Three Eight Four: Spider Garden

 It's Halloween tonight, and I'm thinking of the fetish artist Michael Manning. He's a San Francisco/Los Angeles artist who remains one of my favorite erotic artists. He is someone whose work I'll recommend, and someone whose work does come to mind here on a rainy Halloween night.

It's hard these days to find a lot of the work Manning did in the 1990s, but in those days he was something very new and different on the fetish scene. His work was eerie and had a very hothouse, fever-dream atmosphere. He fused cyberpunk sci-fi with a set of almost Heian-era Japanese images and a taste for exoticized s/m. I've always liked an s/m aesthetic, and Manning's art did mesh with my own desire for the self-consciously exotic. 

There was a press called Amerotica that published many of his collections in the 1990s, and I miss their catalogs. I miss the visions of hidden worlds that appeared in their books. The press is long gone, but keep their name in mind when you're searching for erotica in dark nooks out there over the aether. 

I discovered Manning's "Lumenagerie" art collection not long after it first appeared in 1996, and still find it enthralling. "Lumenagerie" and its sequel "Inamorata" (2005) are worth finding, as is his 1997 anthology of short stories and art, "Cathexis".  His sci-fi "Tranceptor" series isn't bad at all, either.

His "The Spider Garden" (1995) remains my favorite among his books, along with its companion works "Hydrophidian" (1997) and "In a Metal Web" (2003). I'm sad that they all seem to be out of print, and sadder still that we live in times that are increasingly hostile to fetish art and to the idea of exoticized and ritualized sex. 

Manning's world in the "Spider Garden" books was one where gender was deeply fluid, but not in any way that either the TRA or Gender-Critical sides of the current Trans Wars would accept. In Manning's world, there were no sexual identities, only masks that could be assumed or discarded at whim. There was nothing like a fixed identity, and no one, not even the mechanical spiders in his Heian-Goth palaces, was ever really anything. 

I believe Manning may still have a gallery website out there somewhere on the web. Find it if you can. 

Read some of his graphic tales, read the short stories in "Cathexis", and tell me what you think. Tell me your own thoughts on the idea of exotica and ritual sex.  And remember what a brilliant idea Heian-Goth is.

Three Seven Two: Invitations

 Let's think for a minute. Let's go back to the FMTY girls. We're almost a month into the new year, and at Twitter the FMTY girls are announcing their spring touring schedules. 

I live in an older city, one that lives on its reputation for food and music and a certain louche attitude. It has its charms, and it has a fascinating history, but it's usually off the FMTY tour circuit. In some ways I suppose that's best. 

I have an idea about the fee schedules for the FMTY girls, and I have an idea about what the incidental expenses would be-- the restaurant, the wines, and the tip. But purposes of this essay, let's assume that I could pay those amounts with the snap of a finger. Let's assume that tonight I'm sitting at a good restaurant with an FMTY girl who meets all my criteria of desire. Let's go a bit farther and assume I've passed her screening procedures and that I've been dressed and groomed to be socially presentable. 

So, here we are. Dinner has been ordered, wine has been poured. I was brought up to be polite in a quietly old-school way, and her professional skills include making her clients feel at ease. So she and I are making conversation. And then...what happens?

This could become an issue-- which of us moves the conversation into the realm of seduction? Which of us gently nudges the evening toward a bedroom? I have no idea how that would work. I've read FMTY girls' Twitter posts where they've noted that it's irritating and annoying to have a client openly press for leaving the restaurant for the hotel room. The girl has been working hard to establish herself as a Companion, as someone who can create an elegant scene-- a client just saying something like, "Well, it's half past nine, let's get naked" is simply brushing off her professional skills.

But how does this work? I've had dinners with young ladies who've been seductive. I've had fingertips traced over the back of my hand while she talked. I've had a slender bare foot traced along my leg under the table. I mean, that's been a while, but it has happened. Somehow I wouldn't expect the FMTY girl to nod towards the street door and say, "Let's see your hotel room" (let alone "Come see the rooftop pool where I'm staying"). Yes, there's the issue of the ticking clock. There's always that. My fee covers her presence at dinner and in the bedroom, and the evening's clock is ticking. But reminding her of that is crass and vulgar. It sounds...entitled. This is the third decade of the new century, and entitled is just about the worst thing a person of the male persuasion can be seen as being. 

I have no idea how I'd raise the issue of going to bed. We'd both of us know that a hotel bed is supposed to be the climax of the evening. She may even have been provided with a briefing document about my interests and tastes. But I have no idea how to get from table to bed. 

Last Saturday I had my hair cut. My cutter has known me since we were both young. We even dated briefly back in the depths of the Long Ago. I trust her skills and professional knowledge absolutely. When I go to her home studio to have my hair cut, we have coffee or tea and talk books and films, then she moves me along to the various stops in the process-- shampoo, cut, a brief demonstration of her future plans for my hair style and of what I need to do to maintain the style. I make conversation; I have input into the music she has playing (last Saturday: Morcheeba). But she moves me along very efficiently, and with practiced ease. I have to admire that.

I wouldn't know what to do on an evening with an FMTY girl. I'd like to put myself completely in her hands and rely on her to guide me through what would be a learning experience. Being with an FMTY girl would be something I'd do for the experience, for the taste of a better world. It would be something that I'd do for the chance to be guided through the mazes of class and style around sex, decor, restaurants, and social presentation. I'd be terrified of showing myself to be incapable of being part of that world. I wouldn't want to be seen as failing at a sentimental education. A beautiful, skilled demimondaine is not someone I'd want to disappoint, and certainly not someone whose mockery I'd want to risk.

Right now I'm thinking of the last girl whom I walked from my sitting room into my bedroom. That wasn't hard. We'd met one summer Saturday. She'd just graduated university, and we ordered lots of classic cocktails and laughed and flirted. She came back to my flat, went out to the courtyard swimming pool with me, and drank with me in my kitchen. At some point we looked at one another and I nodded to my bedroom. It all felt effortless. She was in a mood to experiment with things, and as her first Older Gentleman I counted as that. And it was a Saturday late afternoon-- I think that mattered, too. Again-- it all felt effortless and fluid. We laughed about that, about one thing flowed into another that afternoon. But it wouldn't be like that with an FMTY girl.

Yes-- the FMTY girl would get a briefing document about my interests. And the document would note that while I always encourage young ladies to avoid underwear and to always sleep naked, she would never see me naked. That would break the spell of the evening. Whatever skills she might have, however open about bodies she might be-- she'd never see me naked. That would break the spell. Her body would be there to be admired, caressed, valued. But I'd never want her to have to tolerate my body. I'd never want her to have to grit her teeth on the walk from restaurant to bedroom.

I'd never know what to say to an FMTY girl. I'd want the evening to feel seductive, to be about mannered seduction. I'd want the sex to be stylized and its transitions to feel fluid. I'd be terrified to end up sitting there staring at my plate or at the wine bottle, frozen with fear of doing this wrong, of getting it wrong. I'd be afraid of disappointing a skilled demimondaine. I'd be terrified of not being good enough to understand the nuances of her skills. I'd be terrified of looking like a rube or a yokel. I'd be ashamed of wasting the FMTY's evening. 

Whenever I've engaged the services of a professional-- a tax accountant, a successions lawyer, a physician --I've always felt able to explain very directly what I wanted, and I've felt entitled to ask questions. But I couldn't do that with an FMTY girl. I'd feel far too judged. 

Now it's possible that I could carry on a conversation. I have stories to tell; I was trained to be a decent dinner party guest. I might even be able to discuss topics that wouldn't bore her. But I couldn't negotiate the shift from dinner to bedroom. I wouldn't even know how to bring up the topic. 

Any of you out there over the aether-- whether or not you know anything about the FMTY demimonde --if you're reading this, what do you think? If we assume that I had the money and the decent attire and that I could  pass an FMTY girl's screening protocols... If we assume those things, then-- what should I do. However do I end up able to transition back to the hotel? How would I avoid sitting there staring at an empty plate in a conversational void? How would I avoid the girl's contempt as the clock ticks down?

