Four Zero Zero: Dining

I don't know why I do this to myself, but I do. 

I've been at Twitter looking at posts by lovely FMTY girls. I'll never be able to afford a companion at FMTY level, but I will look through companion / escort Twitter sites and sigh over what I might be missing. Yes, yes, I know that I'll only end up feeling alone and depressed, but there's something in me that enjoys pressing my face to the window of the expensive restaurant or the high-end shop. 

I have followed links to several FMTY girls' websites, and the finances of having a companion are far beyond me. One very lovely girl in Toronto listed her rate for a basic dinner date as $CD 1850, which is about $US 1300. That doesn't include the dinner itself or the hotel room or a tip. It also doesn't include an introductory gift-- say, a gift card for maybe $US 250 at a high-end spa. The cost of the rendezvous would be far beyond me. I don't begrudge the Toronto girl her fee or the auxiliary costs-- a skilled professional is worth her fee, and what used to be called Girlfriend Experience calls for a great deal of skill. I don't begrudge the FMTY girls their fees, but I am very aware that they inhabit a world beyond my reach.

What have I learned from the FMTY sites? I've learned that there are restaurants-- e.g., Aulis in London, Octavia in San Francisco --that are suitable for an evening with a skilled companion, and I like knowing small things like that.

One of the FMTY summed her perfect life in a Twitter post: Small circle, overdressed, living privately, handwritten letters, intentional purchases, coastal walks & ritualized routines. 

I love that vision of life. I could so easily imagine offering up her fee plus tip and gift for access to a life-- to the vision of a life --styled like that. 

FMTY girls pride themselves of being "companions", as being able to offer a client a vision of a life where the client is valued: It rules getting to explain to a silver daddy who’s been in boss/dad mode for the last 30 years that’s he’s actually really, really hot now. I love being the bearer of glad tidings.  

An FMTY girl posted this: “I think we were rival Samurai in a past life” is my new favorite pick-up line. Yes, I'd pay to have someone say that to me. 

I look through the FMTY sites and sigh over photos of dinners and spas. I sigh over witty lines. I sigh over the idea that I would be worth a professional deploying her skills. I sigh over the hope that I'd ever be someone who could appreciate a professional's skills. I sigh over the hope that a skilled professional wouldn't mind teaching me about the tasting menu in a star restaurant. 

I do this to myself, you know. I keep my face pressed to the glass far too long on empty nights.

Three Nine One: Housewives

 I've mentioned erotic art before-- specifically, the graphic novels of Michael Manning, which began to appear in the 1990s. Manning's stories (e.g., Tranceptor, The Spider Garden, Hydrophidian, Cathexis) are...gender-fluid cyberpunk goth erotica. Something like that, in any case. The artwork itself is excellent, and it does remind me a bit of Matt Howarth's sci-fi work. 

Manning's work is hard to get these days. There aren't very many publishers of erotic graphic novels left, and credit card processors are refusing to process payments these days for erotica of any kind. The new century is a place where Gen Z "influencers" look with puritanical disdain on erotica, a place where sex scenes in novels (especially in "romantasy") are (non-ironically) called "smut" and dismissed as politically suspect. 

It's really very hard to find good erotica these days. I've been told that there's at least some new trans and queer erotica being written or drawn, but those are alien genres for me. And even in those genres, visual erotica seems to be suspect-- if only because beauty itself is now suspect, and no one wants to be accused of "fetishizing" bodies or preferences. 

Having said that, I'll note that I found a series of rather good erotic graphic novels from the early Noughts. The series is called "Housewives at Play", and it seems to have appeared from c.2000 through c. 2008. I've found a website (joinforjoy.com) that has several issues posted, and they're worth looking at. As best I can tell, the issues form a more or less ongoing story. The posted issues begin with Nr. 4 in the series, and form a (largely) connected story up through Nr. 18. I haven't been able to find the first three issues, and the story wasn't complete by Nr. 18. The website has most, but not all, of the issues between Nr. 4 and Nr. 18. I can infer how the storyline began, but I have no idea how (or if) it ended. I do wish it was still around.

The artist and creator of "Housewives at Play" is supposed to be "Rebecca". I have zero idea if "Rebecca" was actually female, and I know nothing at all about the person behind the name. The series was published by Eros Comix in Seattle, and I don't know whether the publisher is still in business. If anyone out there over the aether knows anything about the publisher, please do pass it along.

What is there to say about "Housewives at Play"? Well, the art is much better than usual. "Rebecca" did have an eye for lovely women, and her "My Girls" special issue does some excellent pen-and-ink portraits of her main characters. The body types are very much to my taste-- tall, toned, slender, and leggy. The characters don't wax, but they do neatly trim their pubic hair, so we're not stuck with a 1970s Land of Bush O'Plenty look.  The stories began in black and white, but seem to have transitioned to colour at some point. Rebecca's art is at least as good as anything in mainstream comics art.

