost everything about sex is different from what you expect. You don't learn about lubrication, you don't learn correctly about orgasm, you don't learn about the overwhelming sex hormones that surge and swirl and turn you from reasonable person into love-crazed zombie. And once you learn the basics, there are two thousand extra things that your lover needs but doesn't know how to tell you. But we can help each other. We can join our Vagina Hands together and spread some oral wisdom. We can change the course of clitstory.

Oh Brave New World, That Has Such Knockers In It

2008-04-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the last few entries have been kind of heavy serious, which is all fine and good. But it might be counter productive. My entire point in coming here is to say that the heavy-serious shite should be kept in its place, and not get all tangled up with the yummy grunting and hormones. Besides which, knowing the answers to the Big Questions can only get you so far: when it comes to finding, landing, keeping (and then destroying) the love of your life, there are vital practical matters to consider.

And so I offer this very special, high-priority entry, and it is meant just for the boys in the audience: this is advice you need, and you must listen, absorb, and follow, for the good of us all--- for the good of us ALL, boys. PLEASE.

Lay off the boobs.

Seriously, brothers, give the sisters a rest. Not just in the joking and the magazines and with the staring-on-the-bus, but in the actual groping and twisting and squishy-squeezing bedroom. Your obsession with breasts is making us all look bad. And it is making the ladies bored. And frankly a little bit sore.

Less fondling. More fingering. Rule for the week.

I understand that you are working against nature. They are pretty. They are soft. You don’t get to see them as often as you would like, and so, much the way a dog gets excited when he gets to go out for a walk, you feel the overwhelming need to pant and jump up and down and just paw at those little fuckers like you are making pizza dough. But seriously, cut it out.

Yes, the girls are sweet about it. They understand we are helpless, and they don’t want to do anything to dampen our enthusiasm. But please know, all that pressing and play-doughing and cleavage-spelunking you are doing, it is not turning them on. Girls are not turned on by the manner in which their breasts are fondled. No matter how brilliant you think you are at it. Not if you think you are the Tiger freaking Woods of boob noodling. Tiger is the best of the best, but when all is said and done, he is still just whacking at a ball with a stick. He doesn’t expect the ball to get excited about it.

Okay, so get with me here: there is a little bit of thrill for you both when the first feeling-up happens. And if you play it nice and gentle, you can make for a good gaspy moment with a little bit of reverent caressing. You don't have to avoid the twins. It’s an area that doesn’t get touched in everyday life, and even the girls share in the naughty thrill when that line gets crossed. But as far as real action, stimulation, as far as giving your lover actual PLEASURE (which is what you are being paid for, after all) you need to demystify the tit.

Breasts are not especially sensitive. Most girls are self-conscious about them, and they’ve spent a good deal of their time and money either trying to get them to be still or to stand up a bit, so it may not be an area where they feel a lot of love. The culture at large has objectified breasts to a point of nausea, and the women (who the breasts are attached to) ain’t too pleased about it. But mostly, the nerve-endings just ain’t there. It isn’t how the Goddess put women together. There are at least a dozen parts of your girl--- just as beautiful and much more sensitive--- to which you can devote the attention of your hands and mouth, and I guarantee you will get better results. The small of the back, the back of the neck, her inner thigh, her feet if she’s not too ticklish. Oh, and I keep hearing chicks say something about a CLITORIS. Maybe you should look into that. (though don’t just go battering at that like a Ska-Core drummer, either.)

Nipples MIGHT be a different story. You can negotiate with your particular lover as to how she feels about nipples, and what she wants done with them. Her nipples are just like yours—they are a bit more sensitive, and she might like any number of things done to them, from gentle kissing to things that have to be plugged into power outlets. Nipples are an area to explore.

But boobs? Take a break, soldier.

We are in these women’s territory, and we need their good will. If you are having hot chemistry with a girl, by all means, feel free to have the occasional overwhelmed feast of fondling. We do all kinds of silly things in the heat of passion, and sometimes just the fact of the heat is a turn on. But overall, boys, you gotta take my word for it: our girls are tired of the squeezathon. Ease off the sweater meat, turbo. There are more important things to attend to.

Is It Something You Wear?

2008-04-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to the big blog of love, my friends. Yes, we have been apart for a long time. Yes, we have both done things that we are not proud of. But we can forgive each other, right?

If your answer was yes, then you need to pay closer attention. Because if you think that I would endorse something so grandiose as forgiveness, then you don’t understand me at all. And for that, I will never forgive you. (I believe in a deeper, more spiritual ideal than “forgiveness”, one which I describe as get the fuck over yourself you self-righteous prick. All monkeys throw the same shit. )

Luckily, whatever you said, I wasn’t really listening. In this case, because you are on the other side of the computer and I don’t know who the fuck you are. But while you were nattering away about whatever the fuck it is you people talk about, I had time to think about one of the very big questions:

Where did it all come from?

If love is big and beautiful, but most people have all these nasty and kind of fucked up ideas about it, then where did all those nasty and fucked up ideas come from? Where did they begin? What was the big bang of bullshit?

It is all too easy to say that the ideas come from romantic movies and sappy love songs and the granddaddy of all college-level-scapegoats, Mr. Disney. It is easy to go after mass-market products, because they are everywhere, and we are exposed to them early, and they tend to be simple and easy to talk about. Also, because it is a lot easier to talk about something when you have some THING to talk about. Feminists focus on media because the media is THERE; you can bring a Disney movie into the classroom and talk about it specifically. It is a lot harder to find a woman-hating misogynist and pin him up on the bulletin board to be discussed.

But our crazy ass ideas about sex and love and relationships are more of an oral tradition. They come to us through religion and through our terrified parents and, more than anything, through the time-honored process of whispers and note-passing by which ninth graders pass down their collective wisdom to seventh graders.

I think the problem with love is the same thing as the problem with COOL. Everyone wants to be cool. When you are young, in your mid-teens, and really setting your ideas about things, you want to be cool, whether you like it or not. Even if you KNOW you are not and cannot be, you still want it. Even if you KNOW how shallow it is, you still want it.

And therein lies the problem: because being cool is actually kind of lame. It doesn’t actually mean anything, and it isn’t really attainable or useful. People who are secure or smart want to be cool, but they are secure and smart enough not to put too much effort into it. But the shallow, dumb people put a LOT of effort into it. And so, the most shallow and most dumb people end up setting the standard for what is cool. And thus, you get emo haircuts, Dane Cook, and the career of Gwen Stefani.

The same thing happens with sex and with love. Everyone wants it. Everyone needs it. But most people have the good sense to understand that they really don’t know shit about it. Especially in Jr. High and High School, you probably feel (correctly and rationally) that you are just confused and needy and surging with blind lust. It is only the people who DON’T feel that way who talk openly and with confidence about all the bullshit things they know. And because no one else is talking, those ideas are the ones that become the standard.

So the most shallow people, and the ones most inclined to lie and be needy and self-obsessed, they are the ones who create the language. So love gets stupidly mixed up with being pretty, sex gets stupidly mixed up with status, and relationships become about ego and possessiveness. The conjunction of these phenomena is Sex And The City. The most vapid and shallow people, with the most trivial and commercial ideas of what is cool, sharing their most childish and simpering ideas about sex and love. Those people are everywhere in real life. But they SEEM to know what they are doing, so its hard not to follow their lead.

So yes, people are naturally selfish and ego driven, and that is part of the story. And there are huge cultural forces, most prominently the subjugation of women, which make the whole thing more complicated and dishonest than it should be. But the third sad aspect of love is that part of it is fashion. And once you get those distorted ideas in your head, it is a bit hard to get rid of them.

In love you’ve got to learn to separate the stuff from the stuff. You have to learn that what you think you want and what you really want may not be the same thing. In school you want to be cool because you want to be liked. So what you really want is to be liked. If you realize that, you probably realize you are already pretty well liked, you just didn’t notice because you thought what you wanted was to be cool. Almost all of getting what you want is being honest about WHAT you want. Accepting that sex may actually have nothing whatsoever to do with shoes.

Or, put most simply: pay attention to what it IS. Don’t worry about how it looks.

Full Time Employment For Self-Starting Go-Getter

2008-04-15T00:28:00.000-07:00

I do feel a little bit guilty. I have no doubt that you read this blog sincerely, and invest it with the full trust that it so evidently deserves. But just reading what I have written so far, you might come to the conclusion that love is an impossibly complex labyrinth, one which is hardly worth the trouble it takes to navigate. You might even be tempted to believe that you, yourself, are one of the unlovable losers who I so often take aim at.

But you would have things, and you would have me, all wrong. There is nothing I love more than an unlovable loser. I consider myself one of them. And do I think that I shouldn't have love? Do I think I don't deserve passion and flirting and fucking and all of the squishy and hard to clean laundry that comes along with it? Hells no, friends. I deserve it twice baked and served on a parade of silver platters. More to the point, I don't give a fuck whether I deserve it or not, because love isn't like a pretty dress or a pair of hot shoes that you choose to spend your money on or not. Love is the dress and the money and the shoes and the date and the whole fucking dance floor.

Loving is like learning to walk. It isn't a choice whether or not you are going to do it. Sooner or later you're gonna find yourself up on two feet, and once you do, you're never going to be content with crawling. It doesn't matter how or when you learn it. What matters is where you choose to go once you're up there.

I was talking to a friend tonight who has, against all social norms, adopted a peculiar strategy about love: she thinks you should only date people who are really fucking excited about you, and that you should only date people you are excited about. She thinks that you should like them and that they should like you. And that you should both tell each other so from the very beginning, otherwise it isn't really worth the trouble.

Listening to her outlandish proposal, I realized that for all the many times that I have claimed that I am opposed to IDEALISM about love, the truth is exactly the opposite: I agree with my cool headed friend. I think you should expect the highest level of satisfaction. I think you should shoot the moon every time. Anything less than idealism is foolish, if for no other reason than that, even if you claim you don't believe in love, you really do. You can't talk yourself out of something so fundamental to being human.

What I hate when it comes to love isn't idealism, it is IDOLATRY. It is the idea that love itself is some kind of giant gleaming god you can pray to for a life full of grain and goodness. I hate the way people think love is a magical force which will change darkness into sunshiny honey. It's the opposite of idealism; most people seem to think you snatch whatever you can and trust love to make it all work out in the end. But the only way it works out with magic and bunnies and billions of happy singing orgasms is if you MAKE it so. If you don't settle for good enough, but always strive toward the ideal. If you work like a goddamned steel builder on it and keep pouring and pouring until the thing is full. Love doesn't fill you up, love doesn't make the magic, love doesn't change the shit to shine. Love isn't there to give you everything you want: it is your job to give everything to it.

And when you do, it is worth it. The trick about all the work is that, yeah, it is hard, but it gives you back ten times more than you put in to it. But as soon as you stop giving, it doesn't do shit. It just lays there stinking up the place. That is what makes it so sad, and that is what makes me so crazy: most of the ways love goes wrong, they wouldn't be hard to fix. Most people just won't do ANYTHING--- they won't make the extra effort to show they care, to clean a little bit more, to fuck just one or two fewer other girls. They won't give up one day of being right, or having control. They won't go one extra step, let along the extra mile. Most people know what love needs, they just hope that someone else will come along and take care of it. But there isn't anyone else. There is only you and what you are willing to give to the part of you that is a child: always in love, always excited, always wanting to touch, and always needing to be fed.

But if you feed it right, what you get back is a steal. Like lighting a candle and getting a comet. It is worth it, and more.

Love is one hungry, hungry hippo, but take the time to put a tutu on that fucker, and boy will it dance.

-

We Are Different People At Night

2008-04-03T20:36:00.000-07:00

Just to keep you all filled in, my passionate friends and readers, your old Second String Soulmate is currently having quite the wild mind-fuck of a lifestyle. Not a lot of time to write insightful dissections of Love, Ego, Sex, and Loneliness. (also not a lot of time to eat, sleep, or talk to other humans.) So rest assured, I have not lost interest in my efforts to set you straight on all your misconceptions about love. It is just going to be a bit of a slow month. Keep checking back and I promise I will make it worth your time.

And if you want to get yourself a nice fresh SSS blog entry sooner than later, feel free to write in with a question. I am a lot more inclined to throw down some dirty, sexy, bitter advice for the feasting if I don't have to think of a topic. You don't have to have a very complex and ugly problem (though, let's face it, you probably do)-- anything that is on your mind might be worth my attention. Post your question under comments or follow the link in the right hand column, and odds are I will come out of my drunken haze of exhaustion long enough to respond at length. Just, you know, be prepared to get my honest response. Because I love you. And that means, by definition, I feel very comfortable hurting you.

With Apologies To The Music Of Sting

2008-03-26T00:17:00.000-07:00

Love does something to you. So they say. The idea of love as central to life is pretty new: our whole cozy society was built on arranged marriage and trading of property-- those with more pretentious minds chose to tinker with grander philosophical ideas than the obvious fact of people wanting to fuck and hug. But when love hits YOU, it's hard to deny the feeling that something ground-shaking is happening. I, too, have had the thrill of new love and felt the way it opens your eyes, the way that colors seem more colory and music seems more lush. I've read my Hafiz. I can totally get down with the potential of love to open your eyes to an all new depth of self knowledge, appreciation of beauty and divinity, awareness of the universe's purpose.

It sure as fuck doesn't happen most of the time, though. If love opens up your eyes to waves of self-discovery, it isn't likely to be in a pretty, noble, closer-to-god kind of way. Mostly love makes us selfish and self absorbed. Does love make people more sensitive? More productive? More honest? More kind? Fuck all to that, boys. Most of the time, what love teaches you about yourself is just how shallow and mean spirited you really are.

You learn that you have the potential to be furious at someone for not being hungry at the same time you are. You learn about yourself that hanging up clothes or not hanging them up is the absolute cornerstone of your lifestyle, and you will fight to the death to have it done your way. You learn that as a grown adult, you delight in thinking up new and hurtful name-calling. You learn that really, deeply loving someone means wishing they didn't have such good friends. And wow, if you are the average person, do you get a glimpse of just how hugely important television is to you. Modern relationships are as much about television as they are about sex. If not more.

There is a big, shiny, beautiful idea of love, and I wouldn't dare suggest it is not real. I think it is. I think that there is some kind of big LoveLoveLove which is divine in nature, and that embracing it for real can be the difference between being on a path to enlightenment and wandering in the world without a compass. But that Love and Relationship love are two totally separate matters. It's like the difference between crude oil and safflower oil.

I think that love is like work, like art, like exercise and therapy and religion: what you take into it is the only thing you are really going to get from it. You choose how you do it, and you will do it the same way you do the rest of your life. It isn't so much an effect in itself as a lens that amplifies other things. If you lean toward being selfish, love will make you ferociously selfish. If you are a little devious, love will transform you into a compulsive cheating liar. Same thing about being insecure, or lazy, or jealous. But also, if you are drawn to kindness, love gives you a reason to practice being kind and thoughtful and bright. If you are compassionate, love will challenge you to have compassion beyond what you knew you were capable of.

It's a dangerous thing, this love. It is so beautiful that you feel you have never seen beauty before. But at the same time, we all have a fantasy that on the other side of love (or sex or marriage or beyond) there is a better, wiser, more fully realized version of us. But there won't be. And when you find you aren't magically a better person, love won't be there to write you a doctor's note. It will just stand there to shine a spotlight on you, hard and bright, the way you really are.