Two Eight Zero: Wires

Here during the time of the Red Death, here in the plague lockdown, there's been remarkably little written and posted about sex.

I've seen a few on line posts about how couples who first thought that quarantine sex would be a hot thing are now suffering from cabin fever and too much proximity.  I'm waiting for those entries to turn into a Coen Bros. scenario.

A friend in Scotland wrote last night to say that she and so many of her female friends are burning through packs of batteries for their vibrators and that her male friends had been telling her that their "wanking frequency" was now "off the charts".  My leggy blonde friend down in Wellington NZ tells me that while she swears by her Lelo vibrator, she's always found the Corona beer bottle to be a perfect dildo...but can't use one now. She has bottles, yes, but because the plague is the Coronavirus, she just can't bring herself to use her carefully washed and stored Corona bottle.

I'll note that as a male of a certain age, talking about my own experiences with the Solitary Vice is just not something I can do. The Solitary Vice is something that's aesthetically attractive and "empowering" only for lovely girls. Girls can buy, use, and discuss vibrators and sex toys--- but it's all something that males can't discuss. Girls can self-pleasure, but men...wank. What men do is regarded as inherently pathetic and/or disgusting. So take it as a given that I'd be utterly ashamed to talk about the Solitary Vice in my own life.

That's sad in a way, and all the more so in that I was always a major fan of phone sex. Phone sex was something that played to my strengths--- being verbal, being able to construct stories, being able to make girls feel like they were part of a story.  Phone sex was something I discovered late in high school and remained devoted to for years and years. It was always something I enjoyed teaching my young companions to do and enjoy.

I'm sure that phone sex is regarded as some archaic thing in a world of sexting and webcams, but I miss the nights when lovely young companions would call me late at night and talk and exchange fantasies until dawn. I miss looking at my phone (yes, a landline by the bed) and seeing the area codes for distant cities. I miss the time when girls called me from the other side of the continent or (yes) from overseas. Girls have phoned me from London, Melbourne, Wellington, Montreal, St. Petersburg, and Belgrade to do phone sex. I was always amazed and thrilled by those calls.

Here in the time of the Red Death, though, my phone remains silent. I'm not sure whether phone sex has simply become obsolete and unfashionable, or whether plague quarantine depletes the energy levels needed for phone sex.  My fear these days is that I've lost my ability to do phone sex, lost the ability to construct new fantasy scenarios, lost the ability to tell stories. Are my fantasies ones that mean anything when everyone is suffering from cabin fever? In a world of frayed tempers and gnawing boredom, do I have anything to say that would excite girls?

I can't sext. You know that. I type far too slowly, and the character limits make it impossible to construct complex stories with details and dialogue. I certainly can't do webcam or FaceTime.  My face and body are guaranteed to drive lovely young companions away. My face and body aren't designed for visual presentation.

My own cabin fever is destroying any thoughts of being with a lover by phone. I'd never risk having my body seen, but in a better world my stories would be valuable--- and, yes, they were valuable and valued once upon a time.  I can't believe in my value or my skills any longer.

If any of you out there over the aether are still doing phone sex, let me know what it means to you these days. Let me know whether it feels awkward and unfashionable. Let me know if your own interest in the Solitary Vice has waned during quarantine or whether you're feeling desperate for physical release.

Two Six Four: Champagne

A lovely blonde friend once made a list of champagnes for me, a list of champagnes that had meant something to her in her life, champagnes that had played parts in her adventures with various lovers. Champagne came to mind today because I was at brunch and had a couple of Mimosas made with fresh-squeezed satsuma juice.

If I had to list champagnes from my own life and past, I suppose they'd be:

- Veuve Clicquot
- Moët et Chandon
- Piper Hiedsieck
- Bollinger
- Taittinger

Nothing too out of the ordinary there, of course. My blonde friend added something called Daniel Le Brun, which seems to be a New Zealand local brand that she keeps on hand in Wellington as a champagne for "ordinary" drinking. I'll note that I never became enamored of either Cristal or Dom Perignon. Krug remains a mystery to me, as does Pol Roger, which I believe was Churchill's preferred brand.

Champagne for me was always associated with ritual. It was not so much the old, apocryphal quote (Buonaparte or Churchill, take your pick) about champagne--- "in victory we deserve it, in defeat we require it" ---as it was the idea that here was a drink that lent itself to ritual and symbolism. Absinthe does that, too, I suppose, but it lacks a certain clarity of meaning.

Champagne was and is something you open as part of the rituals of seduction. Champagne is what you kiss off a lovely young companion's lips--- or nipples. It's something for licking off bare hipbones. A drink for rooftop bars overlooking Manhattan or Shanghai or Paris. A drink for ritual nights, for birthdays and New Years Eve. A drink for celebrations, and for first nights together.

I've always believed that we need things like that. We need markers and symbols for things. Opening a bottle of Veuve for a young companion is a way of marking the transition from companion to lover, from balcony to bedroom. We need rituals for moving through the steps of relationship, we need symbols that establish what's happening between two people.

I believe in ritual; I've said that before. Ritual makes so much of life and love, of sex and romance easier. Begin the ritual and move through it. I keep comparing that to the Mass, or to a graduation ceremony, both things I know something about. And I do miss rituals, and it saddens me that we seem to be losing them.

There in my fridge tonight are two bottles of Piper. There's a bottle of Veuve and a bottle of Bollinger on my liquor shelf. The year is winding down, and what's left of it will pass through my birthday, through Christmas and New Years Eve. I do wish that I could open those bottles with someone elegant and clever, someone lovely and long-legged. Champagne calls for ritual, and I miss being abe to enact those rituals.

Two Six Zero: Threads 4

In February 2011 my lovely, long-legged friend down in the Land of the Long White Cloud emailed me to say:

darling,

its a rainy night here, and i'm texting a gorgeous girl who i'm meeting for a drink in an hour or so. i'm hoping to bring her home with me, and pass on some of my wisdom about corona bottles and pool cues. i shall share all details tomorrow!

She emailed me from her iPhone later that night to follow up---

her name is caitlin, she's 22. she's studying english lit & philosophy at uni. she drinks vodka tonics and smokes menthols. she carried 'the sun also rises' in her handbag.  

In May 2011 she wrote this:

caity pissed right in my mouth when i was licking her cunt one time. she told me it was coming, she moaned 'i'm going to piss' and i just opened my mouth, i so wanted to taste her. i swallowed twice! a couple of small-ish mouthfuls.

By June 2011 she was writing to tell me that

Caity has a bright pink strap on, she loves fucking me with it. It's not huge, it's about 6 inches, but it feels amazing in your cunt. I love the look on Caity's face when she has me tied to the bed and just fucks me.

There were men involved, too--- most notably an ex of my friend's, someone with a beach house in a Wellington suburb called Seatoun, someone she described as "cute and stubbly" ---with whom my friend and Caitie had a few threesomes.

It ended badly, though. Caitlin/Caity was much more gay than my friend, whose tastes centered on older men. Caity wanted my friend to commit to the relationship, and while my friend enjoyed the sex and thought Caity was beautiful and bright, she wasn't going to be openly gay and/or monogamous. She'd had flings with girls since she was fifteen or sixteen, and she took having bi affairs as just part of being a posh party girl. But she wasn't ready to be as gay as Caity. Caity was heartbroken and bitter, and blocked my friend's phone number. As far as I know, they haven't seen each other since 2012. A sad ending, I know.

They had something just under a year together. There were stories in there--- the two of them at Wellington Sevens, adventures with Scottish and Kenyan rugby players, a 21-year old boy who claimed to be a virgin,  possibly one of Caity's professors. Those are all stories I want to follow up on, threads I've needed to follow all these years. I'm jealous and envious, of course. Though perhaps more envious of the stories than of the adventures as such.