The stories? Well, semi-comic suburban/pop culture lesbian BDSM is probably the best description. (I couldn't bring myself to use "tongue-in-cheek" here. I just couldn't.) The main character is a bored, 40-year old suburban housewife named Catherine Mitchell. One day, out of nowhere, Catherine is violated by her best friend Patty and turned into a lesbian sex slave for Patty and Patty's newlywed neighbor Beth. Catherine then acquires her teen daughter's best friend Jennifer as her own sex slave, although Jennifer and Catherine's beautiful daughter Melissa (both carefully and repeatedly described as eighteen) are themselves secretly a couple. Hilarity ensues, as does lots of transgressive sex. 

At some point, Catherine, Melissa, and Catherine's incestuous younger sister Lynn are kidnapped by the staff at a local Victoria's (errr..."Veronica's") Secret and sold to teen pop princess Bratty Sneers (Brittany Spears, obviously), teen idol Kandy Korn (Mandy Moore?) and country music idol Fate Will (Faith Hill, I assume). There's also Catherine's ex-lover Stephanie, a Native American stripper/escort who dances under the name Princess Poke-My-Hiney...plus random beautiful guest stars of 18-21 who are all seriously sapphic, blithely promiscuous, and open to trying pretty much anything involving lesbian BDSM. Males rarely appear, although there is a subplot where Fate Will orders a dozen of her ranch hands to impregnate Melissa so that Fate's husband Grim (Tim McGraw) will return from touring and think Fate's given him a child...and Fate won't have to risk her looks and figure with a pregnancy or allow anyone male to have sex with her. 

The stories are hot, yes. They're also fairly funny, and all parties, top and bottom, enjoy the BDSM. Even the subplot where Melissa is being bred by the cowboys is only an excuse for Princess Poke-My-Hiney to rescue her and have hot sex with Melissa ("Gosh, her taste reminds me of Catherine...I wonder where Cathy is these days!"). Everyone loves (extremely) large plastic strap-on dildos, and all actual males are mocked for having tiny penises. All the girls have foot fetishes, too-- which may or not say something about "Rebecca", or at least say something about fashionable fetishes in the Noughts. 

If I have any real criticism it's that the various girls who are topping Catherine or Melissa or Lynn or Jennifer do a lot of sexual humiliation based on slurs ("Get over here, you cunt-loving little lezzie slut pig"). That part seems...unnecessary and mean-spirited. I wanted Melissa and/or Jennifer to tell the older characters that they were all "lezzie sluts" and that there was nothing at all wrong with that...and that they were proud bottoms, but not "pigs". I also had to wince a bit when Fate Will hires Princess Poke-My-Hiney as an escort and makes her talk in 1930s cowboy movie-stereotypical "redskin" dialect. Beyond that, "Housewives at Play" is fun.

Amazon does have some collected editions of "Housewives at Play", but they're asking something like $140 for a collection of issues Nr. 1-4. I like the series, but I'm not going to pay that kind of money for a paperbound graphic novel that's nearly twenty years old. 

If any of you out there over the aether know anything about the publishing history of "Housewives at Play" or about its author/artist, I hope you'll let me know. I'd like to know if "Rebecca" ever finished the story, and I'd like to see more of her art.

Next time I post here, I want to do a bit of a deep dive into why it's no longer possible to have any sexual preferences and why kink-shaming is now seen as perfectly okay. I want to write about why I can't imagine ever asking a partner to do anything specific or ever telling a partner about any particular interests I might have. I once heard a gay acquaintance described as "so far deep in the closet he can see Narnia", and I want to write about how that phrase can be applied across the gender-orientation spectrum these days...and about how we seem to be losing any sense that sex is worth doing, let alone exploring.

Three Eight Nine: Smut

 There's a 1993 book by a Valerie Kelly called "How to Write Erotica". I recall having a copy of it back in the Nineties. The book itself was well-done, and it had a lot of advice about the craft of writing that was very well-taken. Very good advice, really. 

The book had lots of suggestions about writing erotica and had a long list of places where aspiring authors could submit manuscripts. All those little magazines are gone now, replaced for a while by websites, and nowadays simply...gone. Erotica isn't in favor these days.

Some 1993 suggestions-- writing copy for the boxes of VHS porn cassettes (and DVDs?) --are almost funny now. I don't even know that 2025 porn is put on DVD at all. And even in 1993, the publishers of paperback porn novels were mostly gone. Literary porn? Where would you go for that these days? There are no more sites like Nerve.com or Filthy Gorgeous Things.