-
-

Watching The Watchmaker

2008-03-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

I do like to list rules-- oh, I am never so happy as when I am making a little list of rules, and even when I am not listing them, I am dropping them all over my little entries, hiding them underneath perfectly innocent paragraphs. Like a frat boy's penis, I slip them in without warning or permission. I have a bit of a romantic idea that we can all learn a battery of rules and guidelines (preferably, everyone will learn mine) and then we will all avoid the pitfalls and embarrassments which usually result from that sticky little prick we call love.

But of course I know that, much like myself, rules are very difficult to employ in real life. There aren't a lot of rules that you can really flip to and follow in the moment. You are too busy thinking of how to talk to that boy over there, or how to get this particular woman to take off her panties for you, or how to save your fucking relationship so that you don't have to move out of your apartment. Not to mention that when it comes to love, most of us don't really care what the right thing to do is. In real life, shit just ain't perfect. Mostly you don't know where you are until you've been there for a while, and then you're just looking to get through it with the minimum amount of weeping.

The rules are here to try and get you thinking in the right direction. It really isn't about making the right steps or even choosing the right person. I think it is about a bigger attitude. You can be as romantic as you want, you can "believe in love" all the way down to the bottom of the bottle, but whether it is sooner or whether it is later, you are going to come around to the same reality: finding love is one small part of a big fucking machine.

But I get it. Most of us don't feel like we can be that selective. I don't know about you, but I'm lucky if I meet two people a year who I even like to talk to, let alone want to touch. It isn't like most of us are sitting at the audition table looking at photos, and if our current love doesn't work out, we just call "Next" and we get someone similar but with better diction. If you're looking for a woman, you are lucky if you find one who isn't a tangled mess of nerves and shame, and if you are looking for a man, fuck, you are lucky if you find one who hasn't lied to you about five different things within the first eight minutes. And who can speak in complete sentences.

So I get it. You want to find someone who is fucking good enough, so that you can get to work on the rest of your life, which you have a sneaky feeling is going to be even harder than this part. You don't need them to be perfect. And the longer you are with someone, the more it feels like no one else could ever understand or accept your unfathomably long list of peculiar habits and fears. It doesn't really matter where you are in a relationship, whether you are married, or just getting serious, or even if you have a simple hard core crush: the thought of throwing that person overboard and sailing off alone in search of god-knows-what is terrible, terrible, terrible.

You sure as hell aren't going to do it because they don't stand up well against a list of rules.

But the rules are never about the other person. They are about you coming at the world with a particular attitude, and for my money, that attitude should be that you want things to be real. Not real like people say when they say "I want this love to be real" meaning they want it to be overwhelming and guaranteed to last until grave-laying time. I mean real like this is me and this is you and we are really here and it is kind of awkward, now that you mention it. You should expect that your love can stand up to scrutiny, that it should not take a lot of complex explaining to make it work out in your head. You should expect it to be tangible. And to ensure it is the real thing, you should demand that it be seen and examined in the beautiful harsh light of day, demand that it be talked about, with all the dirty words still included.

You can't control love. You can't control who you will find and what you will feel for them. What you can do is tell yourself that you are going to be the real thing. That you won't waste time pretending to be anyone you are not, or pretending to feel anything that you only wish you felt. If there is a love of your life, whether they are out in the world waiting for you to find them or they are snoring on the couch, you can do them a huge favor and decide that you are not going to pretend to be smarter, cooler, less scared, more wise, dumber, easier, or less pissed off than you really are. And you won't pretend any of that shit about them, either.

You should have a lot of rules. They are useful. They are fun. You should use mine, but if you don't, it is okay. It doesn't matter that much what the rules are. The point is that you be paying attention.

-

Your Fiancé Sucks

2008-03-04T08:08:00.000-08:00

I've heard a lot of people talk in the last few years about how you don't need to find an ideal mate--- that what matters is how you work together, whether your neuroses are complimentary. I think the oh so inspiring Good Will Hunting quote is "You're not perfect, and she's not either. What matters is, whether you're perfect for each other." In context, yes indeed. I definetly agree that looking for perfection is the quest of the idiot. But I think it is wrong to suggest that who you end up with isn't that important. I'd like to take a moment today to make a strong case against unconditional love.

Of course, you can fuck anyone you want. I am into that. Have a ball, degrade yourself, get your heart broken and your balls crushed. And I am with you in Rockland if you want to date some crazy ass people. Love them madly, sleep over six nights a week, argue about shoes and throw lamps at each others head. The sex will be good, if a little too short and occasionally dangerous to pedestrians.

But when it comes to the long term--- and yes, I'm talking about the big nasty M word, but also about any relationship that you commit to and give a large portion of your life, I would like to bring back the very old fashioned and unpopular idea that the quality of the person should be a very high consideration. I'm certainly not talking about the quality of their stock portfolio. I'm not suggesting you ask for a dowry and a well vassled fiefdom in Scotland. But with anyone you are going to live with, share finances with, and possibly (god of all gods forbid) have children with, I think there is a good and healthy place for harsh, calculating judgment.

Some things are easy to spot. A man who is smart, funny, caring, and likes to get stoned five days a week: that is a bunk person. Seems simple, but I am often surprised by the kind of thing people will apologize for, tolerate, or feel they just aren't entitled to judge. I'm making a rule and I will stand by it: you shouldn't judge another person's race, creed, or background, but anyone whose wet genitals have tangled with yours, you are entitled to judge them all you want. You NEED to judge them.

I'm also going to put my foot down about anyone who is older than 21 and hasn't either been to college or started a career, or anyone at any age who has been an undergrad for more than 5 years. Yes, it is harsh. But that is my point. You shouldn't share your life with someone who doesn't take their own life seriously.
You got yourself a lover who calls 'emself a "writer," but has never written a book, a script, or a magazine article? Just quietly pack your things and sneak out the back door while they watch Battlestar Galactica.
Pay close attention to how your lover behaves around money. It is one thing to be broke--- that is perfectly respectable--- but note whether your mate is broke because things are hard and life is complicated, or if they are broke and seem to not know what the fuck happened, where did all the money GO?

And yes, far be it from me to judge, but I gotta be super old fashioned and say that your motherfucking mate should be honest. Now, everyone lies. Everyone lies when they are scared, when they have been naughty, when they feel powerless. Almost everyone cheats, and there can and should be some forgiveness. But it shouldn't be tolerated as a pattern. If you have "accepted" that your mate (or fiancé??) just lies sometimes, just cheats from time to time, just, you know, occasionally can't help but fuck your best friend, then you need to get the bolts on your brain tightened. Because the thing is, whatever has happened in the past, you have no idea what creative ways to fuck you over your liar lover will come up with in the future. People who lie and cheat do so when they are under STRESS. So all those little foibles are going to get worse when you start having successful careers. And they are going to get hellafuck worse when you have kids. Marriage doesn't make people more loyal, and kids do not make people more virtuous. Whatever horrible thing your "flawed" mate has done so far, believe me, when they start to feel REAL stress, you have no idea what they are capable of.

Which brings me to my personal vendetta, the crown jewel of rules that I will preach (without success, I fear) until the day I die: don't marry someone who isn't happy. Dead fucking serious. Don't bother getting your home and your life and your soul tangled up with someone, anyone, who doesn't have an attitude of good toward the world. And I'm talking for real, no matter how much you fucking fall in love with them--- if you love them so much that it makes you glow, and you cum with screaming floods of abandon, and you wake up in the morning feeling hope for the world and pissing sweet tinkling fairy dust. If you feel all of that for a person, and they spend most of thier day frowning at the TV and talking about how hard things are and complaining about how, I dunno, they think the dog is judging them--- you've gotta get out.

People who are sad are mean. And as a side note, though it shouldn't be, MEAN is not a "quirk" you should put up with, either. I've had a fair amount of time riding that bus, myself. It doesn't go anywhere good.

Pay close attention at special events. Everyone goes through hard times, yes. Again, I allow for a lot of compassion. But if your lover goes to parties with friends and sulks in the corner, if you go on vacation in Vegas and they worry and struggle all through it---- jesus christ, baby, you are not getting your money's worth. No amount of love will ever make up for you being with someone who isn't happy. Who doesn't come at the world with an expectation of it being good. Anyone who is unhappy and isn't doing anything to try and resolve it. Anyone, and just be honest here, who is a sad lame sonofabitch.

They will not change. You will.

And if they do change, good for them. Good for the next person they date/love/marry. But it is far too much of a risk to take. The ugly truth is, if they are capable of changing, it won't happen unless you dump their ass and they have a reason to change. And no one, NO ONE, is just sad on their own. They will bring you into it. And if they can't, they will punish you for it, forever. And most important, THEY WILL TEACH IT TO YOUR CHILDREN.

There is no reason for you to pin yourself to some sad sack mutherfucker. Your mate should make the world a better place for you, and you for them. They should help you raise joyful, powerful children, not more sad sack motherfuckers to make the world a worse place.

I think love is beautiful. I think it is the foundation of most great things. But I think it is the FOUNDATION. The actual building, that is for you to design. And who you build it with is not a trivial matter. It is worth taking seriously, and making serious choices--- yes, sometimes, with your brain in addition to your heart.

Galileo wrote, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."

He was talking about religion and science. I think the same damn thing applies to love.

-

A Money Shot's Lament

2008-02-25T20:34:00.000-08:00

The cock can be a bit of an unpredictable investment.

Case in point: some medications, such as certain anti-depressants, don't cause outright impotence. Instead, they cause an untidy little condition known as "Ejaculatory Delay." First of all, I love medical conditions with strange and ominous names. The deal with this one is that you can get it up perfectly well, and stay rock-on hard throughout whatever fun act you got hard for in the first place--- but just at the moment that you feel like you are about to cum, your body does a kind of short circuit and you can't do it. You don't go limp, you just can't have that tasty explosion, and instead it is like you have gone back in time five minutes and you repeat the whole cycle again. It can happen twice, five times, for four hours--- there is no telling. Right on the verge, then nothing; abs tight, back arched, ready to scream with joy, and then the roller coaster just stops at the top of the hill. And sits there.

I've been through it. At various times and for various reasons, both by myself and with a lover who found it both frustrating and very suspicious. No doubt it is groovy in theory to be able to pound away indefinitely without ever losing the firmness in your friction puppet. But the reality is enough to make a boy crazed with frustration. And after years of hoping just to find a cock that won't fire off way too early, women do not enjoy the experience of suddenly not being able to make their lover cum at all. (I am considering, to even my own horror, calling it "Air Ball")

I honestly don't know if having these sudden attacks of Orgaslessness brings me closer to feeling what it is like to be a woman, whose shuddery climaxes are by no means guaranteed. But even with the intense frustration and, in most cases, actual pain that comes along with said condition, I've gotta say that I appreciate being forced to expand my awareness away from the final few seconds. I like to think that I have never been TOO orgasm-focused, and I still maintain sincerely that I enjoy the kissing and fingering and the entire pre-show more than the over-hyped main event. But there is still always that finish line looming. It is good for a man, who by nature takes his orgasms for granted, to be forced at least now and again to remember that sex is less a straight line and more of a never ending circle.

I think something similar happens to me with love. My natural inner desire is to push so hard toward a big and sudden romantic payoff. Not a final payoff, any more than one orgasm is the end of your sex life, but I still think that inside I dream of love leading up to some kind of spiritual money shot. And I get so fucking frustrated, angry even, that I can't get myself there.

Maybe those experiences happen-- the first declaration, the once-and-again euphoric nights. The big life events, maybe, if you are into that kind of thing. But overall, it is more of a circle. And just like with sex, sometimes you are more sensitive and the experience in the moment is more intense, more overwhelming; and then sometimes it is more mild, a comfort, even just the cool awareness that something good is going on. Sometimes, even, you are right in the middle of it and you realize that you are totally thinking about something else. Which is cool. It is a cycle. Hopefully it is a cycle with some balance and a good sturdy core. You get to stumble upon those hot and heavenly moments, but mostly, the thing is to enjoy the moment you are in.

And in love, just like in sex, there's a good solid rule that may be the opposite of your instinct: when you start to get dissatisfied, the thing to do usually isn't to demand more. It is to give more. It isn't an absolute law--- there are a lot of greedy ass lovers just like there are a lot of greedy ass loves--- but it sure as hell is the best and first thing you should try. Turn over and see what you can offer your mate. Your money shot will come when it comes. It is just one moment among many.

The Harder They Fall

2008-02-15T17:25:00.000-08:00

Dear mister doc.
I have an issue that I don't realy want to talk about with my friends so I'm writing in to your blog for advice. I've been dating a guy for about a year. We used to have a lot of loud dirty sex. In fact, I could get him hard just by 'accidentally' knocking the tank top straps off my shoulder. He totally wanted to fuck me all the time. We get along really well, we're both committed to the relationship and faithful, and everything is cool between us-- pretty rare and good.
For the last couple of months he's had some stressful circumstances in his life. He's tired a lot and stressed, and i am sympathetic. But he doesn't want to fuck me all that much anymore. Or he does, and then halfway through he goes limp. He's attentive to getting me off in other ways, which i really appreciate, but sometimes what you want is you know, fucking, not hands or toys. I think it's a mental thing for him, not a physical problem and i don't want to make it worse by making it a big deal.

What do i do? Do i wait it out? Will it get better? i want my lover back. How do i talk about it, or do I talk about it at all?

-Anonymous

I was kind of hoping you would give me a question that was truly bizarre and colorful, one that I could answer while making wicked fun of you and cleverly alluding to parts of your naked anatomy. But instead your question is all fucking thoughtful and rational and doesn't involve sex with bunnies. Damn.

To start with, I want to correct what I think is a misconception: if your mate isn't getting hard, it IS a physical problem. Unless these are ghostly psychic erections (I can't decide if that would be really cool or horribly scary) then it is his real body and he is having a physical problem. STRESS is itself a physical problem. This goes double for the very common problem of chicks not getting wet enough: it is much more useful to think of it as a physical issue, even if one of the causes (and there are usually many) is mental.

There are some obvious culprits--- yes, sex does slow down in all relationships, and it can make people mighty frustrated. You don't say what the "stressful time" is, but if it is a major life trauma or nasty tangled up problem, you may just have to wait it out. Also, beware if he was put on any kind of medication for his mood: lots of people are never told, even by their doctor, that the majority of anti-depressants and anxiety meds cause sexual issues. And one of those issues is not just loss of firmness but loss of desire. And even just a couple of times losing your once-trustworthy wood can be enough to make a man want to hide far away from the bushes. It ain't fun to have a limp dick, but it is even worse to be able to get hard but not be able to ride that pony to the finish line.

My big answer is, yes, absolutely, talk about it. Don't make the talk about your frustration or your doubts. Just tell him that you love to fuck him and you want to do it more, and whatever is keeping it from working, you want to deal with it together.

One big thing to keep in mind is that, even if the issue is one of stress or mental distractions, those prescription boner pills still usually get the job done. That is what they are for, and no one should feel like less of a man for taking them. Another well-kept secret is that there are anti-depressants, like Wellbutrin, that actually HELP sexual dysfunction instead of causing it.

If his stressful circumstance is something that will come to an end soon, then I say let him know you are willing to get by with fingers and lips and a good solid fisting every now and then. But if it is something long term, like a job that will keep being nasty, then it is worth it to talk it through, talk to a doctor, try different things. Sex is something you do together, and dealing with sex issues openly is the sign of a real and worthy relationship.

I've written a lot about how much it fucks things up when you make big deals of out things that aren't. But when something is a big deal, it's just as bad to pretend it isn't. Getting fucked by your boyfriend is a big deal. Its okay to be honest about it.