And I do wonder what other novels Caitlin / Caity kept in her handbag.

Two Two Nine: Fingertips

There's a moment in any relationship that's delicate and vulnerable and exhilarating. It's simple enough--- the moment when you first take a lover's hand.

I do have memories of that, of how it's done. I remember sliding a hand across a table during a conversation and lifting a girl's hand up to twine my fingers around hers. The conversation carries on, and when it's all done well, neither of you even looks at your hands. The girl may spread her fingers and let yours go between them. Fingertips may tap against one another. You're still talking--- books, music, whether you prefer chocolate powder or cinnamon dusted on a cappuccino.  You're looking into one another's eyes and your fingers are learning each other's touch, learning each other's skin.

When it's done well, there's that knowing smile between the two of you--- first touch, the first statement that you're here for a ritual of flirtation and seduction. Sitting there--- coffee shop, bar, restaurant ---and touching across the table. It is an exhilarating moment. So much can be opening up here, so many possibilities are implicit in that first touch. There are other touches that offer up excitement, of course. The first time you put a hand on a lovely girl's bare leg while you drive at night, the first kiss on a bare shoulder--- those things matter. Holding hands, though... Holding hands is a ritual beginning that manages to be gentle and tentative, a ritual that allows the first touch, a ritual that makes a statement about your value.

I'm old enough to have done this a lot. Old enough to have memories of that first touch in different cities, different countries. I'm old enough to have done it in all kinds of venues. It's always meant a lot to me. But here in these latter days, I'm worried that it won't happen again.

Like so much else--- seductions, first kisses, first experiments and statements of preference or descriptions of fantasies and hopes ---it just seems increasingly difficult to do.

Once when I was very young, I went on a camping trip in the mountains. I remember hiking with friends through woods and along streams in a national park. I remember crossing streams stone to stone, doing small leaping steps from one stone to another. It was easy enough, even with a backpack.  I felt very much at ease. I was looking to the other bank, looking up at forested slopes and peaks in the distance. And then--- I looked down at the water and the stones and froze. I couldn't cross by instinct any longer. I was suddenly aware of what I was doing, aware of having to judge distance and balance. I no longer had any sense of rhythm, no ability to do this without thinking. I was no longer outside myself, and I was paralyzed with having to think.

That first touch, the first moment of sliding a had across a table to hold hands with a lovely girl--- I think I've lost the ability to do it. It no longer feels like a ritual. It feels like something I have to think about. I no longer have any sense of when and how to do this. No rhythm, no sense of flow. And I'm not sure it's something I can do if I have to think about it and use my conscious mind.

It's a bad ability to lose. I don't know how I've lost it, and I don't know how (if ever) I can get it back. That table surface is now a barrier I don't know how to cross.

Two One Three: Prologue

Read along with me for a while.

What I'm quoting here is the beginning of something, a prologue. It's from the spring of 2012. The girl who wrote it is...well, names don't matter. And these days she's no longer the girl who wrote this. This is from a previous life, a previous iteration.

But read along with me.

I can't explain this accurately or in a way that makes sense. I only meant to tell you I'm obsessed with pageantry. I choose my running routes or the tube carriage I sit in because of the men. It's like, I orbit around them or they're orbiting around me and the gravitational pull increases the closer I get. I'm approached and talked to and whistled at all day. All day. All day. All day. It exhausts me and fuels me and then I exhaust myself...

Now I'm teeth biting the concrete. 

Now I'm face shoved into the pillow. 

Now I am back against the alleyway wall. 

Now I am ass-up and torn. 

Now I am searching for my next hit.

No room for love.

I'm not the kind of girl you'll be seeing in the morning.

Nobody controls me, but I am under control.

No one writes like this any longer. The girl who wrote this erased  seven or eight years of her life, erased her life from something like 2007 to 2014. She's someone else now, someone whose life is about upward mobility and professional-class domesticity. She doesn't write like this any more; she doesn't recognise herself in her stories.

No one writes like this any more. There's no dark allure, no sense of late-night confessionals, no sense of the power of desire and dark exhilaration. I really have no idea of what stories are being told late at night these days.

Read along with me. Tell me about what's being confessed in the dark nowadays. Tell me about what the nighttime city is like these days. Tell me what happened to the stories from other times and other lives.

One Seven Nine: Towers

Geoff Dyer wrote an essay some years ago called "Sex and Hotels". I know that it was posted at Nerve.com once upon a time, and it was probably in one of his earlier collections of essays. I saw it referenced not long ago, and I'll be having the local library find me a Dyer collection with the essay. I usually like Geoff Dyer, and "Sex and Hotels" is something I do need to read--- or re-read.

Not long ago I wrote about Karley Sciortino's little essay on hotel sex, and I'd like to pair that with Geoff Dyer's essay. Hotel sex has always had a special valence for me, and I always love hearing girls' stories about the hotels where they've gone with lovers or beautiful strangers.

Location has always been an important part of sex for me. Backseats, desktops, library stacks, wagons-lits...  Location matters. It matters for establishing a mood, for establishing literary or film tradition. A lovely friend in New Zealand messaged me the other night to say that she wanted the measurements of my office desk, just in case she ever found herself spread out atop it.  Wellington NZ is something like eight thousand miles from where I'm sitting, but it never hurts to be prepared.

Hotel sex, now--- hotel sex comes with so many literary and film connections. Each hotel tells a different story about a city and about a particular affair. Each different hotel puts you in a different story.

I have my favourite hotels in Manhattan--- the Royalton, the Parker Meridien, the midtown Pod Hotel, the Night Hotel. Different lovers in each, different kinds of stories being told. My New Zealand friend told me once that she kept a log of every hotel pool where she's swum naked late at night, and that she has a list of Auckland hotels divided up into those where she's been with married men and those where she's just been with boyfriends or girlfriends. I admire a girl who keep lists of things, of course. I admire a girl who keeps score.

Karley Sciortino noted that hotel sex is about temporarily leisured, about being able to pretend for a few days that you're accustomed to luxury. Maid service, room service, the decor--- sex in hotels always feeds on class markers. Though there's something to be said for the stories you can create in decayed roadside motels or faded railway hotels in provincial towns. Both the four-star hotel and the places that probably house people who have "suspected" in front of their names promise anonymity, whether from the paparazzi or the FBI.

Hotel sex for me has always been about early mornings, too, about leaving a sleeping companion and looking out at cities just as the sky lightens. I don't smoke, but it would almost be worth starting just to stand with a cigarette and look out the window while the city began to stir. There are memories there, of course: kissing a companion's bare shoulder and slipping out of bed to watch the day begin.

If you're reading this, and if you're one of the quiet, literary girls I picture as my Imaginary Readers, I suppose you could tell me about your own favourite hotels and hotel sex memories. You could tell me about whether you see the hotel as an adventure in luxury, or an adventure in transgression (a married lover, say, or an alluring stranger), or as away to have anonymity and freedom.

Hotel rooms are for adultery,  as both Ms. Sciortino and Geoff Dyer tell us. They're for being sealed off in a room or a suite and not having to follow the rules of the outside world. Hotel sex is for call girls and clients, for escorts sent up after a discreet call to the concierge desk. Hotel sex can be about all the activities and positions and games you'd never feel comfortable trying at home. Hotel sex is about escape--- and all the best things in life are about escape from the quotidian.

If you're reading this, tell me about the hotels in your past. Tell me what desires you've been able to live out in hotels, and what you think about when the door closes behind you and you toss a carry-on bag onto a hotel bed.

One Seven Zero: Landline

I own two phones. I have an iPhone in my briefcase, and there's a small cordless landline on a table in my flat. I'll confess at the beginning that the iPhone is rarely turned on. I don't encourage calls to my mobile number. I use it for very occasionally calling out and for its web connection. I don't use the camera, and I dislike texts and texting. Texts have always seemed intrusive to me. They demand an immediate response, and I dislike that kind of demand. A text is limited to some fairly small number of characters; it's not a way to have the kinds of conversations I enjoy. Texts are for a handful of basic exchanges---- meet me at ________, call me at __________, what's the address/phone number? I don't send photos via text, and I almost never receive a photo.  I like conversations and telling stories, and texting isn't a way for me to do either.