On Booktok people have taken to unironically referring to any book with sex scenes as "smut". Maybe that's just a way of dismissing what's called "romantasy" out of hand, or maybe Gen Z really doesn't have any use for sex and erotica. I really dislike that use of "smut". "Smut" back in the 1950s-1990s had a connotation not just of graphic sex, but of self-conscious irony and amused transgression. The Gen Z types don't seem to have any sense of humor about sex and don't like irony and especially don't like transgressive fiction. My God, there are twenty-somethings on Booktok and YouTube that are terrified that sometimes characters in YA novels actually have sex. I just want to facepalm about that. They're actually afraid that high schoolers will be corrupted by knowing that people do have sex.

I'd still like to write erotica, but I don't think that what excites or arouses me would be commercially viable. As I've always said, any erotica that I'd write would probably have footnotes and a bibliography. (Please note that I mean "footnotes" in the academic way, not in any fetish sense) And my characters would...talk. They'd talk a lot. They'd talk before, during, and after sex. 

I mean...that's always been my own experience of sex. Lots of talking, and very much lots of talking during the sex itself. The girls and women who've been with me down all the years have been adventurous and experimental and willing to try lots of transgressive things...and we've always talked while doing things. My young companions and I have always narrated what's happening and done lots of serve-and-return badinage during sex. I suspect that most audiences wouldn't get that.

I also suspect that most audiences wouldn't see s/m as an occasion for social climbing and/or irony. They wouldn't get the idea of the two very different people (yes, sometimes age-disparate, too) talking themselves into bed or into new and untried experiences not so much out of lust as out of a sense of the excitement and sheer fun of trying something outrageous. I think, too, that Gen Z would dislike the idea of pushing past limits just to see what's out there. 

One day, maybe. Maybe one day I will write something that would've gone on a slightly louche erotica website back in the Noughts. All I have to worry about is that the sort of people who become self-righteous about "smut" on Booktok aren't going to like stories about exploration.

Three Seven Nine: Berlin

Last evening I discovered a new FMTY girl's channel at YouTube. She calls herself "Lucy Huxley" and her channel is called "The Whore's Bedroom". 

She's a Vancouver girl, an ex-ballet student who's ended up as a Berlin-based escort. Her YouTube videos all begin her sitting cross-legged on her bed in Berlin and talking about her life and career:"My name is Lucy. I'm a whore, and this is my bedroom." She talks about how she sees her job and her clients, and she tells stories from her life. 

Lovely girl-- auburn hair, maybe not quite thirty, lovely eyes, wry sense of humor. If I sound like I have a crush on her, well...of course I do. I like her voice, and I love the deadpan introduction: My name is Lucy. I'm a whore. I do like the way she makes the word sound. My own parasocial voices whisper to me that while I'd never have the money to book her, she'd be very likely to be someone I could have a conversation with. 

Huxley, she says-- she chose Aldous Huxley's name for her own work name. Well, I do like that. I like a few of Aldous Huxley's books ("Crome Yellow" and "After Many a Summer Dies the Swan" and "The Devils of Loudon") rather a lot, and for whatever it's worth, Aldous Huxley died on my birthday. How's that for a connection?

She explains in her first video that she has a firm policy-- any booking of three hours or more has to come with lunch or dinner, since she's a girl who gets hungry easily and becomes irritable when hungry. My first thought was...steak or Szechuan? It's all too easy to imagine booking her for four hours and spending half of the time talking over dinner.

She says that she prides herself on her Girlfriend Experience talents, and I have no doubt that she'd make a wonderful companion. Again, this is all very parasocial, but listening to her stories makes me believe that I'd feel secure enough with her to explain what my interests are and ask for the things that would give me pleasure. The sense of humor she has in her videos is dry as the Atacama Desert, and that's exactly to my tastes. 

I did follow the link to her Twitter feed, and she has excellent legs and a very knowing smile. That may well be all GFE marketing, but that's fine. I'd love to be able to talk with someone again, to be able to talk to a lovely girl who'd be willing to listen to me. She says that she's always liked older men-- ever since she was a budding ballerina --because, yes, they have financial security, but also because their stories are better. She says that she's never laughed at or mocked a client, and that she understands that many of her clients are just a bit afraid. Well, that's something that did make me sigh. You've read my last several entries. You'll understand that here in this grim and charmless year 2024 I am anxious and afraid of the idea of telling a lovely Young Companion anything at all about myself and my interests. 

Now one of her videos explained that she's based in Berlin and can visit clients all across the EU, and that she could certainly visit friends and family in Canada-- but that she's excluded by law from ever going to the US. Apparently, if you're a sex worker the US won't allow you entry (even though sex work is legal in Germany). I hadn't known that. Yet one more thing about US law that makes me shake my head in disbelief. It makes me very uncomfortable, too, that US Border Control monitors social media to help identify sex workers (even nude models) who might be trying to enter the US, even as nothing more than tourists. 

Well, I could never afford Ms. Huxley, but I do enjoy her YouTube videos, and I wish I could look across a table at someone like her and just say, This is what and who I am, and this is what I enjoy. Is that something you could work with? 