--

Milk Chocolate Martyr

2008-02-13T10:45:00.001-08:00

So, tomorrow is the big day, when lovers get on their knees and beg for approval and we all deputize chocolate to stand in for real communication.

Everyone must know by now that we have no one but Senor Hallmark to thank for the forced, strategized, 100% commercially driven invention of this paltry festival of pink. But as much as I hate the sentiment and I surely hate the tawdry history of the day, I can’t help but have at least a little affection for a holiday when I can mail people little cards where Wolverine and Optimus Prime send them love on my behalf. In fact, any holiday that encourages Kindergarten children to use cartoons to explore their latent sexual desire for each other, that is America at its finest.

Yes, the whole thing has the smack of ancient misogyny. No one is really under any illusion that the day is about anything other than men buying shit for women, and women being the submissive receiver of said symbolic property. The fact that tradition dictates that all gifts be purely decorative--- flowers, chocolates, jewelry, only items which denote wealth and luxury and have no practical purpose--- highlights how rooted it is in medieval wooing. (“wooing” meaning the process of buying 12 year old girls from their dads.)

But in this day and age there are plenty of mature and enlightened people who understand that a day set aside for lovers is an opportunity to ask for some pretty nasty acts of hot greasy sex. Have a little bondage fantasy that you have been too nervous to suggest? Tomorrow is the day you bring out the handcuffs in the name of “romance.” Buy the right bottle of wine and you may find your soft-porn relationship sliding smoothly into cowboy style, facing-the-camera scream fucking. Certainly V-Day rivals only Prom Night as the night to get your virgin lover to hand over her innocence, all gift wrapped and cherry flavored and oh so deliciously awkward.

But yes, I feel about Val Day similar to how I feel about Christmas: any holiday whose main effect is to separate people into “alone” and “fuck you, lonely losers” and then get the not-alone people to buy shit they don’t really want, that just ain’t my idea of fun. Even though this year, by some weirdo fluke of tortured nature, I find myself even participating in the seedy romance of the day, I still vote against it in the long run. Valentine’s Day feels like one yearly episode of a particularly cheap Reality TV show. I don’t like things that cheapen love. Love isn’t sweet and candy-coated, it isn’t pink and cartoon smooth with not a bodily fluid in sight. Love is naked skin and biting and need and sneaking around corners and struggling to breathe. Love is upset stomach and dirty laundry. Love isn’t a gift you can buy at the mall. Love is a dragon. And you aren’t the knight. You’re the bait.

So, yeah, buy your shit and pay your dues. Eat lots of chocolate and tell your girl she isn’t far. Use the day for what it is--- a day to take a break from the real thing and pretend that love is just as simple and boring as you thought it was when you were five. But if you want my advice, use your one day of Romance Camouflage to try and sneak in some really freaky fucking. And if you are alone, what the fuck, do the same for yourself. That vibrator might feel just fine in places you haven’t tried.

Cherish The Geeks

2008-02-10T20:19:00.000-08:00

I have given a lot of thought to the question of "why are all guys such assholes?" It is a question so common it can almost be considered archetypal, a question of primal origin on roughly the same level as "Is There A God?" and "Does The Moon Have A Purpose?" Little girls arrive on the earth, they take a while to look around, and they ask "Where Did I Come From?" Followed almost immediately by "Why Are All Guys Such Assholes?"

Well, as much as I am a bit of a radical feminist, and as much as I carry my own requisite load of Male Shame, I'm not willing to give up on guys. Not yet. I have known too many guys who are good. More to the point, I have known too many guys who were smart and funny and kind and could not get a girlfriend to save their very lives.

I used to work with this kid, college age, a very cool guy, who I will for no reason call Earnest. He was kick-you-in-the-brain hilarious. He was kind, and he was extremely talented. He even had a stunning pair of eyes and a shining, if slightly crooked, smile. He wasn't rolling in the cash barrel, but he had a job, he had a place to live, he had a car. And he was single. And he was surrounded by single girls. Girls who talked about how cute he was. How funny he was. He got more lip service than a tranny hooker on Hollywood Blvd.

But when it came down to actually dating this dude, no one would go for it. Because he was a little bit odd. He was a little bit shy. In spite of those dashing eyes, his look was a bit on the peculiar side. He may have even had an extra fifteen pounds on him. And for that, he was completely un-datable. I mean, girls who were desperate for action would not give the green light to this poor soul. He may as well have been made out of foam.

I think the nasty truth is this: guys go into the world wanting to get some action. Whatever that means to them. Yeah, a lot of them are looking for a hot poke and nothing more. Some guys-- too many-- just never grow beyond wanting to touch naked boobies. But most of them do. Most of them want sex along with warm human connection--- in many ways, men are exactly like human beings. Whatever it is a guy wants, he is looking for someone to fulfill that want. He's checking out each girl he meets with an eye toward "could I dig her? could she dig me? could I get her? what is she like really?" And every girl he meets, he tries to make the fantasy work in his head. Because he knows WHAT he wants. He isn't thinking so much about who.

But women don't go out looking for the action. They aren't looking to fulfill the need. They go out looking for THE MAN. Girls are all about the who.

I'm not remotely saying that women are shallow. I'm not saying girls aren't capable of thinking outside their own box. But it isn't where they start from. And I am not at all suggesting that most boys are acceptable mates. They aren't. Especially young men. Boys under 22 are mostly monkeys. I think there are plenty of girls out there who are LOOKING for monkeys, and those guys tend to do just fine. But even smart girls, even strange girls who themselves are not one's idea of a traditional mate, I think they can get blinded by an idea of a man, an image of what they think they want, and they may be walking by boys every day that they just do not see.

So yes, I think that men are fucked up. I have about three thousand years of history to back me up on this. I wish I could say I don't think it is political, but it is: guys are taught to want their girls submissive and painted up and barely dressed, and it is gross. God help you if you are a young woman and you think of yourself as more than a blow-job delivery system. Even in this day and age, any girl with a quarter-cup of real self-respect will find most men cannot even look her in the eye.

But it doesn't matter who you are, most people aren't for you. And I do believe there are good boys. Lots of them. I wish I knew where to find them--- the sad reality is, if you want to date someone fun and interesting, they are going to be the hardest people to find, because the very fact that they are fun and interesting means they are probably DOING something, not getting drunk at a party and waiting to be hopped on.

But the only thing that I can tell you by way of comfort is that, if you can spot them, they are just as desperate for a good conversation and a good fuck as you are. They are just as frustrated. And they have a fair shot at knowing how to find a damn clitoris.

I can't promise they won't be losers. But I for one would rather spend a night with a loser than someone who thinks they've got it made. Confidence may be a turn on. But it is probably a sign of someone who hasn't been rejected enough. When you are in school, you have no money, no power, and you don't know much. And if you are out of school, you are rapidly learning that the world is stacked against you. Either way, the healthy and intelligent response should be a fairly deep scar of humility. Confidence just means you're too dumb to know better.

-

The Mailbox Is Alive

2008-02-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

The following comment arrived at my door this morning, wearing a nice little sundress and tasteful lipgloss.

Can people write in and anonymously ask you for advice? And like, have you answer, maybe?
-Needs an advice columnist who's not an asshole. (NAACWNAA!)

Of course, the answer is absolutely yes. Write in and ask anything you like. I can't promise you won't think I am an asshole, but I can promise to give you practical advice and not moralistic bullshit. Write in and spread the word to any confused people you know.

Love and tickle,
Doc

Traffic Fines Doubled In Construction Zones

2008-02-04T09:55:00.000-08:00

It is good to have little rules to live by. I think it can be dangerous to maintain big, sweeping ideas as the centerpiece of your world-strategy--- like "live with passion." Don't adopt any rules that don't have an obvious, practical application. Usually you end up just preaching your idea to others and not tending to it much yourself. It is easy think adopting the phrase is proof of your commitment to living it. But everything is easy to say. Even I love you. If it wasn't, people wouldn't say it so often to my cock.

But small rules are fantastic. I live by a rule that I do not buy anything that I am not sure I want. If I am debating it in my head, then I default to not spending the scratch. Far from restricting me, this rule actually frees me up a great deal, because then if something sticks in my head for a few days and I still want it, I have no conflict about picking it up. It's nice to know that the things you have are all things you consciously chose.

That, by the way, is a pretty good rule for fucking, too. Don't hop on a partner unless you are sure you want them. And if you do, don't have any shame, even if it turns out you have no place to store the damn thing.

A place that I wish we had a solid list of agreed upon rules is the arena of who is actually single and who is not. It would be helpful to the task of deciding on whom to spend your hard earned sexual income. And it could be even more helpful in helping you figure out yourself whether or not you are available.

As much as I am ultra-sex-positive, and I believe in a finely free-wheeeling and thoroughly well lubricated lifestyle, I still don't endorse what I think of as the HULK SMASH philosophy of dating. I don't think barreling forward and taking a swing at anything that looks shiny is a good plan. At the very least, I think it is smart to know who is single and who isn't. Just so you know what you are getting into. Dating someone who is not single ain't exactly hopeless--- it is more like getting a high interest credit card. You might dig what you get right away, but you are going to pay for a lot more than you buy. (and for a lot longer.)
But I don't think single or taken is a simple, binary state--- being in a relationship, like being wet enough, isn't a clear on or off situation. And "Single" and "Available" aren't quite synonymous.

Hence, the rules.

Let me start with the obvious ones that aren't so obvious to everyone:

1) If there is any person in their life who they call my "Girlfriend" or my "Boyfriend" they are not single. Probably also a good rule of thumb for "Husband" and "Wife".

A helpful rule is to consider the phrase "I am thinking about leaving my" (wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend) to be exactly the same as saying "I'm thinking about having a sandwich later." Not metaphorically the same, EXACTLY the same. Anyone who says they are thinking about leaving their lover may, very likely, have a sandwich later. They are not AT ALL more likely to be leaving their lover. Not even close.

That is another good rule: Don't casually talk about breaking up with your mate. Feel free to talk about it, if you are serious. But if you have been talking about it for more than, say, two months, then either do it or shut the fuck up and actually work on your relationship. For as long as you are fantasizing about leaving them, the relationship is not moving an inch.

Which leads me to rule number two, possibly a controversial one:
2) You get ONE free break up. If you break up once, you can get back together, and everyone should respect that. If you break up a second time, everyone may consider you available. You may gleefully fuck anyone who has broken up with their mate twice, no matter how often after that they claim to get back together.

It is important to note here that these people are NOT SINGLE. They are the high interest credit card. But they are morally available. Fucking them isn't cheating. You can only cheat on people who have a real relationship. Just be prepared to share and for gods sake use condoms.

A related rule: anyone who has broken up with their boyfriend/girlfriend and is still living with them--- no matter what their reason--- is still fucking them. Just know this. You can date them both as much as you want, but if they tell you they are not sleeping with their ex, they are lying. Exes who live together are fucking. (You can also safely apply this rule if they are "broken up" but they still arrive to parties in the same car.)

You are not divorced until you have filed divorce papers.
(On the same note, you are not engaged unless you have set a date for your wedding.)

I will post more rules later in the week. But I will end with what I consider the Cardinal Rule in this arena, the one on which there is no room for negotiation:

No matter what you do or don't do, if you lie about it, it is cheating.

This goes from the first day of a relationship until the day it is over (whenever that really is). If you lie on a third date, you are cheating. If you have a nice dinner with a hot friend, and don't even touch them, but lie about it to avoid conflict, you are cheating. The lie is the cheat.

Oh, and you don't get off the hook for fucking someone else and then confessing. If you are with someone and they screw your friend and then immediately confess to you, ask yourself only one question: was the act pre-meditated. If they drove over to the fuckees apartment, then it was. If they hooked up with them at any time in the past and then "suddenly" fucked them last night, it was pre-meditated. Fucking dump them. Immediately. People who confess right away are people who do not feel sufficient guilt. Don't let them hustle you. You are better than that.

---

20 Minutes To Sexier Ass

2008-01-29T14:44:00.000-08:00

Lets get down to some nuts and bolts, shall we? I’ve been writing about the broad, deep, dare-I-day “spiritual” (yuck) inner struggles of dating, but there are also a lot of real, concrete things that slow folks down. I don’t want to become the thing I most despise, which is someone who tells you “the reason you haven’t found what you want is because you are just not a complete person.” Fuck that. There is big picture, but just as important is the nitty gritty. I have promised a full service sex blog here, and that has to include the rarely-if-ever addressed areas of specifically what to say and what to do. So here is a bundle of advice, like a bag of assorted candy, in no particular order.

Don’t be afraid to move your lover around. This goes especially for performing oral sex, double especially on a woman: there can be some serious neck craning involved in the process of tongue love, and I think it discourages a lot of men from doing it. No excuse. Pick her up by the hips and plant her where you want her--- the edge of the bed, the far end of the couch, straddling your skull, whatever you need.

Sex involves a lot of muscles which are either used or stretched in a way which is not ordinary for most non-dancers. As a result, I advise only having sex with dancers. Okay, seriously, the advice is, don’t push too hard. Take it slow, enjoy the process. That stiffness will clear up after a few uses. And pay attention to your partner’s resistance. A lot of people in their desire to “perform” well will not mention when something hurts. This means: Boys, oh impatient boys, don’t push a girl to spread her legs wider. If you feel any pain, refer to my above rule: put your lover where you want them. Believe me, they are stoked to just be getting laid.

On that note, don’t try to be impressive. You are a lot more likely to turn your impulsive hook up into a multi-episode thriller if you just stay sincere and enjoy yourself. Trying to be sexy is rarely sexy. Take a tip from an old stage actor: don’t play the idea. Play the action.

Boys: there is no rush in finding the clitoris. Yes, learn how to find it. But if you have trouble, don’t panic. Don’t guess. Take your time. Take your time anyway. She doesn’t need you hammering on that thing until you’ve gotten her well and hot.

Women, no joke: physically take hold of his hand and show him what you want him to do. Men may have frail egos, but they are grateful to be instructed. By all means, give them a minute to show you their tricks if they have any, but once you are ready to get down to business, that boy is on the clock: you make him do his job and do it correctly.

Men, don’t use the word “horny.” Ever. Actually, no one use that word. It is gross. We will have lessons on dirty talk in future entries.

Hey, though, here is a tip, which too few people seem to get: when someone asks you to “tell me something” they want to you say something about them. Not about yourself. Dig it? Same goes for “tell me a secret” and “say something dirty.”

If you speak a foreign language, any foreign language, use it. No one is immune to this turn-on. Assuming you don’t speak it with a very embarrassing American accent, and the language in question isn’t Elvish or Klingon. Otherwise, let those tongues free. I especially recommend giving instructions and compliments. Though if the language you speak is either Russian or French, you can pretty much just describe things in the room and your lover will go melty.

Learn these phrases, get comfortable with them: “Do you like that?” “That feels good” Think of some variations for yourself. Practice in the car.

Also, I highly recommend everyone make generous use of “Good Boy” and “Good Girl” but I’m not sure everyone is into that kind of thing. Though I’m pretty sure everyone is. Can I get a witness? (important caveat: unless you know her pretty well, “good girl” should never be used on a woman giving head. The opposite goes for a man.)

We’ll do a whole column on kissing, but these are the two top rules. NUMBER ONE: Kissing does not mean puckering your lips and trying to make a smacking noise against their lips. Done properly, it shouldn’t involve any puckering at all. Don’t kiss like a cartoon character. If you have been kissing someone for five minutes, that should all be one kiss, not 30 delivered one after another.

And to the boys, I have a message from the Patron Saint Of The Blog, Mrs. Halpert: chill on the saliva. Less saliva for kissing. And much, much more for the other things.