That leaves the little landline. No one has landlines at home any more; that's just taken as a given in Millennial circles. I can't imagine not having one, though. I'm a gentleman of a certain age, and in my youth not having a phone at home was very socially suspect. Respectable people had telephones in their houses or apartments. That attitude is still with me. The mobile in my briefcase is something I'll always see as an accessory, as something just a bit secondary, something that's a bit frivolous or trivial. My real phone is there on the desk, and there should be a listing in an actual paper telephone directory.

A few years ago I read an on line article that said that landlines were making a bit of a comeback in places like Brooklyn. They were retro, yes--- having a 1950s-style desk phone or a 1960s-style Princess phone was hip. And hipster girls (and aren't attractive young girls always the arbiters of what's socially acceptable?) were starting to see a certain value in landlines. The article said that landlines were taken as a marker for stability, for saying that a boyfriend or potential boyfriend wouldn't just vanish. I like that attitude, of course. I can't escape the idea that having a landline is a social marker.

The landline will always seem like more of a connection than the mobile. It's far more an instrument for telling stories.  It's far better for flirtations and seductions as well.  I've never quite grasped the idea of sexting. I'm a painfully slow typist, and sexting doesn't allow for the things that would make the exchange work for me--- descriptions of place and time and costume, long complex accounts of what's happening or should happen. If there's going to be flirtation and seduction, it has to be structured like a novel. It can't be just blunt, direct questions in text-speak. If there's anything that kills the mood for me, it's poor grammar and text abbreviations.

I've no idea what the social status of phonesex or flirtation and seduction by phone is these days. I've noted before that any male participation in the Solitary Vice these days is regarded as pathetic or creepy, and in the age of the gender wars asking a girl to participate in phonesex is almost certainly regarded as a violation and an act of oppression. My suspicion is that even if the girl initiates the call,  the gender warriors would see it as "problematic". After all, a male is participating, and by definition he'd be pathetic and regarded as a loser. And revealing one's fantasies to a girl would be regarded as an act of aggression.

A 20th-c. poet (Muriel Rukeyser, I think) said that our lives are made up of stories, not atoms. Stories matter far more than flesh. Flesh can be turned into stories, but it's the stories themselves that last all down the years.  I can't imagine flirtation and seduction that doesn't grow out of stories told late at night over landlines. It's always a image I treasure--- voices crossing back and forth over landlines, stories told by phone in the post-midnight dark of a city bedroom, stories and exchanges that last until the dark turns dawn-blue.

I have to wonder, though, what the social valences are these days for long flirtations by phone. Does anyone stay on a mobile for hours? Are long telephone conversations still something that can be regarded as erotic? Tell me what you think--- here in the new century, is phonesex--- not sexting ---still an acceptable thing? What are its semiotics?

One Five Eight: Print

Long, long ago, in an age before Tinder or OKCupid, there were personal ads. This was long before message boards, long before even the personals on line at Nerve.com (is that still a thing?). No web then, no on line world. There were only magazines and newspapers. This may be long enough ago for the newspapers I'm thinking of to have been called "gazettes". In any case, though--- personal ads.

I don't think I saw any of them growing up. It wasn't until I went off to university that I saw personal ads. I can remember sitting in the reading room of the university library when I first discovered such things. The first place I saw them was very probably the Village Voice, back in an era when the Voice still had a certain louche air about it. I was amazed,  really. People advertising for sexual services, people searching for romance, people being reasonably open about their needs and tastes and desires. I was impressed by it all. Those ads seemed to promise a whole new world. They promised a city and a world where things I'd read about happened in real life. They made me believe that it was possible to find others who shared my tastes.

The Village Voice... That was the first place I found personals. I didn't quite know how to answer the ads, mind you. I was afraid of expecting too much, of having dreams that could never come true. I was a bit afraid of being found out, of having someone I'd written to realize that I was from someplace that could never be regarded as fashionable. At that age, I was terrified of being thought of as a mere callow provincial boy. I didn't quite know how to present myself; I certainly didn't believe I could dress well enough or look handsome enough to be accepted. I recall poring over personals ads and annotating them and wondering how many responses each ad was getting. I wondered, too, exactly how I'd fail at being good enough for each ad.

Beyond the Village Voice, I came across the NYRB and the LRB. Different ads--- more oblique, more self-consciously literary. I won't use "pretentious", though some of the ads in the book reviews were obviously all about signaling about cultural capital. I haven't seen a hard copy of either journal in a long time; I don't know if the personals ads are still there. I can remember being impressed by some of them, and a bit wary, too. I knew even in my undergraduate days that an ad in the NYRB would be expensive, and that did worry me. I didn't have the money to put an ad in the NYRB, and I did feel more than a little socially overawed by anyone who did. Well, I was very young. I didn't quite get that the people placing the ads were certainly older than I was--- employed somewhere, even if they weren't from a higher social class.  I was a bit afraid of whoever might be behind the ads, afraid that even with being at an Ivy wasn't enough to overcome the social disadvantages of not being a New Yorker. 

A friend in England tells me that she always loved the ads in Private Eye:

Alongside short sharp strange romance/hookup ads (ranging from wry to bleak in tone), there was a whole section in which people outright asked for money - they'd say something like, 'Impoverished grad student needs urgent support' and then list their bank details. Or 'Desperate and deep in debt. Bless you. [bank info]'. Just these weird one-line sob-stories or outlines of ambition. 'Would-be entrepreneur seeks angel. [bank info]'. I have often wondered if any of these were genuine and whether they received any donations.

Now I've not seen a copy of Private Eye in forever, though I understand that it's still out there. I've no idea if still carries ads like that, though of course I hope it does. Those sound much more like the kind of ads I need to place.

All in all, I do miss actual personal ads, though. They were much less intimidating than, say, a Tinder or OKCupid profile. As long as I'm writing, I can present myself as attractive. I can avoid my age and looks and lead with the things I am good at--- conversation, ideas, the willingness to explore. Personals ads at least stave off the moment of disappointment for a while.  And writing an introductory letter is always so much easier and less terrifying than being seen in a photo. 

Who knows--- one might even get a good response to a desperate ad in Private Eye seeking help for financial straits. 

I have no idea how to do anything for dating-by-app. Online dating is designed to filter out people like me, and there's no point in trying to be anyone who'd merit the correct swipe from anyone attractive. Even in a world where people seem vaguely offended when everything's not on line, I'd have to rely on the written word.

Which leads to a question to anyone reading this. How would you construct an old-school personal ad for yourselves? How would you present yourself to potential partners in a paragraph rather than pixels? What would you write about yourself?

And, well, yes--- if you'd been hired to write a personal ad for me, what would you write?

One Four Zero: Expulsion

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One Three Zero: Long Con

There's a question worth considering tonight. Suppose you were standing at a party or a bar and someone fairly attractive and of your preferred gender came over and began speaking to you--- flirting with you. What would do you? Assume you're unattached and there on your own. What would you do?

There are nights where I'd very coldly glare at the person speaking to me and walk away. Not because I wouldn't be interested in flirtation and seduction. It's not that at all. There are nights when, the more attractive the girl was who was speaking to me, the more likely I'd be to snarl at her and walk away.