Here I am tonight, listening to hard rains falling over my city. In some better world Ms. Huxley and I would be talking over Campari-sodas about games and kinks and flirting shamelessly. I really would like to have a girl in my life and bed whose judgment I'm not afraid of, and whose skills and discretion I'd trust.

Three Seven Seven: Positivity

 I haven't been here in two months, and I'm sorry about that. This year hasn't been one where there's a lot to say about sex and romance. Everything this year has been about politics-- the war in Gaza, the upcoming election here. No one has time to think about sex and pleasure.

If there's been anything to say about sex, it's all been about the Trans Wars. That's not something I want to get involved with. After all, I still struggle to define "non-binary". And as someone who's boringly vanilla and cis-het, I have nothing to say about the Trans Wars. Well...I might have something to say about why "cis-het" is regarded as "boring". I might have something to say about why "boring" is the worst possible thing to be in an information economy. But we'll get to that later.

Tonight I'm thinking about why there's so little room for males to think about their bodies or explore their bodies. There's no social room at all for males to be "positive" about their bodies. There's really no way for males to think about their bodies outside of the gym, let alone to see their bodies as instruments for feeling pleasure. 

I can remember being very young and seeing photos from various James Bond films that showed one Bond Girl or another naked in a bed, partially covered by a sheet. I thought that was incredibly hot and alluring, but it never occurred to me that I or any other male could ever sleep naked. It just didn't seem like something anyone male did, and even at eleven or twelve I couldn't imagine why anyone male would ever sleep naked. 

I've always encouraged beautiful girls to sleep naked. That's one of those things-- like lovely Young Companions avoiding all underwear --that's a particular kink (or fetish) of mine. But it's not something I could ever do myself unless I was actually sleeping next to a Young Companion...and even then I'd have an urge to pull on gym shorts and a t-shirt. 

Girls I've spoken to have almost all told me that sleeping naked is one of the most freeing and delicious things they've done, especially with a breeze through a bedroom window. Girls tell me that there's a sense of empowerment (that word!) in being naked under crisp, fresh sheets, that there's a delight in feeling sensation from their bodies. Well, they trust their bodies, and that's not something I can do.

One girl spoke of never wearing underwear in a dress or skirt as feeling like "glory". "Glory" was actually her word.  It made her feel brave and made her feel at home in her body, she said. As a male, I can't feel anything about not wearing underwear except fear at the possibility of an impromptu and/or accidental circumcision. I also have a deep, deep fear based on the possibility of any...ahem...gastric upsets. 

But then...I can't even imagine being comfortable being shirtless. It took years for me to be able to wear shorts or go into a swimming pool. The male body seems to me designed to be something kept well-concealed. I can't imagine anything attractive about a male body, mine or anyone else's. That's just a blank space for me. I have good eyes (dark, brooding) and long, slender hands. Girls have paid me compliments on both. But I would assume that any compliment about my body was meant either in sarcasm or as a way to manipulate me. Worse, it might be a soothing lie. 

I can't think of anything that would be "empowering" about my body, or any male body. Male bodies are too vulnerable to mockery. If a woman tells you that your penis is tiny, it doesn't matter that you might actually be in the global top 1% for penis size-- if a woman says it's tiny, it's tiny. Any mockery of anything about a male body by a woman is alway, always true.  

Tonight I'm thinking that it's not possible to be male and do anything to derive pleasure from your body. There are no male equivalents of sex toys that aren't the stuff of mockery. Any male actions to make oneself feel at home inside one's body are risible.  Even caring about your body-- even being a gym rat --is regarded as suspect. 

Sexual pleasure is not something that society allows males to feel-- or at least not any physical pleasure, There's no male equivalent of the vast array of how-to books and videos about the female orgasm. The male body is regarded as something that allows you to walk, see, eat, sleep. It isn't supposed to be a sexual or sexualized object. 

I can't imagine doing anything to feel pleasure from my body. I can feel a kind of intellectual pleasure about sex-- doing things in a well-crafted story arc, doing things that create a story. But I can't feel anything like physical pleasure. I'll never be at home in my body, and I'll never feel anything like "empowered" by my body.

Three Seven Six: Episodes

 I've been thinking about scenes in s/m novels that have meant something to me over the years. There aren't so very many, and some scenes have just evaporated out of my memory. 

A couple of scenes do stand out. There's the opening chapter of "Story of O.", of course. That chapter marked me for life. I've talked about it before, but it has stayed in my mind. 

You know the scene. O. is in the backseat of a car being driven to Roissy. Her lover tells her to sit with her legs open and then removes her underwear. He tells her to lift up the back of her skirt and sit directly on the seat. She does all this without complaint, without a word. He unbuttons her blouse, produces a penknife, and cuts the straps of her bra. She will never, he tells her, wear either bras or underwear again. 