That is just a bit to get us started. There are too few sources of concrete sex advice out there, but I won't try to substitute for the few there are. I'll just share the tips as they rise to the top of my brain. Feel free to send me suggestions or post comments (which are moderated) if you have any must-know techniques or rules for your fellow explorers. But the rule is, be specific. That is for the advice, and for the actual fucking. Be specific. And have fun out there.

The Pussy And The Cockpit

2008-01-24T11:37:00.000-08:00

There are few things in the world more irksome than the common dating advice book, whether it is couched in the tone of “how to snag your dream man” or “personal empowerment through sexual confidence” or whatever the angle is. There are a few out there that have a soul (the awesome How To Dump A Guy is a must have for any modern person’s reference desk), but most of them are the same old shit in a slightly new package. Girls, be good and submissive and trade on your value as a sex object.

The trouble is, those values have been deeply accepted by the culture. Even people who are prone to think independently have their proper gender roles pretty deeply ingrained. I have a friend who is an incredibly smart, intensely empowered woman who has decided that the reason she hasn’t found the right man is that she hasn’t made them work hard enough to get her. She has made a commitment that she will not date or even talk to a man who doesn’t come after her first. She’s been single for a while. (Happily single, I should stress.)

I have sworn upwards and downwards to my lovely woman friends, who look to me for advice (because they are a bit nutty in the head), that it is ridiculous not to be assertive with the men they want to get naked. And I can report that the result, with very few exceptions, is that the men cannot fucking take it. Not just that they are not interested, but they panic and have no idea what to do. And usually, they run run run. And my poor babes go sexless.

So is there a way around the old, nasty cliché, which sadly appears to be true, that men like to “pursue”? That the only way for a woman to really get a man is for her to sit on her well toned derriere and bat her eyelashes until the man of her dreams feels like getting his dick wet? Is that the role that a woman finally must arrive in?

I say no. I say that a strong, equal minded man is worth waiting for. And the trouble is, just like diet books never deal with the actual problem of dieting, which isn’t what to eat and when to eat it, but how the fuck to make yourself do it at all, the dating books never deal with the much more important question of what to do when you are single. The same goes for those pesky women’s magazines, and advice columns, and call-in radio shows. Diet books begin with you, as the main character, having already decided to lose weight. Dating books all begin with you already having found the person you want. Which, when you think about it, is kind of fucking mean. Both cases assume that that hardest part--- getting the motivation and the courage--- is just a given. And so reading these supposedly helpful, empowering guides ultimately leaves you more convinced that you are the one miserable person who just can’t get it together.

Yes, the stereotypes are true. But they are not true at all. Yeah, men feel safer when they are the hunter, not the hunted. And guess what? So do women. The crusty old observation that women only like men who treat them badly comes from the same place. Boys and girls both run away when they are chased, and both in the same way and for the same reason. The truth is, people like to think about love, they like to dream about sex, and everyone wants some freakin’ tv-wactching/dancing-date/
naked-jello-writhing companionship. But the moment the fantasy becomes a possible reality it scares the shit out of us. Suddenly you remember that that the object of your desire is also a person, and you are going to have to spend time with them, and think of things to say, and maybe even show them your tiny, bitter little heart. And, unless you are a Jr. High first timer or a Memento style brain damage-ee, you know the odds are very high that they are going to reject you. Or worse, not reject you, and then bore the shit out of you. Or, even WORSE, it will all actually work out, and you will stay with them for the rest of your life. And THEN what the fuck are you supposed to do with yourself?

See, I think there are a lot of layers of costume-stereotype, of cheap distractions like plastic beads, and all of it is there to try and hide the much more simple, embarrassing truth: we’re all scared. We’re scared of being rejected, and we are more scared of being accepted, and whether you are a single college girl or a 45 year old divorced man with a moustache, you would rather imagine and long for love than actually throw yourself down its spikey pit.

So this is the trick, and it is very important for you to pay attention:
yeah, go after who you want. Girl or boy, man or woman, you gotta strap on your boots and lead the hunting party. But don’t do it as a strategy. Do it because it is the best way to live. And when that person you want, whether you want them for two nights of slish-and-scream or you want to try for the full summit ascent, if they freak out and start to run… well, don’t let them. Call them on it. Tell them you see what they are doing, and it isn’t necessary, because you are not that scary. Ask them what they want. Tell them what you are willing to do. Everyone is waiting for someone to just tell them what is really happening, what they are really feeling, what you really want them to do. You can still play all the games you want. But it is okay to talk about the rules.

And then, if they can’t take that, jesus christ are they not worth it. Cuz even if I think it is a shame for her to wait for some dude to come to her, I do think my patient, single friend has pegged the absolute truth: A guy who doesn’t have balls is a guy who doesn’t have balls. A girl who won’t open up is a girl who won’t open up. The level of bravery a person has on the first date is exactly the same as the level of bravery they will have after you’ve been with them for five years. People are what they are. They try like fuck to hide it, and they never, ever succeed.

People are not a mystery. The only person who is a real puzzle is you to yourself.

The Demon Barber Of Funkytown

2008-01-19T15:54:00.000-08:00

I have another pet peeve to share--- god, to call it a pet peeve doesn’t do justice to the level of enragement that I actually feel when things like this arrive in my field of view. Can I call it a Pet Outrage? A Fluffy Companion of Fury? I don’t know what to call it, but it pisses me off.

It is women’s hair.

The politics of hair are so vast that it honestly strains the mind to comprehend it. If you ever get into a conversation with anyone who doubts the inequality between men and women (oh yes, there are such people out there. They have huge numbers.) ask them to think about the hair. And the fact that for a women simply to change her hairstyle requires courage and soul searching on a comically deep level.

I’m not talking about leaping off the tonsorial bridge here, either: I’m not talking about going half bald and half green with a streak of uncooked angel hair pasta. I’m talking about any change at all. A woman who is considering, for example, changing her hair from blond to brown, will encounter hostility on a level roughly equal to a man considering changing his regular drink from Samuel Adams Light to the blood of rich white babies.

Her mother will tell her not to, everyone in her family, 95 percent of her friends. They will tell her, flat out, that she is going to be ugly. That she won’t be attractive. (and girls, it is your JOB to be pretty. If you don't know that by now, how lost you must be in the world.) People will indicate in no uncertain terms that if, tomorrow, you are no longer blond, they will consider it a personal attack against them.

And it doesn’t seem to matter what your hair is like now. It doesn’t matter if you are going from a fake dye job back to your natural hair color, or going from having a long ratty frizz monster to a cute manageable shoulder length. Whatever your current hair is, if you are a woman, the people around you are certain that you should not change it.

I have seen relationships, serious long term relationships, break up over the girl cutting her hair short. I’ve seen fights that went on for weeks. I have had adult women sit in my car and weep because since they changed their hair, people treat them completely differently.

Like most of the things that make me really angry, it isn’t just that I think it is a rotten thing to do to someone, it is also because I just cannot understand it. Why would you object to someone changing their hair? What the hell is threatening to a mother about her 18 year old daughter having a different hair color? For god’s sake, what is supposed to be so terrifying about a girl having short hair? Who in the name of Gay Moses gives a fuck?

I have a lot of respect for how much courage it takes for a woman to go to the bold side of the hair game. But it shouldn’t be so hard. Short shouldn’t be considered bold to begin with. The idea that dying your hair the color of a Muppet would be considered hostile (and therefore gay) is baffling.

So, as with every single entry in this blog thus far, my demand of the world seems to be the following: chill the fuck out. Oh, and in this particular case, recognize that if someone wants to change their hair, no matter what your relationship is to them, it is none of your goddamn business. Put your woman-hating cock away (that goes especially for mothers) and tell them they look nice.

And girls: I say go for it. Not just because you can, but because you should. Do half in short spikes and half red as an open wound. Clippers are less than ten bucks. Just do it once, because I will tell you, it is a great way to find out who thinks of you as a person, and who thinks of you as a pet.

BLOG NOTE:
Regular weekly updates from now on. Scout's honor.

(Of course I am referring to Scout, the iconic character from To Kill A Mockingbird, not Scouts, the oppressive homophobic pre-frat and popular hot spot for child molesters.)
-

Sorry, Charlie et. al.

2008-01-12T20:42:00.000-08:00

Just for the record: The Second String Soulmate blog is not dead, or even asleep. Just on vacation for the new year. Sorry if there wasn't proper notice given. But there will be more up starting next week and onward.

In the meantime, go back and read the earlier entries. You didn't get it all the first time. And you need it. You need it bad.

Love,
Doc

Auld Lang ZING

2007-12-31T17:04:00.001-08:00

As a public service to our always excited readers, Second String Soulmate suggests the following...

Twelve And A Half Resolutions For The Year To Come

1) I will tell people they are beautiful more often than is socially normal.

2) I will masturbate as much as I need to, and use several different methods so as to enrich myself as a person.

3) I will stay within reasonable speeds and mostly keep my eyes open when getting a hand job on the freeway.

4) I will teach at least one needy person how to give better oral sex.

5) I will eshew the company of complainers and people who take life too seriously, or indeed seriously at all. When I cannot avoid them, I will instead point and laugh. It is okay, because they are already miserable and they enjoy it.

6) I will only flirt with people I want to sleep with, or hook up with, or people I like as friends, people I want attention from, or to improve my employment or academic prospects, or obtail discounts on goods and services.

7) I will not use the words “sexy” or “hot” to describe things that are merely cool.

8) I will talk about sex with at least as much openness and enthusiasm as I talk about fashion, movies, politics, and other things of no consequence.

9) I will masturbate outdoors, at least once, either alone or with a friend(s).

10) I will not have sex with anyone who is beneath me in spirit, no matter how long it has been since my last fuck.

11) I will keep at least one sexy thing secret from everyone. For myself.

12) I will use lube. God gave it to us for a reason. There is no shame, only reward.

12.5) I will let Doc in on my sexy secret. Because he will appreciate it like no one else.

Happy New Year, mates. Go out there and make some trouble.

COMING IN THE NEW YEAR:

Boys And How To Make Them Behave

Girls And How To Make Them Not Behave

Naming Your Clitoris And Other Ways To Love Your Bits

The Green Eyed Monster Gets A Nice Pink Hat

2007-12-28T11:51:00.000-08:00

There seems to be a great deal of confusion around the subject of who is actually with whom, and to whom one does or does not owe either 1) Sexual loyalty, or 2) At least some kind of explanation of their behavior. Are you allowed to sleep with your ex-girlfriend’s friends? Are you allowed to sleep with your ex-girlfriend’s friends if you are also still sleeping with your ex-girlfriend (and let’s not be naïve about that one, right kids? The break-up is not even close to being the end of the relationship.) If you and your friend both want to tag the same cock, who should you be loyal to? Your friend, or your hungry little pussycat? It seems to be hugely complicated, and so like most things that are very complicated and very important, our solution is to never never talk about it.

(As a side note, “It’s Complicated” invariably means “I know what the shit is, but I am not going to tell you because if I do you will interfere with me getting what I want.” Okay? Add that to the Doc Luben Sex-To-Human translation dictionary.)

There is a simple answer, which isn’t necessarily the correct one, which is that no one owes any loyalty to anyone. This is an area in which no one, even the most noble and thoughtful of people, is likely to be honest. So the easy solution is to not put anyone in a position where honesty is required. In general, people in matters of sex hold very passionately an “Exact-Opposite-Of-The-Golden-Rule” which I do not have a catchy title for. But the effect is that people fiercely expect others to restrain themselves in ways that they would never even momentarily consider for themselves.

For example, the MOMENT that you break up with someone, your chief goal is to fuck someone else. This is true for everyone. Whether or not you DO fuck someone else is a matter of luck and timing and, usually, whether the person you actually broke up over has the balls to follow through with it. But whether you know it is your plan or not, no one would ever hesitate for a second if another fuck came along in the days (/hours) (/same party) after a break up. And yet, if your partner fucks someone else just after breaking up with you, you will go mad with outrage. Not just jealousy, but real and righteous OUTRAGE--- you will feel, probably for the rest of your life, that you were the victim of an absolute wrong. A crime. Like horse thieving.

I think the same is true with the love triangle scenario, and the ex-girlfriend scenario, and all the scenarios. Scenariototalus. Would you really ever feel conflicted about naked-snogging a dude if you knew that your dear friend had hot pants in her heart for him? Has there ever been a pair of men who chose to preserve their friendship instead of falling sway to the gentle allure of the local princess’s crotch?

In fact, I think one of the reasons that we are so driven to COUPLE in the first place--- not to mate but to couple up and give it a title--- is that it is one of the only relationships in your life that IS defined. Your fully vested Significant Other is the only person in your life that you are really allowed to ask anything of, the only person who is expected to make a concession to your life as well as their own. Even with your very very best friend, you aren’t allowed to negotiate rules for when you will call them and who else you snuggle on and what the acceptable procedure is for changing the time of brunch.

So the simple way to be cool in the world would be to just groove with the fact that, when all is said and done, people are going to fuck who they are going to fuck. And they don’t owe you anything. Jealousy is a nasty, primal beast, but as grown up humans we can probably dig that in real life, how you feel is mostly your own problem. Most social circles are small and incestuous. People are going to fuck your exes. They are going to tag your friends before you get a chance to seduce them. It does seem a bit on the tweaked side to get really bent about something which is fairly frakking inevitable.

But, because jealousy IS primal, it ain’t that easy to suppress. And even harder to shut down once it gets thundering.

A whole lot of pain would be averted if people would have those conversations. If people would negotiate their break-ups as well as they (hopefully) negotiate their relationship. Set some rules. Set some timelines. Get out the index cards and make a little chart. I swear, it sounds ridiculous, but wouldn’t it be grand if you and your friends just sat down and actually made a list of people you are not allowed to screw? Explain why, make a case, and agree on who would really be hurtful. It could be a party! Jesus, I could make a board game. FUCKABLES, by Milton Bradley.

Then at least we would really know who was off limits. And that would make fucking those people SO MUCH HOTTER.

So yes, I know it isn’t realistic. Inner peace isn’t created through more rules and new, even more twisted kinds of group therapy. But there might be a version of it that would be helpful. I recently had the courage to actually talk to my best friend and tell them that I really would be fucked up if they screwed around with one particular person. And I don’t know if I had the right, and I don’t know if my saying it will really prevent it happening, but I feel a hell of a lot better for having said it. For just telling how I feel and having it acknowledged and understood. At least now when they lie to me, I will know why they are lying. In the past, my friends have kept their slightly forbidden hook-ups secret from me, and it made the whole thing so much worse than if I had just known about it from the start--- it made it into a calculated betrayal of trust, when it could have just been an annoyance. At least in this case, I’ve been able to say what it means to me. And having a tiny bit of control in the most uncontrollable part of our lives is what we are all searching for.

So maybe that would be the starting place for a new social order. If we all let one another have just one person. If for each of your ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends and very close friends, you could just have one person who you got to say No to. Because I like to think that, even as much as I find people to be animals, they could manage with the other six billion people in the world.

And, for the record, just a few words in advance make all the difference. One time and one time only in my life, I have had someone come to me and say “I am thinking I want to hook up with this girl who you like, and I want to make sure that is okay with you.” I think of it as one of the greatest things anyone has ever done for me. And there are not a lot of people who would be selfish enough to say No. I think what hurts folks the most is getting blindsided by it. I was so happy to be asked.

Of course, I had to kill him. No, really, it was fine. They dated. She dumped him because he had goofy underwear. And rightly so. Fair is fair.