At some basic tactical level, why would I walk away from someone attractive who might be interested in me, who might laugh and flirt and dance and make out?  The answer is that I'd find the fact that she was approaching me to be...uncanny. Unheimlich.   There are arbitrary social rules and socially-approved courtship norms--- they may be archaic or oppressive or exclusionary, but they do exist, and everyone knows what they are.  I'd have to be suspicious of anyone who violates the arbitrary norms, for better or worse. Why would they do this? And why would they do it around me?  My thought process on some nights would be simple enough: this is out of the ordinary, and that's suspicious. There's always the possibility that something out of the ordinary, something that comes out of nowhere, may be a good thing. Perhaps the person randomly handing you the $100 bill isn't running some kind of con, some kind of scam. Perhaps the attractive person approaching you at a party isn't going to humiliate you in public or isn't setting you up for some cruel joke. But how much trust do you put in the possibility of sincerity and good fortune?

You can ask yourself why they'd do that to you, but the answers are easy enough: boredom plus because-they-can. Because for certain people, random cruelty is its own reward.

And yet we are social animals. You'll remember the experiments where, when given the choice between a cold, wire-framed replica of a mother that provided milk and a warm, soft, cuddly cloth "mother" than gave no milk at all,  infant monkeys bonded with the cloth doll. We need the social interaction and the belief in kindness. We need to think someone might want to bond with us in some way. And so we're...optimistic. And foolishly optimistic at that.

So, then--- how would you answer the question?

What would you do if someone (yes, attractive) began to approach you outside the approved courtship norms? Would you believe in possibilities, or in the likelihood of the long con being played?

One Two Four: Soliloquies

I'd written here before about the way it's become riskier to admit to any particular sexual or romantic desires or interests. It's become harder to say that you like anything particular--- or anything at all ---without being subject to mockery. I'll note that this just may apply to the culture as a whole. Maybe it's the effect of social media as much as of anything else. There's a need nowadays to critique, to treat everything with a prosecutor's eye. Maybe, too, social media opens up more fronts on which you can be criticized. There are so many more ways now to let someone know that you really, really dislike whatever it is they are, whatever it is that they do or believe.  We're far more harsh on one another than we used to be, and we take it for granted that everything needs to be criticized to destruction and that anything that can be criticized at all is probably no good at all to begin with.

Well, whatever--- but it is harder now to risk telling a potential lover what you like and what you hope to do with them. Memory says that in my long-ago youth, you could smile across a table or a bed and tell a lovely girl what interested you without the fear of being told that what you liked was pathetic or disgusting...or morally corrupt on ideological grounds. Memory says that girls were more willing to experiment for its own sake, to try new things just because they were new.  I'm sure there must've been things that girls found they weren't interested in, but I don't recall ever being attacked or  told I was politically evil for raising possibilities.

My friend Ms. Flox raised another issue in an essay she wrote a couple of weeks ago. What is it, she wrote, that we hope to do by telling someone about your fantasies? Isn't telling someone that you have fantasies, fantasies about them, simply an act of aggression? Isn't describing to a listener a fantasy the same as acting it out with them?

Well....I can only sigh.  So even having interests and fantasies is now an act of aggression? I'm old enough to recall all the clichés about "communication", all the prim psychologists urging potential lovers to "communicate". But I suppose that these days, all communication is regarded as suspect in and of itself. To employ words at all is to control the listener's world. I suppose poets and novelists have always known that, but now the gender warriors and the Social Justice Cult have applied it to the hopes and stories passing between potential lovers.

I'm a creature who lives by stories, who lives through stories. What I have to offer a young companion is all about stories--- stories to tell, stories to share, stories for the two of us to be part of. I do have a real fear these days of being told that stories are now "problematic", that creating stories is a kind of "micro-aggression".  What I have to offer my young companions is the idea of living inside well-crafted stories.  My fear is that I'll lose that, that there'll be a cultural moment where creating stories, having fantasies, telling anyone that you have particularized desires or kinds of desire will be regarded as some combination of disgusting, pathetic, and aggressive.

I do recall long nights or Sunday brunch afternoons where lovely companions sat with me and we traced fingers over one another's hands and talked about fantasies and stories. Yes, those were very much part of seductions, part of worlds we were creating for one another.  I'm going to miss those things.

One One Eight: Interviews

Not so very long ago, Ms. Flox  raised the issue of discussing one's sexual interests on a date. Her own argument was that this was very much something one should do on a first date. After all, she wrote,  your interests and desires are a critical part of who you are. Discussing them up front allows a potential partner to know more about who you are and about what a relationship with you would be like.  It also, she says, opens up a process of negotiation and consent. A potential partner has an opportunity to discuss what you're looking for and explain how they feel about those things.

That's all of it very true. I can't disagree with Ms. Flox on this in principle. And yet...and yet...I'm not sure I can accept her thoughts on an emotional level. Or a tactical one. I'm finding it harder and harder to imagine discussing sexual interests on a date...or even in the bedroom. It's certainly something that's far riskier than it was back in my undergraduate days.

It may be that I've been reading too many websites like Jezebel and Gawker. I've been reading the comments at articles, too, and that's never a good thing. I need to pay more attention to the rule about never reading the comments. What I'm finding, though, is a world where you'd never, never risk discussing your interests and desires on a date. The "call-out culture" of the gender warriors is absolutely hostile to you doing anything like that. To raise the issue at all wouldn't be seen as presenting an important part of yourself, or as part of developing a relationship, or even as beginning a process of negotiating with a potential partner over what she'd like herself and what she'd be comfortable with.

I'm pretty clear that in the age of the gender wars, raising the issue at all would be regarded as aggression and condemned as assuming that sex would be part of a relationship or that the person across the table would have any interest in sex with you at all. Raising the issue or trying to discuss it would be seen as "sexualizing" both the situation and the person you're out with. It would be "called out" as creepy and pervy and an act of male privilege and aggression. I'm not going to risk being called out, and I'm not going to risk having a date suddenly launch into a politicized rant where I'm the villain.

I'm also not going to risk being laughed at. I don't know where the fear is coming from, but I'm becoming more and more reticent about admitting to any of the things I like or desire. At twenty or even thirty, I'd have talked about all those things with some kind of self-assurance. This is what I like, this is what I am, this is what I hope we can do together and both enjoy.  Once upon a time, I could say those things. I wasn't afraid that girls would laugh at me or turn away in disgust. I took it for granted that experimenting was part of sex, and that both parties would be willing to try out new things or at least accommodate someone's interests in return for reciprocity. No one's ever made a disgusted face in real life, and no one has ever burst into derisive laughter. But suddenly I'm aware that they could--- that they might.  That fear has come out of nowhere, or, well...it's come from reading the comments sections at web articles about dating and male sexuality. So much hostility there, and so much contempt for things a male might ask for or say that he likes.

Ms. Flox is right, I think, about what you desire and what you like sexually being a  key part of what you are and a key part of any relationship. But somehow it's become a very risky thing to admit to desires and particular interests, and certainly risky to admit that you see sex as part of a relationship--- that you see a date as part of a social ritual where sex is one of the ends.  The world here in the new century is a lot less open to desire than it was twenty years ago, and it's certainly more harsh and less forgiving.

I was never very good at job interviews, and I have this growing feeling that I can't do the kinds of interviewing that you do on a first date. I'm going to talk myself into a kind of paralysis about ever discussing what I like to do with partners or about ever admitting that I see being out with someone as involving desire and physical contact. The trick to things in the age of the gender wars isn't honesty or negotiation. It's silence and refusing to admit to anything ever.

One Zero Five: Semaphore

I do have to think about the concept of misogyny, about what it means, and about how the definition has become so unfocused, so overly broad, as to render the word almost meaningless. Like "narcissist" or "entitled", it's become a generalized term of abuse and condemnation without any clear standards. "Misogyny" is one more word, one more concept, that the gender wars have rendered too broad to be of any real use except as a way to condemn and dismiss out of hand.

I want to sit down and write about the whole idea of "misogyny" and about what it means, or at least about what it means to me. I suppose I might wait a bit, or at least until the #YesAllWomen furor has died down a bit.

What I will think about, though, is signals between men and women--- how both sides seem to be losing the ability to read signals from the other, or maybe losing the will to accept what signaling involves.

