Three Four Five: Senses

Tonight I'm thinking of Jill in Wellington. I'm thinking of the stories she'd tell and the long conversations she and I would have about our Pasts and our experiences. I do miss those, and I do miss her.

I told her once that I was a creature often beset with what I call JED-- Jealousy Envy Depression. That's a cocktail of things that aren't good at all. I've noted before that Envy is the sole Deadly Sin that gives no pleasure while you're indulging in it. And tonight I am thinking of things she told me that leave me envious and dejected.

Envy is my own Deadly Sin, the fault that I've never been able to escape. I'm not sure what exactly I want from it. The ability to tell good stories, certainly. The ability to amass stories that are as good as those other people have to tell. The belief that I'm as good as others. I certainly want those things, and Envy haunts me every day.

Let's consider a small story Jill told me back a couple of years ago. This is Jill discussing self-pleasure:

If i wait til late in the night, i get lazy and just use a Lelo on my clit...if i have more time then yes - fingers in my ass, too...  

honestly...i was so fucking drunk, i didn't know what i was doing. i just needed to feel so full, i had a Corona bottle in my cunt and fingers in my ass, i was alone and drunk and high and i came so hard, over and over. my sheets were a mess in the morning. but at the time, i needed it. i think i needed to prove i was all i needed, i could make myself feel everything i needed...

i filled up the Corona bottle with water from the bathroom and sat drinking it, tasting my own cunt and rubbing my clit, even though i had just cum.

i remember that night so well...

I do envy her that story. It's powerful enough, and it makes a lovely fantasy vision. And there's no equivalent for anyone male. She has her selection of Lelo vibrators--- charges them via USB port on her iPad 2 ---and her Corona bottle, carefully cleaned and wrapped in silk in her bedroom dresser. There's no male equivalent for that. She's able to have powerful and shattering moments all on her own. There's no male way to experience anything like that, no male way to be able to give oneself the belief that you could make yourself "feel everything I needed". 

There's certainly no way for me to feel sexually self-sufficient--- or sexually equal to someone like her either in terms of sensations or experiences that can be the raw material for stories. 

She writes that  I have quite a few Lelo toys - and these come in nice, plain black boxes -- so i usually keep my toys in the little bags they come in, in the original boxes -- stacked at the back of my bedside drawer. I'm male, and a gentleman of a certain age and background. I can't say anything equivalent or have any of the same kinds of experiences. 

And I'm eaten up with Envy that my experiences will never be as good as anyone else's.

Jill and her Corona bottle, Jill and her Lelo. One key part of what I envy her is just the ability to experience pleasure. I've said her before that I don't experience unmediated pleasure, that anything I feel is filtered through books and films...or filtered through all those years of academic analysis. Jill can listen directly to her body. She can let her body give her pleasure. She can be all she needs for pleasure.

I never feel any of that, mind you. I never feel anything that's directly physical, or that isn't filtered through a lifetime of reading. I know about pleasure from descriptions in books. I just never feel any of it myself.

I know about the accoutrements of pleasure. I know about crafting tales and scenarios to give pleasure. I know about critical theory and pleasure. What I don't know is how to feel pleasure, or how not to believe that nothing I feel is as good as what others feel. At my own advanced age, I have no idea whatsoever what pleasure feels like.