That small episode has stayed in my mind. It means a lot more to me than the later part of that chapter, where O. is taken and used by the male members at Roissy-- gang-violated I suppose, since she knows none of them, and no one asks for her consent. That part of things is hot enough, although it wasn't done terribly well in the 1973 film version (the Guido Crepax graphic novel did it much better). O. accepting her lover's instruction to be always bare under her skirts or slacks, to always sit so that she's aware that she could be seen-- that has meant a lot to me. O. is vulnerable and available, and perpetually aware of both. I've always liked that, and especially liked it that O. is so aware of how she's dressed. This is why I ask my young ladies to be bra-less and panty-free when they're out with me. Part of that is the sense of vulnerability, that there's nothing between her and the outside world. Part of it is the sense of availability, of her knowing that she could be seen or touched at any moment. I like it that she's aware of her body, aware that how she sits or bends or stands is something she now has to consider.

I've been lucky. My young ladies haven't been appalled by my request. They've been willing to do this thing for me. It's selection bias, I know. Any girl who's willing to be out with me or involved with me to begin with is likely to accept my version of what constitutes an Adventure. I've been lucky, and I'm very clear on that. 

The age difference helps as well. Co-eds and twenty-somethings see themselves (I think) as learning about the world, about checking off lists of new experiences. The age difference helps with that, as does the idea that they now have a Secret. 

There's another scene that I liked a lot-- it's the climactic scene in Joyce MacIver's "The Exquisite Thing". The ice-blonde heroine-- who's six foot two, something that does matter in the story --has always felt alienated from her body. The men and women she's been submissive to sexually throughout her life haven't given her a sense of being a body, of belonging inside her body. 

She's at last taken to a very exclusive, high-end sex club in Barcelona (or maybe Madrid) called La Jaula, The Cage. The man who brings her has her taken up on stage, introduced to the masked audience, stripped, and tied to a wooden horse. (Because I'm like I am, I obsessed over the being stripped part-- was she wearing underwear before she was stripped? did she keep her heels on or was she barefoot?) She's then whipped for the audience. For the first time in her life, she feels like she's inside her own body, that she belongs inside flesh. She of course has a shattering orgasm by candlelight there on the wooden horse. 

I read "The Exquisite Thing" when I was an undergraduate, and I do remember sitting in my window seat and reading it on a rainy summer afternoon. That scene...that scene...I was just amazed and thrilled. I think I envied the girl in the book-- not for the sexual submission, or the exhibitionism, but for the ability to stand up at six-two and walk up to the stage-- for the ability to actually throw herself into an Adventure. I envied her, too, the sense of inhabiting her own body, the sense of being able to feel that her body mattered.

Which of course may be something that all too-bookish academic types long for-- escaping the land of the word for the land of actual sensation.

In any case, you'll have read "Story of O.". If you're reading this at all, you'll have already read "Story of O.". But I'm rather certain that you've never read Joyce MacIver's "The Exquisite Thing". The novel came out c. 1970-- half a century ago. But it's worth your while to find. I think you'll enjoy it (as you might enjoy "The Frog Pond", Ms. MacIver's other novel). As for me, I wonder about how I'd behave as part of the audience at La Jaula, and whether I'd ever have the money or social presentation to be allowed into the club. I'm like that, of course. A club like that would be aspirational for, a chance to become part of a ritual and a story. But I'd never be allowed in. 

So... If you're reading this, what are the scenes in erotica that have meant something to you? Not just in s/m novels, but in any erotica, even the sorts of ghastly and unintentionally hilarious books sold in "adult bookstores" back in the 1970s and 1980s. High-end literary erotica is more my sort of thing, of course. How could it not be? I'm class-aspirational, over-educated, and something of a literary snob. 

But...I hope that if you're reading this, you'll tell me about scenes in novels that have meant something to you, that have shaped your own views of sex and sexual fantasy.

Three Six Eight: Cafe

 This morning I was at a downtown coffee shop very early. I settled in at a corner table with a book or two and my Moleskine and ordered a large flat white and a croissant. 

I'd been there long enough to be on my second cup of coffee when two lovely girls came in. I do love early Sunday mornings downtown. The streets are empty, but flights of lovely girls do appear-- co-eds from the university, travelers from the downtown hotels, residents of the new condos going up as part of downtown renovation. A friend of mine calls the latter group The Gentrifiquettes; I think of them as the Mini-Sundress and Ray-Bans Brigade. 

The two girls who came in were...a delight to the eye and to my particular imagination. Both tall and very slim, streaked-blonde hair  down past their shoulder blades, long dark-tanned legs, short shorts, and cowboy boots. I hadn't seen the short shorts and cowboy boots look in a while. It's a hard look to bring off, really. These two made it work, though. Both girls were wearing boots that had seen some wear-- boots mean for actual riding, not the gaudy kind worn in country-western clubs. Their shorts were faded cut-offs, but not done for a Daisy Dukes look. The country-western cliche would've been for them to wear button-up cotton shirts in a bright plaid. These two were in gauzy ballet-neck tunics with 3/4 sleeves. That was a good fashion touch. I did like the look. Loved those long legs, too. I had to sigh over that.