Whenever I read articles or commentariat rants about the "nice guy" issue, one thing that always comes up is women's anger that a male is being "nice" to them but has ulterior motives, motives that are seemingly always regarded as despicable or sinister. I've never quite understood that.  It may be that my own grasp of "nice" is outmoded. But it's always been my view that "nice" is a signal that one is interested in a girl. This isn't base-level politeness or mere ordinary daily social pleasantry. "Nice" has always meant something else to me--- paying particular attention to a given person, going out of one's way to do small favors or offer kindnesses. It's more than ordinary politeness, and it's based on things that one male isn't likely to do for another.  Being "nice" to a girl, paying particular attention to a girl, is a courtship signal. It's a way of signaling that you're willing to do out-of-the-ordinary things for one particular person.  It's a way of signaling romantic interest, of signaling that you find this girl to be somehow special. I've always argued that "nice" is something more than ordinary politeness. If you weren't interested in this girl, you wouldn't be rude or impolite, but you wouldn't go beyond mere ordinary courtesy in how you treat her.

You signal a girl that you're interested in her on a romantic or sexual level. You do that by showing her individualized attention. She's no longer treated as simply someone in the background, someone to whom you distantly say "thank you" or "pardon me". She may or may not offer up a favorable response to your signal, she may or may not be interested in returning the signal, but there really shouldn't be any question that "nice" is a courtship signal. I've no idea how it became taken for granted that "nice" implies some sinister ulterior motive. It's part of courtship, part of the mating dance, and it is obvious enough. Why is "nice" somehow sinister? Why is it somehow disreputable or despicable to be sexually or romantically interested in someone and signal that interest by showing individual attention?

Again, now, there's no guarantee of a favorable response. Let's take that as a given. But if the male needs to accept that, the girl needs to admit that what's happening is a signal about someone's interest in her. It should be simple enough to tell.  One basic question the girl should ask herself is whether the attentions being paid her are something one (straight) male would do for another. If the answer is no, then the girl shouldn't pretend to be surprised or shocked: there's a mating ritual in play. Say yes, say no--- that's your choice if you're the recipient. But don't pretend to be surprised.  Recognize, too, and accept that if you say no, you may have to simply walk away from the male in question. Unrequited desire and unrequited love are perfectly ordinary and commonplace, but they're still painful and awkward. If there's nothing in the signal to interest you, then say no and make a clean and immediate break. Don't--- don't ---keep someone around just to benefit from the signals, just for the favors.

I'm never sure what signals the gender warriors find acceptable between males and females. To straightforwardly, directly announce sexual or romantic interest is regarded as aggression. To offer up individualized attention as a way of announcing interest, to try to make it especially pleasant--- "nice" ---to be around you is seen as having evil ulterior motives. It may well be that the gender warriors don't think males should demonstrate any interest at all. After all, they already regard seduction--- persuasion ---as evil.

There are signals out there.  It's exhausting and depressing to think that we're losing the ability to read others' courtship and mating signals...or, worse, refusing to admit that signals exist and admit what they mean.

Eighty-Eight: Nightcalls

Halloween is coming in a few days. It'll be a Thursday this year, which is an awkward day for a holiday. Whatever anyone does on Thursday night, there's still Friday (work, classes) to get through.  Thursday night parties lead to Friday hangovers with no chance to sleep late, and a Friday morning post-Halloween Walk o' Shame is awkward indeed. Sitting hungover at a coffee shop in last night's Halloween costume on a Saturday or Sunday morning at least guarantees you'll be in good company. Coming home in last night's costume through crowds of office-bound day-dwellers is just a bit embarrassing.

Still and all, I like Halloween. I like it because it's an autumn holiday, one with lots of memories of childhood autumns. I like it because it opens the holiday season that takes us to year's end. And I like it because it's one of the trio of holidays that are about sex and delights.

Halloween as a holiday for children is one thing--- that's ghost stories and candy corn and candles inside jack o' lanterns. But Halloween for university girls and twentysomethings is about throwing off inhibitions. It's about slutty costumes, and well it should be. Halloween is a chance to give yourself to the night and to physical desire.

New Year's Eve and Valentine's are about sex, too, but in very different ways. Valentine's is about structured romance and the rituals of romance, and it's about romance as social display. New Year's Eve is about a kind of elegant, melancholy abandon. Kissing a beautiful stranger at the tick of midnight on New Year's Eve is about saying goodbye to another vanished year and about hoping the kiss will be a kind of magic for the new year. Halloween is something much more immediate, something much more basic. Halloween is about physical desire. It's about lust, and we need holidays that celebrate lust.

We've forgotten about lust, and about how powerful and exhilarating it can be. Or maybe not forgotten--- maybe we've become afraid of it. Lust and desire aren't about a cost-accounting view of life. They aren't about rational planning, or about understanding the "deeper context"  and "genealogy" of things. Lust and desire are immediate. They're about immediate pleasure and immediate need. We're afraid of that now. We're afraid of the irrational in pleasure, afraid of risking our carefully-constructed social selves for pure adventure and physical delight.

We do need more of that, though. We need a holiday that is about slutty costumes and adventures and losing oneself in the night. We need holidays that proclaim that just for the night, the rules are suspended and that you're free to just seek out pure physical delight.

It will be a bit awkward this year. Friday may be a bit awkward--- hungover, yes, and an odd kind of speed bump before the weekend. But I think that Halloween needs to be valued as one night when you can dress up as someone seeking immediate pleasure, one night where you can shed a daytime identity and take up new masks...or throw away the mask you wear all day.

There are three days in any year where we celebrate the different aspects of sex and romance. Halloween isn't about chocolates and champagne, or about sympathetic magic under the ticking clock. It's about something much about pure id, pure adventure. Value that--- value that and go explore. You can stay home later and watch "Arsenic and Old Lace" or "The Trouble With Harry". Take Halloween night and go explore physical delights and all the things you can be or create.

Eighty-Four: Tango

A friend who writes a fairly well-known sex blog once chided me for liking ritual too much in terms of sex and encounters. I think she finds the whole idea of ritual vaguely dehumanizing, or at least something that's too cold. I've never felt that way. Ritual and formality have always been part of my love life. Mind you, I'm not especially talking about anything s/m there. I'm talking about something else altogether. I've always seen ritual as very much a social lubricant, a social buffer.

When I was in my teens, the whole process of dating was highly formal, highly ritualized. There were social rules that defined the mating dance, and they did make life easier. I've always liked procedures and protocols, and I do appreciate them for what they're designed to do: make things simpler and less awkward. Procedures and protocols are designed to get you from Point A to Points B and C simply, clearly, and without having to constantly re-invent the wheel.

I always think of the idea of the Mass here. There's the Mass, and there are highly formal procedures for how it proceeds. There's a goal for all the ritual, and that's the moment of transubstantiation, the moment when the bread and wine are suffused with the Real Presence. When the Mass begins, there's a defined goal, and everyone knows what it is. The ritual doesn't just stop midway through, and it doesn't suddenly turn into bingo night.

When I was young, dating had its own goal.  You went out with a girl, you did certain things--- a film, dinner, a concert ---and the end of the evening was about making out. Dating was a mating dance. You weren't expecting to find your soul mate; you weren't expecting to fall into a lifelong relationship. Dating was a series of steps that ended with making out. It provided a framework, and provided steps that moved you along through and past awkwardness and insecurity. My memory is that both parties understood what was happening, and that both parties thought that being able to make out--- to just experience excitement and pleasure ---was a goal worth reaching, and that they were there together so at the end of the evening there actually would be making out. My memory of those days is that girls at my high school knew where the best places to go parking were, knew where to go to be able to make out--- and that they weren't shy about giving boys directions.

Procedure and ritual carry you along step by step. Follow the procedure and you don't have to think about things--- you don't have to worry and overthink and obsessively analyze everything. That's very much a way of doing things that needs to be valued.  Know what the goal is, whether that's transubstantiation of the bread and wine or a lovely girl straddling you in a parked car and pulling off her top. Know the goal--- be part of a ritual, a set of procedures that will get you to the goal. These days, we all overthink and over-analyze. And we miss the charm of the steps toward the goal.