Of Peppermint, Marx, And Indoor Pine Trees

2007-12-23T11:39:00.000-08:00

The Holidays are essentially a mechanism for separating those who are alone from those who aren't. There are all the usual traditions and giftings and love of God and such, but mostly the holiday seems to be a mechanism for making sure the lonely and the poor have an intense awareness of how lonely and poor they are. Christmas, especially, is a fierce period of social sorting. At least here in our provocative and always special American culture, where consumerism is not just one piece of the pie but the real and proper North of our moral compass. Capitalism demands that people be separate, because otherwise they might do things like Share Resources and Talk About The Condition Of Their Lives, which only leads to the horrors of Unions and Socialized Healthcare and Community Theater.

And those pesky Christians have managed to inject the double-pesky idea of "family values" into our brains. In a simpler time, Family Values was a simple code for "Fuck Off You Yukky Gay People" but the idea that "Family" is an actual value, and not just a way of describing a certain kind of social group, has become more and more of a sticky wicket.

Whether or not you dig with me on that shaky analysis, you have to admit that come XMastime, the American family adopts an underground bunker mentality: go to the store and stock up on lots of shit, then lock yourself in with your biological relations and don't make too much noise.

At least on Thanksgiving, there are still some people left who have a sense that "no one should be alone" and you are likely to be invited to share a feast with friends or even acquaintances if you don't have family to scoop you up. But Christmas is enforced, strictly mandated Family Time. If you don't have Family to Time with, or you can't get to them because you are working at the AMC in Kearney, or you can get to them but would rather be eaten by a particularly hungry raccoon, then you are simply not a part of the holiday.

And your suffering is compounded by the Christmas Carol effect, which is a universal understanding that Not Liking Christmas means your soul is rotten. So if you are sad around the holiday, you'd better keep your mouth shut about it. (unless you are me, but when it comes to being bitter* toward the world and hateful of normalcy, I think I am pretty much out of the closet) But in A Christmas Carol, mean old Ebenezer is invited by all manner of folk to share Christmas with them, and he refuses. That won't happen to you here and now. In the real American world, if your mother isn't cooking dinner for you on Christmas, then you are eating KFC leftovers by yourself.

So yes, I admit, it may not be that harsh. What you feel about Xmas probably has more to do with how it was in your childhood. I was reminded this week, by the ever remindey-riffic She-Hulk, that there are a lot of families out there who aren't the product of multiple divorces, families where daily fighting was not the norm, and so Christmas isn't marked by intense tension and careful tiptoeing on the delicate lake of ice.

This year I am with my family, and all the nastiness of our earlier years is gone. I don't have my girl with me, but I have one, and all the inner status that comes along with that. I am loved by many, and I live in warm warm California to boot. I am grateful. So I'm not here stomping my feet over my own Christmas blues. At worst, this year I am little more than melancholy--- not unhappy myself, but far too aware that while I have been let off the hook this year, there are a whole lot like me out there who will be counting the ways they could off themselves.

And it does shine a light on one of the things which makes searching for love complicated. As much as I love to write my snarky little blog about how oral sex and keeping it cool are the simple answer, I get it--- nobody gets it better than I do: the stakes are incredibly high. It's all well and good to kick back in June and say "Yo, it's all good, being single is freedom and fresh skin for the browsing," but come Christmastime the difference between being loved and being alone is a long dark rift in the earth. For those of us who strive to go about Dating and Fucking and Loving in a less confused and less cruel way, it is important to remember that wanting true and hardcore love isn't shallow. It is way more than just status, or ego, or endorphin addiction. Love may be just an idea, but it is the idea around which we build our homes and lives. Finding the right kind of love with the right person can be the difference between being a player in All This and being a spectator.

What I suggest in these virtual pages, it isn't an easy thing. Asking yourself to be chill when the bet on the table is stacked so high you can't see around it, that is no small deal. Finding a way to be cool and kind to a new naked friend when you know they could be the one to make or break your future home--- it is asking a lot. Of everyone involved.

Love and Christmas are exhausting things. They are both inventions, but they are mighty big ones.

Big, and ultimately worthwhile.

Probably.

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This blog entry brought to you by the good people at Ungrammatical Capitalization For Emphasis.

Merry Frakking Christmas.
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*For the record, I like to think of myself as more of a bittersweet candy. You gotta have a sophisticated pallet to taste this morsel.

You Are Soft, Like A New Monkey

2007-12-17T21:40:00.001-08:00

Your Second String Soulmate is on semi-vacation for the week, but I am promising you at least one more post before the High Holy Day. In the meantime, a list of random thoughts which you may or may not be able to put to use.

1) Pornography is mostly of such poor quality not because of the unflattering lighting, or because of the inexplicable obsession with the detailed anatomy of intercourse, but because of one of the fine conundrums of life: people are at their least sexy when they are trying to be sexy.

Well, that, and when they are dying of a wasting disease. Except tuberculosis. Everyone knows TB is kind of hot.

2) If you are tempted to get anyone a sex toy for Christmas, do it! It can't possibly be more awkward than when they open up the Time Life coffee table book you bought them off the bargain shelf at Borders. In any case, cock rings are always classy.

3) I have decided that, when it comes to decorating a Christmas tree, tinsel is racist. If you don't see why, then you are racist too.

4) If you are shopping for a Christmas present for a lover or mate, don't try to impress them. Just get them something you know they will like. This is no time to shoot for the moon. If they like golf, get them golf clubs. If they like comics, give them comic book junk. If you like getting blow jobs, get her a subscription to Modern Bride magazine. That's a bit off topic, but it will work.

5) If you set out to be a "burlesque performer" you are going to end up being a stripper. Always buy the premium razors. It's worth it.

VERY, VERY IMPORTANT. VERY.

2007-12-13T11:16:00.000-08:00

I'm going to reverse-engineer a train of thought here, so please enjoy the process. Forgive me in advance if the usual snark isn't in high gear for the day.

I have been thinking a great deal, as you would expect, about the Writer's Strike and the corporate insanity which seems to have caused it. Without going into details, which can freely be read elsewhere (Deadline Hollywood Daily is the gold standard) What constantly surprises and confuses me is how personal it all seems to be. The studio CEO's take each new proposal very personally. The WGA negotiators are clearly taking it personally. It looks a whole lot more like a bitter lover's quarrel than it does like a labor dispute.

I feel this must be because of the New Age movement.

Check me here: the New Age movement deserves some fair credit for being a part of a lot of enlightened thinking in the modern day. The environmental movement, a stronger tendency in the public to think of war as something bad instead of something glorious--- all of the things represented by the musical Hair and the the life of John Lennon. But somewhere along the way, the movement also became associated with the desire for personal satisfaction. It incorporated very shallow readings of Buddhism and eastern philosophy, and it spawned endless trends of classes and books and seminars which employ words like "empowerment" and "self-realization."

I've been through one or two of those seminars. I mean, the serious, hard core, trainers yelling in your face, middle aged women holding each other and weeping at 2 in the morning, life empowerment training. I've also been to a fair number of counsellors and shrinks, sometimes by choice, often by court order. And the movement is designed around analyzing small, daily behaviors in search of a greater pattern. That is useful. But it can also be dangerous.

The New Age movement is largely wrapped up in the idea that we are all linked by an invisible binding of energy which directly creates the world around us--- or, to put it simply, that the world becomes what you believe it is. That if everyone believes in peace, there will be peace. Something which is often referred to with the innocent sounding title "Mindfulness." Which, like Buddhism, is a big and complex philosophy which requires some serious probing and contemplation to understand.

But on a simple, day to day level, the movement strongly encourages people to be ZEALOUS in their pursuit of personal enlightenment. Whether you learn this at a spiritual center for discovery or at a completely non-spiritual corporate "leadership training" you are going to learn the same thing: you must live with raw and untempered passion, all the time, otherwise you are not 1) Fulfilling your full potential or 2) Contributing your full share to the well being of humanity. Even if you have never been to a big time training or a small town shrink, you are still getting it from books and Oprah and plinky guitar folk music. The philosophy is that every moment is the most important moment of your life.

And that has really, really screwed us up.

In all of our relationships, we are burdened by the very modern notion that every single thing is of utmost significance. That everything you say and do "represents" something deeper. It is a huge amount of stress to live under. And it causes people to overreact. To everything. Because, in a lot of ways and from a lot of sources, we are told that to NOT overreact is irresponsible. If you don't react with passion then you don't care. And you care, don't you? Don't you? Do you care or don't you?? Those are your only two options. Answer me!!

We are also burdened with the peculiar idea (thanks AGAIN, Oprah) that a good way to deal with your mate is to psychoanalyze the shit out of them. Study their behavior, decide what their "issues" are, and then share with them your findings. Free of charge. I have to say, even most people who went to school for 8 years and got a license and make a living in a nice cushy office, they are pretty shitty at psychoanalysis. The armchair head-shrinking of lovers is considerably less reliable.

I am here to suggest something that flies in the face of guidance counsellors and (cringe) The Secret and inspirational posters the world over: most of the days of your life are not important. Most of the things you do don't matter much. How you phrase things may be interesting, but it may not reveal your deepest beliefs and values. And becoming happy isn't a matter of forcing yourself into a state of hyper-sensitive hyper-awareness.

It is more a matter of chilling the fuck out.

It seems to me this writer's strike could be resolved in a few chatty days if everyone involved would just kind of chill the fuck out. And it seems to me that relationships between lovers and spouses would be a lot more fun if they treated them more like labor negotiations. Talk about who is going to do what, and how you are going to pay for things, and how you are going to divide your time. Let go of the idea of figuring out what things mean. Most things don't fucking mean anything. Freeing up the energy that you spend on trying to understand the relationship will leave a lot more energy for fucking and drinking and climbing mountains together and, you know, actually having the relationship.

Most spiritual ideas have the nasty danger of being interpreted as the opposite of what they mean. The core of Christianity is kindness and tolerance, but most Christians focus on judgment and discrimination. The idea behind New Age-ism is that what you do also effects the big picture. The result is, people look so hard at themselves they stop noticing the big picture. Forget not seeing the forest for the trees. Most people are stuck on checking out a handful of leaves.

A lot of things are important. But only the important things. The things that aren't important, not-so-much important. The big things are big. The little things are on the smaller side. You can take that shit to the bank.

My Ass Is Only Barely On Fire

2007-12-08T15:06:00.000-08:00

It would be arrogant to think that this newly minted blog has anything that could be called "fans," even if I am sure it has a least a small and sturdy handful of readers. (including lovely immigrants from my seventeen other blogs which I consolidated into this one.) However, for anyone out there, I am writing to say that there will be a new entry coming soon. I, like everyone in this peculiar time of year, am busy in a way that seems neither socially appropriate or morally correct. It is made only worse by the fact that all of the things I am busy with are activities which yield no income--- some, like being on strike (or should I say, being on STRIKE!) are actually designed to be much work with no income. (if you don't think being on strike is work, choose any small section of sidewalk near your home, go there on an early winter day, and walk in a circle for fours hours. Then come back and we can both drink a toast to class warfare.)

However, I promise that I will be posting more regularly from now on. I got the first blush of passion out of the way in my early posts, and now that I am through that I am ready to settle into writing smaller and more practical bits of useful dirty words. With the Holidays and New Year's coming up, I know everyone is going to need serious levels of advice. And I am here to serve.

Hey wait, is this a new entry already? Well then fuck y'all. Be patient.

Seriously: sex advice by tomorrow. Pinky promise.

Some Day My Prince Will Come On My Face

2007-12-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

I feel in these early days of the blog I have given the impression that I have contempt for most people and the way they deal with relationships. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do, indeed, have contempt for most people. But it isn't because of the way they deal with relationships. It isn't because of their search for love, or their lust for ass, or the often irrational decisions made as a result. I like irrational decisions. They turn me on. Honestly, if it wasn't for poor judgement and irresponsible choices, I would never get laid at all.

What I do feel, with great vigor, is that there is a lot wrong with the way we talk about love and sex and lust and need and the not-so-mysterious webbing between those things. Or the way we don't talk about them. Every time I turn on the television and hear someone saying "do you have feelings for Clark?" I want to drink a genetically activated nuclear cocktail so that I can grow to giant size and moon the whole fucking puritan country. What the fuck is Having Feelings? I have feelings for fettuccine alfredo, but that doesn't mean I want to have sex with it. (okay, maybe I do a little bit.)

There are a lot of good reasons to take sex seriously--- the threat of pregnancy, the unfortunate likelihood of nasty little bugs, and the fact that some men have a hard time taking no for an answer. Plus the danger that your little heart will be temporarily crushed, which is hardly trite or trivial. But I am troubled by the mystique that we have built around finding a good friend and making a mutually beneficial banging arrangement. And yes, I understand that for most people the goal is more advanced, that they want to make a nest and hatch a few shrieking fleshy golums, but that is even LESS romantic and more practical. It is nothing to write sparkle-sweet fairy tales about. (and we all know, don't we by now, that fairy tales had nothing whatsoever to do with love until Old Walt Disney got his perverted woman-hating hands on them.)

But that doesn't mean that I don't think love is something. It doesn't mean I don't believe that love is something meaningful, and substantial, and even quite a bucket full of magical. I have just looked microscopically close at the phenomenon of coupling, and found that the cause of almost all the suffering is that we just don't want to talk about it. For real, big and scary, talk about it. And when we do talk about it, we try to leave the dirty parts out. Which is kind of like trying to bake a cake without adding the sugar.

So I like to talk about the dirty, nasty, sticky, tangled up parts. The musky wet bits of the soul. And I encourage others to do the same. I'd like to lead a revolution of trashy porn star pillow talk made public. I want the coffee shops and the talk radio waves to be filled with chat about fucking and cumming and birth control and gay sex weekends. I want to open the newspaper and read about Hilary Clinton's recommended sex toys. (cuz say what you will about Hilary, that woman looks like she gets off plenty regular.)

It may seem like I don't believe in love. It is the opposite. I believe it is a thousand times more interesting and colorful and wild than we give it credit for. I think by trying to make it noble and keep it clean, we're cheating ourselves out of the sweetest parts.

COMING SOON:

How To Kiss Like A Man

James And The Giant Clitoris

Smoking After Sex: Seek Immediate Medical Treatment

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Hot Air Traffic Control

2007-12-01T09:17:00.000-08:00

I watched a movie tonight, one of these somewhat ridiculous post-Nora Ephron romantic comedies in which the main obstacle to the characters getting together is that they feel a little bit nervous about getting together. This one involved several different pairings of people in various states of meeting/dating/coupling/cheating etc, and one of the things I noticed is that all of the characters talked constantly about how "confused" they were. Aside from, obviously, it being a sign of very bad writing, it got me thinking about how often I have heard people talk about being "confused" in their relationships. And what a load of shit I think it is.

I admit, I am pretty harsh with people, and I have an unfortunate tendency to be even more harsh with them when they are feeling at their most vulnerable. But I can't stand the theatre of confusion. Being "confused" about a relationship is one of many claims that I think is, pretty much always, a lie.

So here is my guide to sorting out your confusion, so that you can avoid your own life becoming a poorly written romantic comedy.

First and foremost: "confusion" is a sign of dishonesty. I'm cracking that code for you right here and now. The only reason you are "confused" is either because you are being manipulated or because you are trying to manipulate someone else--- that part is key, because this mostly does not happen by accident. Ninety percent of the time someone tells you that they are confused, it is because they are trying to confuse you.

It's actually kind of brilliant. I have gotten a lot of mileage out of it, myself.