I had no idea why they were dressed similarly. Roommates? Lovers? Sorority sisters? Best friends? Cyborg assassins from the future? They weren't twins, mind you. Please don't think that. That would've been just a bit de trop, I think.

In a better world, or at least a better story, they'd have ended up talking to me at my table. There's no plausible way to have the story end with them ravishing me in the back seat of their parked Range Rover, but I suppose I could make a story work where the three of us sat and flirted and drank Sunday-morning Mimosas. That would be a story I could tell myself in my head. 

In this world, of course, none of that happened. They were in line to order, and then off to a table across the coffee shop. And I, I sat in my corner and made notes in my Moleskine. I read a bit more in my book-- a biography of the Duke of Marlborough --and then made my way back to my car. Yes, beautiful legs, beautiful profiles. The shorts and boots look was something I recall from long ago, and I do love looks that emphasize long, slender legs. I've been telling myself that neither girl wore anything under those shorts-- that's always my hope, of course. It's something I'll be imagining for days. I'll be imagining them riding horses, too. Thoroughbreds, not Arabians. I have clear opinions about horses as well as fashion. My fantasy life is always very specific. It mattered to be that the two girls had 3/4 sleeves and not simply rolled-back sleeves. 

I'll note here that as a person of the male persuasion, my fantasies have to remain abstract. There are strict limits to what anyone cis-het male can do about his fantasies. The Arbitrary Social Rules are very clear about that. 

The two girls at the coffee shop reminded me of a friend from New Zealand who had an immense collection of sex toys. She was very particular about matching her fantasies to specific toys. I had to admire her obsessiveness. She was forever scrolling through websites for sites similar to Good Vibrations, looking for niche toys for niche fantasies. Again, I admire the obsessiveness, but there's no male equivalent for it. That's an odd thing, really, but there simply aren't any toys that a cis-het male can employ. It's not just that placing one's...person...inside something battery-powered is always a bad idea, it's that the Arbitrary Social Rules barely allow straight males (especially those of a certain age) to have fantasies at all, let alone do something about them with sex toys. That's simply not allowed. 

Well, I did note down the two girls in boots and short shorts there in my Moleskine. I noted those legs-- dark-tanned, long, slender, perfectly sleek --and my hope that the girls were properly underwear-averse. I noted that they'd done well with their tunics-- the look was far more Posh Hippie than Slutty Farmgirl (call it a Coachella Girl look). I'll never see the two of them again, and I know nothing about them that I didn't create out of my own imagination. Those long legs will stay in my memory, but it'll all be very abstract. 

I can file the morning's vision under Things Noted In Passing. 

Three Six Seven: Observers

 It's been a while since I've had stories to tell you here. I want you to know that I apologize for that. Stories mean a lot to me. They always have. 

Stories are histories of lives, of the other lives that I, a flaneur-at-arms, move through. They're the lives that I see but never quite belong to. Over the last few years we've had a world where the pandemic and awful politics have made stories (or at least the kinds of stories that I've recounted here) seem trivial or obsolete. Stories of sex and sexual adventures are out of fashion. More's the pity of course. Sex has lost the tang of adventure and become all about abuses of power. It's not been a good time to be a roue.

This summer has been exhaustingly hot. Here in my own lost city, we've had more than a month of blindingly white sun and no rain, of days like ovens. There's no relief to be found in swimming pools-- every pool's a hot tub this summer --and it's too hot for afternoons in bed with a lovely young companion. There are leggy co-eds on the downtown street in tiny shorts (but not miniskirts-- I wonder why not) but they all look wilted and deeply drained. My own thought is that here under the Heat Dome, we're in the Burmese version of Hell-- a place too hot even if you've been through Rangoon in the summer.

However, I do have one story. A friend and I were talking by telephone the other night, each of us in the air-conditioned dark of our respective cities, and she did tell me a story. We were talking about the idea of consent, about the idea of past experiences that came right up to the line of something awful...but didn't quite cross over into a true-crime tale.

Her story was simple enough. She was still sixteen, not quite seventeen, in the summer between Grade 11 and senior year. She was with her parents at a rented condo on the beach. She was deeply, gnawingly bored. She spent her days getting away from her family, reading, walking along the beachfront, becoming tanned in that Deepest South way, and sneaking drinks. It wasn't hard to get alcohol where she was, and she was usually pleasantly buzzed before noon. I know the place she'd been at, and she would've been one of scores of girls her age doing exactly the same thing. There hadn't been any boys she'd wanted to flirt with, and there hadn't been any summer flings. She was in fact still a bookish virgin. 