Both parties in the dating world were physical creatures back in my own lost youth.  Even if you didn't talk about it, everyone knew about making out and that it was worth doing.  When you asked a girl out in the halls at school, or when the girl accepted, everyone knew that you were attracted to one another, or at least found one another acceptable enough to be seen out with and acceptable enough for physical interaction. Dates themselves were designed to make everything...simple. Everyone understood why he or she was there. You went to some kind of activity, you went somewhere like a pizza place or a cafe afterwards, you made conversation, and then you went parking. No one had to agonize over what has happening or about what the other party was really thinking. There was much less pressure and anxiety than here in the new century. With even a bare minimum of politeness on both sides, the evening would go along well.

I miss dating. I really do. I miss the idea of the mating dance, of knowing that there's a framework for social encounters, that there's an understood goal. I miss a set of accepted steps designed to carry both parties along to the goal. The rituals of dating, like the rituals of politeness at a dinner party, are designed to keep you from having to re-invent the wheel, to keep you from having to constantly think and worry. I can't imagine why we don't see the value in those things.

Eighty: Advice To Young Ladies

A friend in Zurich asked that I discuss something that I've probably treated too much as a given: what a Young Companion should know about an affair with an Older Admirer. There are certainly enough cautionary tales about such things. There are gender wars rants a-plenty about the dangers of such things, and I'm told that at certain universities incoming first-year co-eds are specifically warned away from such things, especially where the Older Admirer might be an academic. There are cautionary tales all over literature, too. You can add "Lolita" to the list if you want (I wouldn't; it's something else altogether), or things like Debbie Cymbalista's short story "Choice". But my Swiss friend was looking for something else altogether. She was looking for procedures and protocols for being a Young Companion, for how to have an affair with someone much older. Well, it's a topic I need to explore, so I may be coming back to it over time. Let's see, though... Where to begin?

Let's begin with a clear statement. A classic affair with an Older Admirer is based on a straightforward exchange. We're not talking about the Sugar Baby/Sugar Daddy kind of exchange. It's not that. But it is straightforward enough. If you're honest, the exchange is one of youth and beauty for knowledge and experience. Admit that to yourself. There's nothing degrading or exploitative about it. Be honest, though. You each have something to offer, and you're each finding something valuable in the exchange.

If you have an Older Admirer with whom you want to make that exchange, remember. You are hoping to learn from him. No, he doesn't know everything; don't let him act like he does. But he'll have knowledge and experience--- about some things. Be sure those are the things you want. And open yourself to them, to learning. He'll probably over-explain some things, true. That may or may not be a male thing, but it's something I'm probably prone to doing as a part of my past as an academic. But he will have a passion for knowledge--- if you've chosen well ---and he'll be happy to share that, to pass on what he knows. And don't think it's all one-way. If he's worth your time, he'll listen as well as speak.   He'll value your thoughts. Oh, yes, he'll enjoy being looked up to; he'll enjoy being listened to. However not? But he'll listen to you, and he'll remember things he learned at your age and appreciate what you're becoming.

Another friend sent me a text message one night from a restaurant in another city telling me that the older man she was with was buying her single-malt Scotch and asking if that was what older lovers always did. The answer, by the way, is yes. He will do that, your Older Admirer--- teach you about whiskeys. It's something we do. He may have some particular fetish about martinis, though that may be as much about geography as age. It'll be the whiskeys he'll want to show you about.  And, yes, you should learn about them. They're what a girl who's a bit of a femme fatale would drink, the drink for a girl learning to strike poses in late-night bars, and choosing a good whiskey is a skill worth having.

Let's see, now... There is the issue of sex. That's always there. Remember--- he'll be far more anxious and nervous than you are. Bare, ruin'd choirs... He will be worried about that. You represent youth and beauty, and he'll be all-too-aware of his own mortality. He'll make oblique apologies for not being twenty-two and buff. He'll be very aware of the ways his body can fail.  If he's worth your time, though, he'll he open about that. He won't lie to you about it, and he'll be willing to deploy skills he's learned across a lifetime for you. He's making up for age, substituting technique for raw energy. He'll probably have a fetish or two, though he may be hesitant--- maybe even a bit afraid ---to mention them. You, though, are looking for experience, for new worlds. Tell him what you know about your own body; don't be afraid to tell him that you do want pleasure out of whatever you do with him. And then be open to experience. He will want to offer you that, and he'll appreciate the energy and hunger for experience you bring to bed.

He will be all-too-aware of his own body. He'll undress you often and just look and admire, but he may not be comfortable being naked himself. Understand that. You're not blind, and you're not a fool. You can guess at what he'll look like. But I do want you to remember this. His flesh won't crumble to the touch, and it won't smell or taste of decay and death. Your touch--- the willingness behind your touch ---will mean more to him than he'll want to say. His own touch will be delicate, though knowing. Look into his eyes, offer him kisses. He will know how to touch you, and he will want very much to offer you pleasure. A co-ed friend in New York once found herself in some unexpected tryst with an aging, elegant Eastern European emigré whose touch left her thrilled and exhausted. When she gasped out how surprised she was, he told her in precise, formal, accented English that "my dear, why wouldn't I know how to do this? I've had half a century of practice."  Bear that in mind.

You'll talk in the dark. He'll talk, too. Accept those things as a given. He'll want to lie there with you in the dark and listen to your stories. He'll want to tell you things, too.  Much of what you're doing will involve talking. Learn to love talking in the dark. Learn to love that hour when the dark starts to turn violet-grey. Be willing to listen to him; he'll need that. Be willing to talk, too. He'll be open to you. That hour when the sky is just lightening is a time when he can let go of all his fears. It should be the same for you.

It's not forever. You know that, and so does he. But if he's worth your time, he'll live up to the terms of the exchange. It's not about power, or at least not about power in the gender wars sense. He'll want you to come away with a sense of having learned things, of having had your world opened up. He'll be thrilled if you tell him that--- and tell him honestly. And he'll be clearly and honestly grateful for what you've given him. If he's worth your time, he will be.

Sit across the table, then. Be willing to be open to what he has to offer. Accept that there are disapproving eyes, and give the back of your hand to those people. You know what you have to offer, too, and you make sure that he appreciates that. It's an exchange, and the terms are reciprocal. There in his bed, there across the table--- you know what you're offering and what you're accepting. When his fingertips touch yours, or brush over your cheekbones or thigh, remember that you're learning something, and that you're offering up something just as valuable.

Sixty-Eight: Pattern Language

I was thinking last weekend about rituals that may have fallen out of fashion. I was thinking about the whole ritual of dating, of what the current social rules are for being out with someone.

I wonder if we're less honest now than we were a generation or two ago, if we've gone back to the days  of the 1950s, if we have to insist once again that the reason behind asking someone out doesn't include sex, or at least include the idea of flirtation and seduction. It's somehow regarded as offensive again to think of asking someone out as the first step in a dance that leads to the bedroom.

When I was very young, there was an assumption that dating was about finding someone attractive. Asking someone out or accepting an invitation--- those things were statements about who you found attractive and desirable. Going to a film or a dance or to dinner could be part of a date, but it was accepted that those things were a prelude to making out. The ritual of the date was very mannered, very formal. If you were male, you made the first overt move, made the phone call or asked someone in the halls at school. The girl needn't be utterly passive, of course. There were all sorts of ways to signal that she was receptive to the invitation. These days I'll compare it all to eighteenth-century diplomacy, which is a comparison I wish I had time to expand on. I like the comparison, though, and it makes sense to me.