A dude who tells you he is confused is telling you that he wants to fuck you, maybe even wants to fuck you a lot, but he is with his girlfriend and is not going to leave his girlfriend. And he knows that you will not fuck him unless you think maybe he might accidentally leave her in a fit of confusion. He won't. He's not confused. He knows he won't leave her. You, in turn, now feel confused, but your confusion is not a sign of you having feelings that are new and surprising and hard to understand: you confusion comes from the fact that someone you like a lot is lying to you.

And that is genuinely confusing, because as people we are naturally compelled to believe what we are told. It is why movies and plays and books are so powerful: because we can't tell the difference between what is real and what isn't. Obviously we CAN tell the difference, with some time and effort, but physically, emotionally we never learn one thing from the other. We respond to everything we see and hear as though it is real. Our brains, at least our immediate, animal brains, never quite learn to accommodate the fact that something you are told might not be true.

But that effect is short. For someone to keep you "confused" for any length of time, you have to play along. Save yourself a lot of pain by learning to spot this giant red flag. When you find yourself being "confused" you are either being lied to or you are lying. Either he is telling you he will leave his girl, or you are telling yourself he might.

And that is another thing I can settle right here on this page:
HE WON'T LEAVE HIS GIRLFRIEND FOR YOU. Never. This has never happened in the history of relationships. I swear to God's holy anus, it never has.

Now, she may find out he is screwing around with you, and then if we're all lucky she will dump his cowardly ass, and then he will crawl over to your apartment claiming that he left her for you. But he didn't. No dude has ever had the guts to leave his girlfriend/fiance/wife for another woman. Ever. Even if he "confessed" to her about his cheating, he did it because he knew he was going to get caught, and he was trying to score all the points he could. Probably by confessing and telling her how confused he was. Which usually works, by the way. A man in a long term relationship can get a lot of extra pussy by skillfully and repeatedly playing the confusion card.

The thing is, people really don't get confused about how they feel. What they are confused about is how to explain what they feel in a way that makes them sound good. To most people it sounds pretty crappy to say "well, yes, I have a boyfriend, but I really wanted to give this other man a try to see if he would be better, so I went and did that." Or "Yes, he is engaged, but I am lonely and I think he's hot, so I fucked him and I would like to do it again." Those are ugly things to say. (unless you are me, in which case I love you for saying them.) But being confused feels softer. It feels almost tragic. And you are the tragic hero, the victim of a circumstance bigger than you can manage.

I have a lot of sympathy-- encouragement, even--- for people making bad choices and nasty mistakes. But I don't have any soft spots for people claiming they didn't know what they were doing. Of course, as an arrogant bastard myself, I have never understood why people prefer to claim stupidity over selfishness. Everyone is selfish and everyone understands--- you don't get angry at your friends for cheating unless you are a victim. But you don't hear a lot of people say "that dude is stupid" with a tone of warm understanding.

Conflicted, yes. I give you conflicted. Ambivalent, torn, and many other words you could find in a thesaurus. Probably "confused" would even be in there, but that one is special. It is different. I am way down with people who are conflicted and don't know what the right thing to do is. But the words people use are far more specific than we usually give credit for. And "confused" is a call word for some dark shit going down somewhere. I've heard people say they were conflicted, and be able to tell why and what they are trying to choose between. But I have never met anyone who said "I'm just so confused" who later went on to figure out what they were confused about and take appropriate action. People who are confused remain confused for as long as it takes for someone ELSE to make the important decisions for them.

I do believe it is possible to be really confused by relationships. I am just saying that it doesn't happen unless someone in the mix is being crafty.

So, add it to the list of red flag words. Confused.

(other new additions to the list of red flag words: "Venomous," "Smashed," and "Pregnant")

A Big Fight And Now We're All Sleepy

2007-11-27T19:02:00.000-08:00

Back in the saddle after a long break for dem golden holidays. Callisto says that you pretty much can't go wrong with a Holiday that revolves entirely around the preparation and eating of food, but I don't think I can agree. I am all for the idea of a holiday of indulgence in theory; if there was a national holiday dedicated to massage I would support it. But I find that the joys of Thanksgiving remain mostly in theory. Maybe it is because my family doesn't cook well enough. Or maybe it is because we just don't get excited about the food, as we rightfully should; the family tends to frown upon expressions of emotion in general. If I could mmmmmmmnn and yuuuuum and wax poetical about the sensual qualities of the roast potatoes, I would. Or, come to think of it, if I were able to talk about my personal life, the family's past, my spiritual or philosophical beliefs, or any other topic which would generally be justification for people being in the same room. So, now that I take the time to look at it, it isn't that I don't like Thanksgiving, it is that I have never actually had one. Perhaps one day a nice family who likes both food and one another will invite me over and show me how it is done.

And, seriously, if indulgence is the dream, a holiday for sex wouldn’t be half bad. Not one for candy and bullshit, like Valentine’s day, but a festival of sex for everyone, coupled or not. It wouldn’t be bad at all. Not a day to have sex, just to celebrate it. I see penis cakes, nipple rings, and vibrators served in a tray on the coffee table. A national bachelorette party. Imagine, just IMAGINE, the carols we could sing.

I don’t have a name for it yet. Please send in your suggestions. Probably Fuckstivus would be a little too crass for Middle America.

But the weekend visiting friends was glorious, and both the week apart from my girl (and the respectably sweaty reunion) gave me a lot of time to think about the virtues of being separated from one's significant other. I hate to, once again, be the murderer of romance, but I think that in this culture we are far too coupled. Not too frequently, but too much. Too completely. Being in love with someone and wanting to share their dreams and raise their orgasms is one thing, but the entire idea of getting every aspect of your lives tangled up together seems deeply flawed. It is a slow but diligent railway where the final destination is going to bed together and waking up together and eating the same food and having the same friends (not too many and not too close) and watching the same television and, essentially, not doing anything that might cause a momentary threat to your significant other's ego. Or a momentary risk for yourself. I have read my history and Shakespeare and, to my great horror, Bible, and I don't think there has ever been a culture on the planet whose lovers were expected to be so mercilessly attached to one another.

I acknowledge these may be the rantings of a commitment-phobic anarchist. Also, I certainly confess that a long weekend of driving with little sleep has left me at less than full power when it comes to laying out a nice zinger of a love-theory. (there is nothing more exhausting than a vacation.) But I've never been able to rid myself of the feeling that we have got it all wrong. Your lover shouldn't be the center of your life. And even if they are, people just gotta get out of the house more.

Yeah, there are plenty of nice strong arguments for the fact that people actually don’t spend nearly enough time together, considering the demands of being a parent and a wage slave and a citizen of the freeway system. But there must be a third option. I don’t know what it is (again, tired boy) but I am hoping that it involves dancing naked around a fire. We should never have stopped doing that.

I'm sure as time goes on I will write a hundred entries on the idea of open relationships (which I have a lot to say about) but in general I am just sure that this whole ideal of two-people-one-life is not the way God made us to be.

In fact, if I read my books correctly, God never even had a girlfriend.

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COMING SOON:

Food versus Sex

Mutual Masturbation: Even Better Than Scrabble

Prometheus Gave Us Booze

Thanksgiving Needs A Makeover

2007-11-23T08:26:00.000-08:00

There is a lot to be said for getting laid over the Holidays, but I think we can all acknowledge that it is a mixed blessing. For the coupled, it is complicated at best, with the likelihood of unusual family in the next room and a high level of annoyance combined with the smell of roast meat. Not to mention that, depending on how coupled you are, it is likely that you will be forcibly separated in favor of family obligations. Although, that can make the reunion a sweet prospect, provided that you do it in a room you aren't temporarily sharing with your odd uncle Buster. (though, hell, we all know Buster could learn a thing or two.)

For the single, of course, there are bars and clubs full of frustration and destructive abandon, from people who have long since given up on love but can't stand the loneliness of Government Mandated Family Time, to first year college kids home for the weekend and DESPERATE to act out in ways they haven't been brave enough to actually do at school. Also, it is an excellent time to make a run at the girl you went to high school with but were always too scared to ask out. If you run in to her in her too-tight halter top, you'll rarely find finer game to hunt. There is no more powerful aphrodisiac than the promise of never seeing each other again.

So, at the beginning of this season of love and magic, I am taking this brief moment away from my own festivities (which involve wishing my piece of ass wasn't in Wisconsin, and fleeing my family like a jew fleeing the spanish inquisition) to wish you your own special warmness. If you have a lover, old or new, show them something really special. Preferably with your tounge. If you don't have an active hook up, take this time under cover of holiday sparkle to give some simmering words to the object of your desire. Send out an e-mail with hidden double entrendre. Call that hottie you've been touching yourself over and leave them a surprisingly sincere message of affection. Give the hot eye to your cousin and see if they are up for it. The holidays are a free pass to behave out of character, and sometimes that is the greatest blessing of all.

COMING SOON:

Sex In The Public Library: Shhhhhh

Love In The Time Of Widespread Morbid Obesity

Give Head Or Die Hard

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Biting Off More

2007-11-20T07:45:00.000-08:00

I've been dating this girl for a few months. We recently upgraded our status to Girlfriend and Boyfriend, over my strong objections. I do my damned best to keep myself at a distance from her, but she is a weasley little creature. She has these charms, like a witch in the woods. Some of it, I think, may be secret things she does with her vagina. I don't know exactly what it is, or if there is a high-level, navy-seal-esque physical training program that she has been through, but she has some kind of muscular dexterity down there that makes me afraid for my survival.

I grant that a lot of it is her tattoos. This girl has an ink sleeve to die for, and there can be nothing sexier. Also, she talks a lot and she talks loud. She is my type in concentrated form. So I admit, yes, if you lined her up with a hundred other girls and asked me to pick, on looks alone, who I would want to grind up on, I'm pretty sure I would pick her. But even with that kind of attraction accounting for some of my warmer feelings toward the girl, I'm pretty sure she has command of some kind of real pussy sorcery. Probably as the result of a ritual deal with a demon or minor god.

But god help me, I try my damned best to keep myself well hidden from her. And what I have confirmed about myself in the past few months is that I have no ability to keep myself hidden. No matter how much I tell myself that I have got to keep distant and got to keep safe and got ta got ta try a little emotional unavailabilty, I just don't have it in me anymore. Because being in a room with someone and not sharing a genuine moment with them is pretty much boring. Every time. My capacity for emotional hardness is pretty strong, I think, but my capacity for boredom is helplessly low. And my tolerance for boredom in a dark room with no clothes is zero by zero.

I've gotten bored with the stories that I used to tell about myself. I've gotten hypertuned to the difference between when someone is telling me something they feel right now and when they are telling me something they've been rehearsing for a while. It may be big ego on my part, but I don't have any interest in being told anything that is not meant specifically for me. If you have something to say that you could say to pretty much anyone, expect my eyes to glaze over toot sweet. There are too many things to talk about that are really happening, always, right now; even hearing myself talk about shit that isn't real, it just makes me sleepy.

I don't know if this babe is a long term investment, I don't know if she's a thrill ride that will close after sunset, I don't know if she thinks of me as a way station, or if she has planted intelligent micro-robots in my blood that will reach my brain soon and have me writing drunken love poems and crashing like a sailor for a siren.

I do know that I dropped her off at the airport this weekend, and we'll be apart for two weeks. And instead of being relieved that I got my own space for a while, I've been walking around for two days looking confused and weary, like a dog that hasn't been fed.

That's what love does. It sneaks in while you're all distracted and self-absorbed. It comes up from behind while you're shielding your eyes from the glare of your ego, and it fucking ninjas your ass.

Attack Of The Extended Metaphor

2007-11-18T20:15:00.000-08:00

There appear to be three kinds of people in the world. (yes, this time I am allowing for three instead of the usual two.)

The first group are people who really want to do what is right. They may or may not think about what is morally and ethically right, but they at least genuinely want to do what is best for themselves. When they come against a problem, they look at it trying to find a solution that will make them happy. When they talk to you about something, they are hoping that you will respond in a way that gives them a clearer, more useful picture of what they really desire.

I've met about six of these people in my life. I admire them. I envy them. I love to talk to them because talking to them is engaging and surprising and it is different every time. And because they come up with shit, shit that is useful if you follow their example. These are the folks who figure out how to get the honey from the beehive without getting stung.

Then there is this vast teeming mass of almost-everybody, taking up most of the space and most of the energy and most of the cell phone minutes in the world. They are people who have decided what they want, and will not reconsider what they want, but they gotta have a truckload of discussion about what they feel and what they should think about it all.

It doesn’t sound too sinister, and it isn’t. It is mostly dull. These are the boys who fuck their girlfriend's sister, spend a week talking about how bad they feel about doing it, and then next weekend they do it again only this time twice and in the ass. This is your pal who tells you they are going to Boston to see their ex-boyfriend and they “don't know what they are going to do,” and then they come back and tell you they fucked him through Sunday and they want you to act shocked about it. Or your buddy who tells you how the girl he dated for a few weeks three years ago just moved in with a boy named Chad and how stupid Chad is and how they strangely know a whole lot of information about Chad even though they have never met and anyway I'm totally over her so its no big deal.

These are the people who sit next to the beehive until they get stung, and then they call you at two morning to complain that honey is so mean to them.

The reason these people are boring as shit is not so much because they tend to say the same thing over and over again, and do the same thing over and over again, usually with the same people. It is mostly because they aren't even talking about what they are talking about. They are just trying to find some way to look at their life that makes them the noble and world-weary Hero of the day. They certainly won't hear you tell them not to do what they are doing. Talking to them is a lot like playing shareware computer poker. You realize how dull the game is when there's no money on the table.

Then there is the third group of people: the ones who don't know what is best for them, but they know what they want right now, and they don't really care a lot who they offend or knock down or eat through to get it. These are the people who leave the party when it gets dull. The people who cheat because they are hot for the girl and they want her to be theirs. Or who feel lonely on a Sunday night, so they call up their ex-boyfriend and tell him to come over and get on his knees and don't get any funny ideas about us getting back together, sex toy. People who go for what they want without shame, and they get beat up, and rejected, and lied to, and punished, and they come back for more because they haven't found anything better. Yet.

These people, I really, really like. The ones who drink the honey straight out of the hive.

I don't claim to be one of them. Well, I frequently claim to be one of them, but in this one public moment I am confessing I don't quite have the stones to be the ruthless motherfucker I wish I was. Yeah, I go for what I want a lot, but just as often I take a drink in the corner and hope that what I want will come over and talk to me. So, yes, it's possible I hold citizenship in all three countries. Maybe that is what a lot of people do. (though I gotta tell you, the people in the second group seem to be pretty fucking dedicated to not crossing the border.) I don’t even know that the third group is the one who has the right idea. I just know they are the people I want to spend my time with.

I mostly like to get someone else to poke the beehive so I can watch what happens. And then I write it down, and try to get someone to pay me for it.

The trick with being happy, I think, is that you can talk about it all you want. You can strategize and theorize and draw big charts on big white boards, but in the end, when it comes to really being happy, you can't pursue it. Just like love, there's nothing there to pursue: it is something that happens to you. I think maybe this is what all those ass holes are trying to get at when they say "love will come to you as soon as you stop looking for it." (and oh, how I want to pickaxe their genitals.) But something close to that is true. You can't go create happiness, because HAPPINESS is the natural state of people. You only have to know any five year old to see how much its true. Happy is how we're born, happy is the structure of our blood.

The trick is to stop doing things that make you unhappy. When something makes you unhappy, don't do it anymore. Don't try to fix the thing. Just do something different. Anything different. Or anyone

Don't keep attacking the beehive, people. Honey is available right at the grocery store. So are three thousand other things. Living ain't rocket science. It's plain trial and error. The trick is being willing to be cool with the error. The trick is learning to love the sting.