She was on a bench by the beachfront one morning very early when she was approached by what she still calls "an older gentleman". She was reading when he came up. She told me that the "older gentleman" (and here "older" seems to have meant something like sixty) was pleasant enough, and sounded shy. He called her "Miss". He was reasonably well-dressed. He told her that it was a delight to see a young lady as pretty as she was so early in the day and asked about the book she was reading. My friend just smiled politely and thanked him for the compliment. They chatted for a moment about the book and then he asked her if she'd be offended at a question. She just shrugged.

He told her, a bit apologetically, that he thought she had very lovely legs and asked if she minded if he looked at them. My friend told me that she thought that was more hilarious than creepy and told him she didn't mind. She thought about asking if he wanted her to strike modeling poses. She didn't, she told me, feel threatened as much as she just felt like she was part of a comedy bit. Why not play along? She was wearing a short sundress and sandals, so she just crossed and uncrossed her legs a few times and stretched her legs out on the bench. She asked how she was doing.

He told her that her legs were amazing, and that he appreciated what she was doing. It had been, he said, a very long time since anyone like her had let him look at her. At that point he shyly (he called her "Miss" again) asked for a favor. He told her how lonely he was, and told her that if she was willing, he'd sit on the next bench over and just...look. He wouldn't touch her, he said, and he wouldn't come any closer than the next bench. All he wanted, he said, was to look and, well, pleasure himself.

My friend said that she was well aware that she was supposed to be angry and/or horrified , and that she was supposed to run away. She didn't feel preyed upon, though. What surprised her was that she didn't feel anything at all, really. She told the man that, okay, sure, that was fine. He'd be on another bench, and she'd be reading. It wasn't, she told me, like she had to really do anything.

So she put her legs up on the beach and just...read. She could tell that he had his hand inside his shorts and that at least for a while, he was exposed. The thing was, she told me, that he wasn't really part of her day. The book meant something to her, but the older gentleman was just a figure on another bench. There was no one else around, which made it all easier. It was only later that she wondered if the man had wanted to be caught or slapped or chased away. Was he, she asked, maybe disappointed at her for not yelling at him and threatening to call the police?

He spoke to her very briefly. He asked her to pose a bit ("would you mind very much...?") and draw one knee up, and to turn a bit to the side. He apologized and asked if she was wearing anything under her sundress. She barely looked over her sunglasses and told him underwear, but no bra. He didn't ask her to open her legs, though she did laugh and tell him that what she was wearing was a cotton thong in pale peach. She could hear him, but said it wasn't moaning or gasping-- just soft sighs. Telling the story to me now, she said that if he'd asked her to pull up her dress a bit, she might have. Maybe. She wondered, too, why he hadn't asked her to kick off her sandals. Her later experiences with older men had taught her that any man over forty either had or was developing a foot fetish. 

She wasn't sure exactly when he finished, but when he did he leaned forward and took a moment to get his wind back. She didn't get to see any evidence of what he'd done. She put down her book and asked him if he was okay. He nodded and stood up and thanked her several times. She crossed her legs to let him have a memory of her legs up to her mid-thighs and told him that she hoped he'd enjoyed himself. He told her he had and this meant a lot. He reached out to shake her hand. That was the only time he touched her. They shook hands and he went off down the beachfront walk. She never saw him again.

She wanted to pull out her phone and tell...someone. But she didn't. There wasn't any way to tell the story that didn't make it seem really true-crime creepy or, worse, funny in a sad way. She felt, she said, sorry for the man. Was he really lonely and just desperate for some kind of sexual interaction or did he just ask a different girl to do this every day? She wanted to believe he was just desperately lonely-- he'd certainly seemed genuine enough in his shyness --and however pervy the whole thing had been, she didn't want to laugh at the man. She ended up not telling anyone until she was at university, and the hardest thing, she said, was making it very clear that she hadn't felt violated and that she hadn't felt angry or contemptuous. 

The whole experience, she said, was maybe ten minutes or so out of her life. She hadn't had to do anything; no one had touched her. It made her feel like she'd become someone who had a story to tell, and that was good. But she wasn't sure how to present the story, or quite what to make of it. Nothing bad, she said. All that had happened was that someone had said he liked her legs and that she'd read a book while on a park bench. A decade later, she said, and she still wasn't sure what the story should mean.

Three Six Three: Narration

The 10 April 23 online edition of "Paris Review" has an article called "On Fantasy" by a woman who's an escort/gallery girl/ conceptual artist who calls herself Sophia Giovannitti. It's about how boring and exhausting male fantasies are, and why all fantasies are pointless and annoying. Consider this incredibly depressing passage:

This client also wanted our time together to be cinematic. I suppose all clients do. The first time we met, I was struck by his impulse to narrate what was happening, as though by speaking aloud how good something is one could will it to actually be so. It’s not that it wasn’t good, or was bad—it was just mundane, the way formulaic excess often is.