I'm always in favour of rituals and formality. These days, my young companions will meet me out at a favourite coffeeshop or bar, or come by my rooms. We may walk together through neighbourhoods we like, or emerge downtown for drinks and dinner, but it's not dating in the classic sense. Making that first move was terrifying sometimes, but if the girl accepted your invitation, you knew exactly what to do next, step by step. It was taken as a given that if a girl went out with you, then she liked you enough to at least make out for a while at the end of the evening. There were carefully calibrated levels of what was likely to happen on a first or second or third date: kisses and caresses,  top on or off, front seat or back. But there wasn't any question that there would be at least some making out. That was the point of it all, of course. Everyone understood in his or her bones that dating was about desire. You didn't have to talk about it or agonise over it. There at the heart of things was physical desire. That much was clearly understood.

The rules of the game called for the girl to get in to your car (and, yes, you opened the door for her: this was in the American South) and sit against the passenger door until you'd left her parents' driveway and driven down to the end of the street. Then she'd slide over against you so you could put an arm around her or put a hand on her leg. All these years later I recall the first night a girl did that with me. We were talking about something utterly unconnected--- what was on the radio, what film we were going to see ---and she just slid across the car and pressed herself against me. She never said anything about it--- she just did it while talking of other things. I was thrilled, of course. She'd agreed to go out with me, and she'd worn something short and summery. I understood that there would be kissing later, or at least understood it in some abstract sense. I knew about the car seat rule, but it was still a thrill when she actually did that. I'd seen her at school, spoken to her two or three brief times. Having her accept my invitation, having her slide against me--- I did feel valued, and I felt like the desire I felt for her wasn't something I had to hide or be ashamed of.

There was kissing later that night, with her leaning back across me. We'd seen some film at a little uptown cinema, then parked my parents' car by a lake in a park. I remember her as having shoulder-length light-auburn hair and grey eyes, with a light spray of freckles across her nose. There was kissing, and her  top was pushed up a bit, though not all the way. (No, no navel ring. This was long, long, before body piercing. She was very slender, though, and tallish for the day. My tastes haven't changed.) We talked a bit during the evening, though not of anything deep.  We stayed in that parked car 'til midnight, and I drove her home and walked her to her door. We went out a few more times, and there was always that spot by the lake in the park. We went fairly far. She was more experienced than I was, and I was happy to follow her lead at some things. The ritual of the date let us each have a partner and gave us a set of markers for moving the evening toward making out. We were both Southern-born, and we'd been taught how to be polite and make conversation. There wasn't any real awkwardness about what we were doing. See a film, go someplace for pizza, try to acquire a couple of illicit beers, go parking. It was all pleasant enough, and we both understood what the purpose of the date was.

I'm not sure that you're allowed to have dates like that these days. I have no idea what high school rituals are like, of course, but there's a whole social mood that does regard the idea of dating as problematic. Some of that is dislike of the presumed passivity dating imposes on girls--- having to wait 'til asked. A lot of it is just a dislike of the idea that dating is a mating dance, that a very basic physical desire underlies the whole reason for a couple being out. We're not supposed to admit that these days. Asking a girl out simply because you find her hot is ideologically suspect.  Sex is no longer regarded as an acceptable key reason for asking someone out.  Doing so is regarded as somehow demeaning or degrading the person asked, though that's not a position I've ever understood.

There are fewer and fewer rituals designed to  make the mating dance easier for both parties. It's less and less acceptable to think of male-female interactions as a mating dance. That's sad, of course. Ritual and formality are there for a reason. They remove the need to agonise over decisions; they remove the constant need to worry. You can let the ritual carry you along, let the steps of the dance take you. I like that, of course. You decide to join the dance and then all you have to do is follow the steps. I like that. It's honest, mind you.  It admits that sex is a valid reason for things, and that there's nothing wrong with the idea of a mating dance. Pleasure and desire are fraught; that's the human condition. The rituals exist to make those things easier to reach and enjoy.

Despite what the current moral arbiters say, the rituals are honest. They allow you to admit what you want and they exist to help both parties get there with some grace and with less anxiety. I think the language of the rituals is something we need to value, and we need to once again be honest about what the dance does.

Fifty-One: Pursuit

The gender warriors hate so many things, and it's exhausting to read through their list of all that's "problematic", meaning morally flawed and evil. Nonetheless, a few things do catch my eye.  They hate romances as a genre, and they hate the idea of romance. They certainly hate the idea of seduction. So many of the gender warriors equate seduction with coercion and regard seduction as no better than sex taken by violence. This is not something I can grasp at all. This is nothing that has any connection to the rituals of romance that I grew up with.

They do hate romances as a genre. Faint heart ne'er won fair maiden--- they hate that as an idea, as the underlying text for romantic comedies and romances. The basic story arc for any romance is to introduce the reader to two characters who should be together, then drop obstacles in the way of them coming together. The story is about overcoming those obstacles. The reader's interest is held by watching one character or the other push through obstacles to an ending where lovers can be together. Families, distance, class, misunderstandings, misapprehensions--- all the standard obstacles, all the way back to Greek comedy. Faint heart ne'er won fair maiden... That's been a lesson of romances these last twenty-five hundred years or so.  And that of course is simply a variant of a key lesson in life: what's worth having must be won through determination and effort. The gender warriors hate that. They champion something called "enthusiastic consent", a standard that holds that at the first hint of reticence or difficulty, a lover (male--- always male) must walk away, must never try to persuade or convince. It's a standard that's based on the insistence that romance itself is "problematic". For the gender warriors, passion is always suspect as dangerous and irrational and demanding. Sexual "intimacy" must be something worked through like a Maoist criticism/self-criticism session or a kind of corporate negotiation between robot lawyers.

To immediately walk away at the first hint of reticence says...what? I've asked that question to girls of my acquaintance, and they've all said that they'd feel...somehow offended. It's not that they wanted a clear No to be disregarded, but that a potential lover who'd just shut down at any hint of reticence or uncertainty is saying to them that sex or romance with them isn't worth some effort.  One friend put it simply enough: a boy who'd walk away without trying to persuade or even cajole was saying that he didn't find her worth a few minutes of inconvenience. He could call it embracing "consent culture", but what he was saying was that she just wasn't worth convincing--- which was insulting, really. The girls I talked to told me that the problem with "enthusiastic consent" and "consent culture" wasn't the idea of consent as such, but the idea that they no longer had a way to gauge how much a potential lover valued them, that there was no way to ask a potential lover to show that he'd expend some time and energy and thought to show that he was seriously interested in them. I suppose that's a kind of sexual economics that the gender warriors despise, but it is utterly human: the need to be valued, to be shown that one is worth something.

There is something about "enthusiastic consent" that ruins the kind of romance that I've always liked. I like seductions and flirtations: very formal, very mannered, very based on a kind of dance. Advance, withdraw, advance again. Persuade, tempt, intrigue---  I like the verbal part of it all, too. All very formal and mannered, of course. It's a game that requires two players, and one that I've always loved. The girl involved--- my Young Companion ---understands what's happening and where the dance leads. That's part of it, too. She's chosen to be part of the dance, and she knows where it leads. But there's the whole game of serve and return, serve and return. Flirtation and seduction are about persuasion and temptation, of course, and about a kind of dance through obstacles toward a goal. It's verbal, mostly, and verbal is one of my stronger skills. The delight in it all is about the word games, the ripostes, the serve-and-return that allow both parties to get to the first serious kiss and to the bedroom. Consent is won--- given as a prize for being clever and mannered, for knowing how to volley in the serve-and-return. Or perhaps it's given when the girl lifts an eyebrow and joins in the dance. Seduction and flirtation are both skills, and they're ways to demonstrate a kind of commitment to the pursuit, to how valuable your potential partner is, to offering up mannered delights. Seduction and flirtation are skills, and they're skills that are valued for themselves and show a partner that they're valued, too.

Faint heart ne'er won fair maiden. I still believe in that phrase. And I believe that serve-and-return, that clever words, can win hearts and win through to the bedroom. I believe that the dance is part of the delight. And I will always believe that.