'Scuse Me While I Kiss This BarFullOfFratBoys

2007-11-16T18:09:00.000-08:00

Not all these proposals are going to be winners. I wasn’t expecting everyone to get behind the Kiss-Everyone-And-Sort-It-Out-Later theory; but I still think it has potential. I think the basic foundation is solid. But in reality it might need some modification. Like communism.

Just to get it clear for the record, your old pal Doc is not just a dirty boy who likes dirty things. I don’t think that sex is all about the fine hard spankings and well crafted verbal degradations. And I certainly don’t think that classic, romantic, vanilla sex is something to be scoffed at. Far from it.

Or, to come at it from a different angle (which is okay, too), I am not all about the pursuit of casual sex, for the sake of temporary pleasure. In fact, I’m not really about the pursuit of casual sex at all. (plus, all pleasure is temporary.) I am all fine and well with some random stranger-fucking being part of your weekly calendar, but trying to get laid is only near the very beginning of all the joy and suffering that love has to offer. The world of fucking and crying is much deeper and more beautiful than that.

I suppose I have heard a good many people say “I am not looking for a relationship right now,” but there isn’t much of a ring of truth to it. I’m sure there are a lot of people who aren’t looking for a relationship, but everyone has their eyes peeled for that glittery hint of “this person may be the real thing.” And that doesn’t mean the “real thing” like the person with whom you are going to spend forever and ever and for-fucking-god-help-me-EVER. But everyone is looking for someone who can give them more than a B-List orgasm. Everyone is looking for someone who can reach through their ribcage and give their heart a good hard twist. Everyone, at least everyone who is worth taking note of, is looking for that person who turns you on so much that it makes you afraid to be alive.

True, I dig, that thing may only last three nights plus breakfast. And if you want to call that casual sex, be my guest. I personally try not to think of anything by the terms we were taught in high school “health” class, and casual sex is one of those terms. It’s a term that is designed to make you feel icky without knowing why. But sex by its nature defies being casual. I think every time you have sex there has got to be at least a part of you that is standing arms wide saying Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Or maybe even Catch Me If You Can. But whether you like it or not, you are poking your head out. Even if you’re doing it faster than you think can be caught. Playing whack a mole with your soul.

I love people who have sex for pleasure and amusement--- hell, I admire people who can just screw for kicks on a Tuesday night--- but it’s a lie to call a relationship casual just because it may be brief.

Once when I was in Stratford there was a girl who operated the tiny ferry boat that carries people across the river. I didn’t fuck her. In fact, I was sixteen years old, I was with my parents, and I didn’t even speak to her. But she was so beautiful and her shorts were so short and her thighs were so white English silky. I never spoke to her and I didn’t even meet her eye, and seventeen years later I still think about her with a hot pang of longing. And I am supposed to believe that you can get naked with someone and grind like a python, with the holding and the panting and the saying things you wouldn’t say out loud to your closest friend, and it will be just “casual.”

Well, yes. It happens. It happens all the time. But it doesn’t mean I’m not looking for the real thing. Because I’m always looking for it. And so are you. And, yeah, if you get the boy in question back to your apartment, and the Mojito glare starts to wear off, and you realize he’s not really making your deepest inner clit hard, there’s no reason you shouldn’t still make the best of it. But “not looking for a relationship” just means I haven’t found anyone lately to get me excited.

I say this as someone who recently poked his little mole head out with a fierce and hardcore sense of Not Looking For A Relationship. And I found someone who, months later, still makes me blush to think about. Everyone already has someone they could fuck if all they wanted was to fuck. But we’re all hunting for the bigger kill. Even if we think for sure it can’t happen this time out, it doesn’t mean we aren’t at least packing a weapon. We’re all out to trap the wilder beast. It just sucks that we have to use ourselves as bait.

COMING SOON:

Why Did You Have To Grow Breasts? And Other Reasons Your Dad Is Pissed At You

Thoughtful Meditations On Why I Enjoy Doing Your Girlfriend

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Stock Up On Chap Stick

2007-11-14T16:25:00.000-08:00

I have developed a new theory, and even though I have not yet had the opportunity to fully test it, I am pretty sure this one is right on the money. It is this:

Every two people who know each other should make out.

Not all at once. I’m not proposing some kind of hippie world-peace-through-shared-saliva manifesto. I have simply decided that most if not all of the pain and tension in the social world is caused by people who wish they could make out but aren’t allowed to.

Now, this theory doesn’t demand that anyone should have to make out with anyone, on demand. I am talking about all people who KNOW each other--- people who are friends, people who have known each other for a reasonable amount of time, and plan to keep on knowing one another. They should just make out for a couple of minutes, and get it over with. It should be an expected part of the relationship, a normal part of polite society; after you have known someone for a while there should be just a time when making out is something that is one the to-do list.

This theory is based primarily on the fact that I think most relationships ALREADY have that item on the to-do list. Pretty much every two people who have not kissed have a sense of unfinished business between them. Even if they can’t put their finger on it. Every relationship that hasn’t involved kissing lives a bit in a shadow of “what if…”

I think this would cure the problem of friends so desperately crushing on each other, all the time. No, it would not make it worse. Because once you have made out with someone just one time, you pretty much know if you want to get more of that or not, and the answer is usually either “NO!” or at least, yeah but no big deal. It would also solve the problem of truly platonic friends getting shit from their buddies and their parents and their current partners: everyone would be able to say “yeah, we made out, but it didn’t really go anywhere.” Question answered. The pathetic best friend who secretly is waiting for the girl to notice him would be a thing of the past. Gone would be the day of poor young girls desperately trying to hike their breasts higher and higher until their actual breathing is threatened, only to catch the eye of a boy who is probably gay anyway. They would just make out. And then they would have a foundation from which to discuss things, one way or another.

And plus, along the same lines of the Fight Club theory that you can’t really know yourself unless you have been in a fight, imagine how much more you would know and understand the people in your life if you had made out with them once? You learn more about a person in two minutes of making out with them than you do in six months of having drinks and talking about television. The way someone kisses reveals their entire attitude toward the world--- if they are hungry and needy, thoughtful and patient, nervous and rigid, if they are selfish or sharing.

Instead of taking years to get to know each other only to find out that you don’t really share the same values at all, you could just move on to the next phase. You wouldn’t have to wonder. And if the making out was really good, hot, sparks-and-dopamine sweet, then you could do it more. We’d no longer waste so much time trying to figure out who to be with and how to get them. All that energy could be directed into more productive things. Like reading and fucking and knitting things for needy children.

So yeah, with a lot of people it would be gross. But at least everyone would finally be on equal terms. Or at least closer to equal. Women would be elevated. Men would be humbled. Friends would be bonded, even in the mutual bond of “wow, yuk, let’s never ever do that again.” And lovers would be revealed.

So yes. You should make out with your friends. At least once. All the boys should make out with all the boys (which we already know they want to) and all the girls should make out with all the girls (which we already know they all already are) and you should make out with you bar buddies, and the people in your Yoga class, and you should make out with your manager and your co-workers at Starbucks. I’ll say that you should not make out with your counselor or your teacher, but you should definitely make out with your lawyer and your priest. It would be good. It would eliminate confusion. I think it would save a lot of unnecessary heartache, and make for a lot of good stories. And best of all, it would finally get people to chill the fuck out about who was hot for whom. Because mostly we would know. We could talk about it.

And most people would be better kissers. Which, inexplicably, is more rare right now than any God could possibly justify.

Oh You Sexy Goose

2007-11-12T22:24:00.000-08:00

There is something both comical and surreal about the act of sex itself. I have never been amused by the facial expressions, as some people are apt to be (perhaps I have just never been with an appropriately expressive lover) but there is definitely a slapstick quality to the physical arrangement. Intercourse, no matter how smoothly done or how well practiced, is an intrinsically awkward affair. Not for the least reason because there are bare asses involved, and I think bare asses cannot help but be comical. And the repetitive action, the same thrusting or twisting or grinding over and over again, always strikes me as being a bit Dada-esque. Doesn’t it? Like the peculiar loops of action in a David Lynch movie.

But I don’t find the comedy of fucking to be a downer. In fact, I think one of the serious negative side effects of our obsession with “romance” in sex is that people don’t appreciate how much fun it can and should be. The same for me holds true about both screwing and Sunday worship service: making it a reverent, somber affair is a huge mistake. Not that I have anything against the version of sex that is slow trembling clinging tight gazing into eyes like the moon etc. etc. There isn’t enough of that kind, either. But I do think that one of the reasons there has been a bit of a revolution in the popularity of soft kink and dirty talk is because people have become a little bored with the ancient, melodramatic, Hollywood movie version of coupling. All tender passionate oh-now-we’re-in-trouble sex conducted in soft blue light to the sound of enthusiastic saxophone music.

Am I the only one, by the way, who does not understand at all what people find sexy about the saxophone? It’s good for rocking Jazz, but sexy? It sounds like a wild goose.

Which spotlights a particular complaint I have about the culture in general, which is that it seems as though SEXY has supplanted almost every other good notion out there. I find more and more that people identify everything which is positive in any way as being sexy. Every talented musician and piece of music is sexy. Shoes are sexy. Pregnancy is sexy. This cheese danish is sexy. Soon we are going to ascribe sexiness to puppies, and children’s toys, and tires.

Maybe I just tend to talk to sex obsessed people. Or maybe I am one; this blog would be compelling evidence. But I find myself afraid that all of the other magical and cool possibilities--- like “illuminating” and “powerful” and “fun” and “inspiring”--- are getting swept up in the sex machine, and it is both making the other things less interesting and making sexiness more generic. It isn’t that I don’t get it--- our little society has been pretty sex-negative for the past, oh say, two thousand years, and we’re all kind of thrilled that it’s finally okay to acknowledge that our genitals exist at all. But if everything is sexy, then sexy becomes pretty cheap. And we are all diminished by it because sexy is a passive concept; it isn't something you do, it is just something you are. If we’re all sex objects, then who gets to be the subject?

It seems that, if I am to be trusted, it is time for a big fat overhaul of just what we think sexy is and what isn’t. Which makes sense, since I think we are in the process of finally kind of redefining what SEX is. (no longer just a means of procreating and passing property to the male heirs you hope are yours.) The new idea may be more complex and tricky than the old. And I don't have it pinned down perfectly just yet. I know that I think laughing in bed is glorious, but laughing during orgasm is gross. Beyond that, it might take some examination. This may be one of those things that everyone is going to have to just figure out for their own little particular self.

But considering how silly we make ourselves by the time we get down to actually doing the deed, I pray the idea can be preserved. Because we need sexy. We need it to mean more than just "yeah, that's cool, and look how not-uptight I am." Really, let's bring sexy back, together. For the sake of writers, lovers, and ruthless seducers everywhere. At the very least, when someone calls me sexy, I’d like it if they weren’t putting me in the same category as a big loud brass horn.

Please Exploit More Women!

2007-11-09T19:05:00.000-08:00

This isn’t an entertainment blog, and that role is being very well filled by others, so I’m not going to write anything about the great and strange Hollywood writer’s strike. But I will say, I have joined the picket lines, I’ve been out there marching and chanting with the typewriter boys. And if you are as obsessively estrogen-minded as I am, you can’t help but be SHOCKED by how few women are out there. How few women are working in this business at all, let alone working as writers and directors and (god in heaven forbid) producers. I am as excited about the dream of future residuals as the next dude, but out there protesting today, I was keenly aware that our back-end payment is nowhere near the biggest problem in the business. It might as well have been a convention of sign-holding testicles.

For the record, of about 140 television shows currently in production, the number produced by women is less than 20. No joke. Of the writers and directors working, I can safely estimate it is about fifteen percent women. The numbers are even lower in film. And of the high level executives, the big-shots really running the show, the number is even easier to estimate: it is zero. Zero. There is no pussy on the top floor.

I think there are a whole lot of reasons that people are fucked up about sex and love, but it seems pretty certain that one of the reasons has got to be the ridiculous imbalance of chick to dick among the people who CREATE the culture that we are all such good little consumer slaves to. The girls are out there, but we just aren’t letting them talk to us. And its tragic. Aside from the fact that there is some kind of ethic of human decency that is probably being violated, it has also just made for a pretty BORING void of different points of view to consume. And I for one am ready to consume it.

I don’t know what the world of entertianment would be like if the chicks were allowed to take their fair and equal place in the machine that exists to sell us toothpaste and cheeseburgers. My brain is pretty huge and shiny, but I can’t begin to predict what would happen if women in most homes were allowed to hold the remote control. I have to imagine, though, that it would be something different. I don’t think television is ever going to be a noble forum for political leadership, but it is a fine forum for cheap and tawdy fun. And I am being cheated out of the variety of cheap and tawdry fun I get to see.

It works in the real world. Speaking as a man who has a deep and angry hunger for sexual creativity and experimentation, I can tell you that all the relationships I’ve had with women, the woman has outpaced me every single time. I mean, I like to think I’ve got a pretty good mind for setting up a romantic scenario, or devising an especially spine-vibrating sex position, but I have got nothing when compared to the hot, humid, curvy mind that is hidden within most women.

What might come if we allowed those girls to actually let their dirty minds loose in the darkened movie theaters of America? Just imagine how much slick and breathless sexual innuedo these wicked women could slip past the network censors. And if you think I’m overestimating women and their lustfulness, take a look at a TV show that actually IS run by women, like Grey’s Anatomy. That is some steamy, tawdy, bow-your-head-and-say-please writing going on over there. And those people do it with people dying in the next room.

Yeah, sure, there may be some other issues when it comes to female equality. A few other little arenas where women don’t have any power, like business, fine art, politics, government, and, I suppose, every other enterprise that anyone is engaged in anywhere in the world. But it would be nice if the next time there is a gathering of the most influential storytellers, tastemakers, and cultural leaders, it wasn’t mostly a gathering of overweight white men who haven’t shaved.

And maybe for once we could turn on the TV and see something that really makes our naughty bits tingle. Because yes, I am a man, and even an American man, but there is only so many times I can watch dudes hit each other in the face. I think the girls might have a more fun idea.

Three Tips To Have A More Dignified Erection

2007-11-06T18:16:00.001-08:00

My friend She-Hulk and I were chatting about all manner of dirty and embarrassing things today (really, we were not at all, but it makes for a better intro, so if anyone asks you, we were.) She brought up one of the most frequent topics of conversation in my life, which is the utter and intractable lameness of most boys. We discussed in particular the difficulty of arranging a decent fuck-buddy scenario, and I started by saying there is kind of a fine line, a delicate balance that needs to be struck to make it work. But then I thought about it, and I realized, no, there really isn’t a fine line: these boys just don’t have a clue. The minimum requirement is amazingly low, and yet most men can’t even hop over that little bar. So, I thought that I would take this opportunity to give some advice to you boys and men out there on how to avoid getting tagged as one of the lame ones, and in the process, get yourself a lot more action.

Because these girls are kind of eager to give it out. Smart, powerful women who not only want you to see them naked but want you to spank them hard and whisper hot and shameful things in their ears. I'm serious. These ladies are ready to play doctor without borders.

I cannot tell you the number of women out there who are offering wicked, frequent, no-strings attached sex. And the only thing keeping them from giving it to you is that, as boys, you almost never rise to the occasion. And by rise to the occasion, I mean that for some reason, when faced with the prospect of some seriously free-of-guilt naked fun time, about 90 percent of boys respond by becoming dicks. Apathetic, knuckle dragging, slouched-over stupid-laughing ape-like things who wouldn’t know a willing vagina if it attacked him in a dark alley. (or maybe… is that what you boys are afraid of?) Most men don’t seem to have any idea the difference between scoring a cool passionate time between two people who dig each other for sex, and treating a girl like a three dollar heroin whore at the docks.

