One Five Zero: Callers

I found a meme on-line not so long ago that showed a girl sleeping on a couch and clutching an empty liquor bottle. The text was in the voice of a guy sleeping on the floor by the couch. It explained that the girl had drunkenly come by his rooms and wanted to have sex. As much as he wanted to, and as much as she asked, he refused, since she couldn't give actual consent, and enthusiastic, knowing consent was the requirement any decent human being would demand before having sex.

I looked at the meme for a while and thought about something. The last two times young companions have come by my rooms, the scenario was exactly that: a young companion who'd had a few drinks, there at my door with the intention of being taken to bed. The second time, the last time, the girl had very literally climbed a gate to come up and surprise me, bottle of Jameson's in her hand. Did I take them to bed? Yes. It would never have occurred to me not to. 

I do want to be very clear about that. It would never have occurred to me not to. A lovely girl who's put some effort into getting here, who's summoned me down to the gate or actually climbed over? Let's not be ridiculous. I felt...honoured. Amazed, too, that the second one had climbed that gate. I'd done that once myself when I'd misplaced my keys, and it took a bit of real effort. Needless to say, there's also the obvious saying about gift horses. And wouldn't saying No to a girl who'd made the effort to get here be taken as a dismissal, a rejection that she'd remember and hold against me later?

Let's be clear. The mornings-after weren't awkward or filled with recriminations or regrets. Hangovers, yes. There was instant coffee (the instant Cafe Vienna that a bachelor gentleman has in a half-empty pantry) and Tylenol, but nothing awkward. 

In the age of the gender wars, what does it say that I never for a moment considered saying No to either girl? 

I grew up in an era when much (maybe most) sex seemed to involve drink or drugs. From my later high school days through graduate school, sex in my own life usually involved drinks or something like designer psychedelics. For both people involved. Sex in those days was something that happened after parties, after dance club nights. It was part of nights spent in places with drinks and people doing drugs in the bathrooms, part of the progression of the evening. It's hard for me to come up with an exact analogy here, but in those days I'd have thought that separating sex out from the party or club scene was like...separating out a course from a dinner? Why would you want to? 

Sex in those days seemed like something still half-forbidden and all the more exciting because of it. It was connected with adventures, with defying rules and norms. It was connected with losing one's daytime, superego self. It was connected with places and times--- bars, dance clubs, parties, risky locales ---that were about losing control and just seeking out experience. Being drunk or high was a way to do that--- lose control, shut down the hectoring parental voices in your head. 

We're not supposed to do that any more, though. We're never supposed to lose control, and the superego has been rebooted to be about ideology rather than morality--- its voice now warns of power and patriarchy rather than sin. Sex, we were once told, was about carefully-restricted social and religious norms, not something done for excitement and adventures. Now it's that sex is something that has to conform to fears about power and "privilege", something that has to be grudgingly indulged in only after tedious negotiation between robot lawyers. It still can't be something about adventure and excitement, about living in films or novels.

So...where are we? Yes, I let both girls in and took them to bed. That they showed up a bit drunk was...part of the game, part of being inside a film or novel, and part of what made the two nights fun. It made the one girl climbing the gate even more impressive. Was there ever a moment on those two nights when I'd have considered saying No because they'd been drinking? That would never have crossed my mind. I suppose I'm fine if that makes me Evil. That's part of my charm, after all.