So here are some basics to help you get over it and get the action that I don't think you deserve, but I am willing to help you get, because frankly my girls need it bad and they are tired of waiting for you.

1) Learn to operate your phone. Call on the phone and talk, like big boys do. And not big drunk boys. Enough with six beer phone call at 12:47am. No one is asking you to wine them and dine them--- it would be gross if you did--- but really, the booty call is only for long term relationships. Your potential fuck buddy doesn't want a relationship, but she also doesn't want to be ordered up like a Churro from Pink Dot. One phone call before 7pm will do the trick. So don't freak out.

2)Speaking of freaking out, if you've managed the party hook up, don't follow it up with 44 text messages over the next 24 hours. To a free woman, pretty much anything more than one text message is like a great dane licking your face. Cool it. I refer you again to the single phone call approach.

In fact, screw the list: I can sum this up pretty easily for everyone: you can maintain any relationship at any level of commitment perfectly well by making one phone call, once a day, about four days a week. That is all that is required. Okay? Done. I just got you free sex for two months.

All right, one more:

3) This one is important for you in the very likely event that your hook-up is a fellow student/fellow worker/woman from the same building/same coffee-shop/same WGA picket line:
After the hook-up, the next time you see her, HAVE SOME FUCKING BALLS AND SPEAK TO HER. Whether your hook-up was just a nice little smooch fest, or some salty naked fun time, or some seriously greasy down-and-deep penetration, the next time you run into her, put on your human face and say hello to the bitch. Otherwise, you are not even a person. You are just a monkey, and you should only be fucking other monkeys. I understand that you are scared. I understand that facing a woman who knows what she wants and goes after it makes you question your entire foundation as the rightful male ruler of the whole sandbox. But it is okay. She’s not going to grab your penis and run away with it. Say hi to her. Talk to her for a minute. You will be saving her a lot of pain, and earning yourself a good shot at more warm wetness.

Speaking of the night after, and earning more wetness: I have never understood, try as my mighty brain might, why you have a nice little mild petting with a girl you like, and then go out and tell your friends that you fucked her six ways to Sunday. Aside from it being indecent, and really very close to an act of violence, it makes no sense: why not keep your bullshit mouth shut and show her some respect so that you CAN ACTUALLY fuck her six ways to Sunday in the near future? Is the thrill of telling your Halo 3 buddies about your conquest really so much greater than actually having the conquest, which now your lying rapist-in-training mouth has prevented from ever happening?

Is it just fear? Is it really just that much blind fear of any woman who isn’t submissive? I am asking you, JUSTIN GABRIEL AT COLORADO STATE. (hello, friends from Google. Nice to meet you.) Justin Gabriel, are you really so very afraid of women that you have to hide your tiny, shivering penis behind the mask of a big fat dick? Are you really that small? Did some big mean feminist hurt you as a child?

That is the real, sad state of affairs: this damn feminist thing has really caught on. It’s bigger than Dancing With The Stars. It’s freaking everywhere. Completely without the aid of bionics, WOMEN are getting better, stronger, faster; and the boys are going to have to start running to catch up. And in the meantime, my dear young sisters, you might have to be patient. I will encourage to my very last breath that women take control of their sexual pleasure and their own romantic lives. I think that women should be bold, that they should make the phone calls, and steer the flirting, and be the one to push the boy against the wall and lay it on him. Come to me for advice and I will tell you again and again that you are the woman and you are in charge and there should be no confusion about it. But the double-edged-deal is that, no, it is not a way to get pretty, lame boys to hook up with you. It’s only a plan to snag the good ones. It is not a plan to get the most attention. It is a plan to get attention from the men who deserve it. From the ones who do rise to the occasion. Because Justin Gabriel and all the pathetic and cowardly boys who think that girls should sit on their lacey cushion and wait to be called for, they are going to get scared off, and right quick. They will dash away with a puff of smoke and leave a Justin Gabriel shaped hole in the wall.

Yes, they will probably come crawling back. They will probably come crawling back begging. (Right, Justin?) But by then you, righteous babe, will have moved on. Rightly and happily so. You won't get most of the boys. But most of them are not even close to worth getting.

Which is my last word of advice, men, my brothers, boys of all flavors: you really only get one chance to rise to the occasion. If a strong, smart woman gives you the green light and you scamper away like a paranoid bunny--- if you can't return that one phone call, or you can't say hello in the morning, or you can't just stand up like a man and find your balls for long enough to meet her on her level, the chance is gone. And please, have the dignity to leave it alone. Because she won't give you a second chance. For a woman who rules her own pussy, the span of time from “hey, check him out” to “ew, oh my god, gross” is the span of a schoolboy’s blink. From now on she will see you for what you are: a slightly slimy piece of meat that no one has bothered to clean up.

Don’t worry, though, little meat man. Sooner or later some cosmo-reading high pitched girl in lip-gloss will come along and lick you off the floor. She’ll wait for you to give her attention. She’ll keep her voice down when your friends are around. She’ll lay like a twig while you try to get hard in her luke warm vagina. And you can spend as much time as you want cowering in the corner and boring the shit out of each other.

There are women out there, mighty women with mighty breasts who are ready to give you pleasures you can barely dream of. What they ask in return is that you, just a little and just for a very short time, behave like a man. Stand up straight and look her in the eye. For a minute. That’s all it takes. If you can't manage that, you're just taking up space for the rest of us. Clear off and let the real men get to work.

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COMING SOON:

*James And The Giant Dumping By Text Message

*My First Erotic Asphyxiation

*The Secret To Smoking Pot And Never Getting Laid

My Love For You Is Like A Desire To Bone

2007-11-04T09:04:00.000-08:00

I figure there are two different categories of people.

As a writer, an over-educated sub-working-class American, and a properly ironic product of the glorious Aqua-Net driven economy of the 1980's, there are few things that I like to do more than divide everything in the world into two different categories. People who like to drive, and people who don't. Beautiful people, and people who have to work for it. People who appreciate good science fiction and people who are dead in their soul. The basic binary categories which allow us to understand the world. If you step back far enough, there are always two nice neat groups you can toss people into.

I think a lot about these two: people who "believe in love," and people who... well, people who don't understand what the hell that means.

Lemme make sure I get this started on the right foot: love is beautiful beyond all comprehension. I figure that maybe astronauts who have actually launched into space and had the opportunity to look down on a sunrise that encompasses the entire planet are the only ones who have anything close to a visual metaphor for how wicked wild cool love really is.

Also, banging ain't bad.

But, love isn't everything. In fact, and this is the tricky part, love isn't even anything. I think sometimes that love is really just a strange little mistake of poor grammar. Yes, you can LOVE something. It is a good and solid verb. You can love someone. You can love with all your might and heart and squishy well lubricated parts. But there isn't a thing there. It's just something you feel and something you do. But there isn't anything you can point to and say "that is it". It makes for a shitty noun.

Banging ain't everything either, for the record. And if you really think that love and sex are separate things, you are probably a child, or a much older child. Where I come from we have a word for love without sex. It's called meet-me-upstairs-while-your-boyfriend-
plays-Guitar-Hero.

I reckin' that Love (as a noun) is basically a euphamism. It is a substitute word that we use instead of talking about some tricky nasty stuff that is hard to talk about. We don't want to talk about fucking (because our parents might be listening) and we don't want to talk about loneliness (because there is nothing more taboo than loneliness), and in our modern, post-industrial, oh-so-enlightened culture, we really don't want to talk about how much we need someone to help us pay our rent and buy our plasma screens. And we sure as hell don't want to talk about the gorgeous hard muscled record store cashier and how just looking at them makes you suspect how boring and ugly you really are.

So instead we talk about love. We talk about love because no one will challenge it, it can be whatever we say it is. (the same reason, actually, we talk about God) We engineer skyscrapers of metaphor around it. We build entire fucking belief systems around a big fat noun that has no definition, and we hope that it will lead us to having all kinds of great sex and all kinds of great conversations and also a cool condo near the beach that we share with someone who will never, ever gain any weight.

Sometimes I hate love. I hate how it confuses people and makes them tear at their own clothes which never fit right. I hate how I am considered the shallow one because I believe that relationships are about two people who like each other and want to have sex for a really long time, and that the rest of it is work and struggle and bargaining, and you know that you are going to be laying in bed with them long after you have grown bored and hateful toward them and they have done more to hurt and humiliate you than anyone ever in your life, but you still find the strength deep inside to support them and go on vacations with them and not cleave their skull with a sling blade--- and for believing that, I am thought of as cold, and bitter. Because I don't think it is a magical force, and I don't think that what you share with another person means less if you aren't swept up into a drunken frenzy by it.

In fact, I've observed people pretty closely, and those who believe in love--- not just romantic love, but even love as a grand spiritual ideal--- those who "Believe In Love" are far more resistant to happiness than those who think life is a bit crap but kissing and fucking and good music almost makes up for it. People who enjoy life instead of thinking about how much they should be enjoying it.

And don't even get me started on "true love." Try to sell me on that one and I will probably just save us both the trouble and stab you with a ball-point pen. The idea of true love isn't just wrong, it is mean and horrible. But, again, that is a notion for another day.

Of course, it is possible that people don't actually fit neatly into two categories. That maybe people who believe in love have a slightly more nuanced set of ideals that they just express in simple terms. But that would require so much more work for me to understand. And do I have that kind of time? Of course I do. But I'd rather be watching Chuck.

I think that love isn't everything. I like Sting as much as the next guy, but I just think that love isn't the whole game. And if you ever introduce me to someone who fell in love and it made them happy, just like they wanted it to, for longer than four months, I promise, I'll take it all back. Actually, I'll probably ask them a series of questions which will make them realize that their lover is cheating on them. And then we'll all get drunk and dance.

COMING SOON:
*Faster, Cheaper Sex For Everyone: Thank You Third Wave Feminism
*Zen And The Art Of Oh So Dirty Talk
*Sad, Pathetic, Dick-- Featuring Justin Gabriel at Colorado State.

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Oprah, I Await Your Phone Call

2007-11-01T15:08:00.001-07:00

Well, now, we have been at this no more than a day or two, and already I sense that you are not taking me seriously. And I give you this warning with the most dire sense of urgency: I am not someone who should be taken seriously. No, seriously. I'm not.

However, I have been around the proverbial block. Which in my case is a block made out of proverbs, each and every one of which I personally thought up and injected into the culture. That's right, I am the dude who made the proverbs. Well, the proverbial proverbs, not the ones from the Bible, which is a tome I generally try to keep my distance from.

But I have been around said block enough times to be able to tell you this, with confidence: the getting laid part, that isn't hard. I am fat, I'm not pretty, I don't have any special anatomical features, and I've managed to get plenty of action. Yes (oh my god yes) it does take more effort for me than it does for some suma-cum-testosterone shiny boy, with his hair carefully brushed into his eyes. But I get the job done. Whenever I have really wanted to get some sex, I have gone out and gotten it--- and not with some trailer trash end-of-the-night discard from the Birdcage Saloon, but with a woman or man of my choosing. And as a result of having to work for it, I actually know what I am doing to get them.

I know why people go to bed with other people, and it is for the most amazing and unusual reason: It is because people like fucking. I mean, they really like it. It is, like, one of people's favorite things to do. If you are willing to tongue them about the genitals, they like it even more.

This is the dark secret that the beautiful people don't want you to know: people will go to bed with just about anyone. I'm not talking just about men, I am talking about boys and girls and men and women and everyone in between. Even the hot ones. People out there will get naked with just about anyone who makes them feel pretty, who makes them feel liked, and who makes them feel safe-- or at least gives them some reason to believe that you won't eat their face while they are sleeping. People like to fuck, and they are mostly just waiting for permission.

There are, of course, a few complications. One is that most people are already fucking someone. That will slow you down. Another is that to make someone else feel pretty, liked, and safe, you kind of have to catch yourself in a moment when you feel pretty, liked, and safe; those moments are more frequent for some than for others. I figure for myself, it is about 2% of the moments that I am alive--- and that isn't knocking myself: from what I have seen, that is a pretty high average.

And then there is the third and most important complication, which is that getting naked with someone almost guarantees that in the near future you will hate them. Intensely. Painfully. Like Pac Man hates ghosts. And for much the same reason.

Because, yes, people do like the banging, and from all I have read (starting before Socrates and going right through Shakespeare, Dickens, and Kevin Smith) they have always liked it. It has never, no matter what the culture, been especially difficult to get someone naked and grinding your junk. But what we want more than the sex is someone we like, and like to spend time with. Possibly, if you believe in this sort of thing, someone to love.

It seems like I am gearing up to list my rules on how to get laid. But I am not. I'm nothing like an expert. I don't have a list of guidelines. I dislike guidelines in general. We are still living in the peak of the era of advice columns and self-help books that boil the entirety of human desire down to a few rules you should follow to be "happy." The rules are always the same--- believe in yourself, believe in your own success, have faith in what you can achieve and accomplish. Basically, whatever the topic, your self help book will have the following advice: If you want to be happy, then just be happy. If you want to lose weight, start by losing a lot of weight. If you want to find love, just go out there and find love. Fuck all of them, I say.

So I am not going to waste this blog ranting that you should be having all this sex and finding all this love you want, and then scolding you for not already having done it. I'll write down everything I have observed about how people behave and what they think and how to keep yourself entertained by them for a nice long weekend. When it comes to advice on how to GET what you want, there isn't much that will ever be useful. The truth, I think, is that the hard part, the really hard part, is knowing what you want to begin with.

You have so many voices in your head, from the echo of your mean old parents to the twisted dogma of your religion to the movies and teevee shows and Rock'n'roll music telling you what you are supposed to want: to get lots of sex and then get lots of money and then... um... die, I guess. You've got the voice of John Lennon telling you love is all you need (bullshit) and the voice of Christina Aguilera also telling you what a girl wants. You've got the voice of your first boyfriend telling you what a slut you are, or what a prude you are. But what you really want is infinetly complex. And specific. And the odds are it doesn't have much to do with what anyone else thinks is best for you.

Yeah, I have never had trouble getting laid when I tried to. But the truth is, I have gone a lot of time without sex. A lot a lot. I have had dry spells that make Ethiopia look like Raging Waters Family Fun Park. And it has happened either because most of the people I have wanted to bang are people who I actually like, and I didn't want to stop liking them, or for them to stop liking me. Because I kept waiting for every little thing to be just right and just how I wanted it before I made my move. Because I wanted to feel that wave of two people jumping off the cliff together; I wanted to fuck the kind of fucking where there's no turning back.

Also, because I frankly have a very low threshold for boredom. And most people are pretty boring. Especially when it comes to sex.

I assume you are not boring. I assume that whatever you want is brilliantly, intriguingly particular. And I have made this blog in order to give you the following promise:

I'm not going to help you get it.

There are no rules. There's no secret. There is no simple answer. The odds are, the exact beautiful thing you want, you will not ever find it. If you do find it, you'll realize immediately it wasn't what you actually wanted. And then you will try to smash it into shape. Or you will try to smash yourself into shape to fit it. And you both will be crushed to pieces in the process. And then you will start again.

And I will point at you. And I will laugh.

Feel free to return the favor. If I'm not pointing and laughing, I won't be hard to find. I'll be in the corner with my dearest desire. Smashing.

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