The "impulse to narrate"... Well, there goes my entire life. Narration and curation have been my life-- things written, things lived. If those things are just mundane, I have yet more reasons to stay here in the lakeside flat with my books and my DVD collection.

The author of "On Fantasy" also uses song lyrics from Cigarettes After Sex in her article. I like the band a lot, and I like their music. Now of course, having read her article, I've been looking at my iTunes and feeling a bit wary of listening to them. I hate losing bands I've liked, and Ms. Giovannitti's article has just taken away Cigarettes After Sex.

Now I do have to ask myself a couple of questions about Ms. Giovannitti. Is her disdain for male fantasies something that derives from her sex work or from her time in the art world? There are two possible kinds of disdain here, and I wish I knew the backstory.

More to the point, though-- 

In SoHo, there is a boutique hotel whose rooms are blue. Blue carpet, blue ceiling, blue-patterned sheets. I met a client there several years ago, when I still had short bangs. I wore a vintage skirt-and-top set—black, with colorful flowers—and black lingerie from l’Agent, the now-defunct, less expensive little sister brand to Agent Provocateur. My client wanted our time together to feel like a movie. He didn’t say this, but his behavior made it clear. He booked me for only an hour but wanted an experiential arc: he sat me first in the small living room area of his suite, presenting liquor he had put on ice for me. Music played softly through the room’s sound system: “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby” by Cigarettes After Sex, a song that I’d only ever heard as the background of a bad television show. He moved me into the bedroom, bantering, as though he had to charm me. I have absolutely no recollection of what he looked like or what his name was. This isn’t because I was seeing so many clients I couldn’t keep track, but because it’s useless information to retain after the fact. I remember how he behaved—the only salient thing—which was annoying, and also standard, fine. I overstayed our appointment because the sex refused to end, as happens often with older men who want to paw at a young woman but don’t quite care whether or not they finish, and certainly not in the allotted time. “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby” returned to the playlist; it was looping, as was the experience.

And that's deeply depressing. 

We live in an age where The Discourse tells us that male fantasies are by and large boring and that male sex is inherently mediocre. I've been writing down the fantasies I have these days and trying to analyze and critique them. I keep looking for the weak places, for any places that don't seem like they'd interest a partner. I'm inside the fantasies, though, so my views on them are flawed and suspect. But I am and remain afraid that any desires and fantasies I may have would be mediocre and boring. 

It's always possible to ask a partner what her own fantasies are. I do that, and I'll always try to act out what she likes. But I am increasingly afraid to tell anyone what I like or what I want to try.

I played the song for myself after, alone in my own room. A user called “i’m cyborg but that’s ok” had uploaded it to YouTube along with a compilation of scenes from Lost in Translation, a movie I’d never seen but that I knew was about a relationship between a washed-up older man having a midlife crisis and a beautiful young woman. The video compilation looked like an escort advertisement: in the opening scene, Scarlett Johansson sits in a hotel room window wearing only a large men’s shirt—blue—looking down at the wide expanse of Tokyo beneath her; in the next scene, she dives into an enormous, empty hotel pool, at night—the pool and the surrounding windowpanes all blue, too. The images spoke of money and alienation. The song captured the affect of a certain type of client: slightly flat; grasping toward a Daddy-esque certainty but falling short; single-mindedly offering reassurance, but of what he hardly seemed to know. I grew oddly attached to the song and to cyborg’s music video for a period. I would watch it on my way to work, flattening my own affect, compacting myself into a version of a girl aligned with the lyrics:

Whispered something in your ear

It was a perverted thing to say

But I said it anyway

Made you smile and look away

Nothing’s gonna hurt you, baby.

I have no idea what fantasies are acceptable these days, or how male sex can be anything other than mediocre. I remain convinced that the girls in my past were probably contemptuous of any sexual desires or fantasies I may have had. I have no idea what fantasies will seem well-crafted enough not to be mocked. I have no idea why I should try to develop any fantasies, let alone actual physical techniques. Rising above mediocre seems to be a fading hope.

Three Six Two: Regimentals

I haven't yet seen "Tár", though I very much want to. It's the sort of film that does intrigue me-- the Creative Genius under stress, a world with its own arcane skills and rituals. 

And of course there are film stills of Cate Blanchett in black tie and severely tailored suit. That's a look that's held my attention for years. I'm rather an admirer of garconne style, all the way back to my lost youth. I remember sighing over photos in old magazines of Swinging London models in man-tailored suits, and I recall being at university and seeing some of the more daring girls going to parties and proms in severe suits and expensive neckties. 

I would've given a lot to have been able to take the young Jane Birkin or the young Marisa Berenson dancing in Sixties London or Paris while they were dressed in garconne look. And tonight I'm thinking of a Sixties actress/model named Merle Lynn Browne, who wrote a comic "expose" of "jet set" sexual adventures called "The Ravishers". The paperback edition of the novel showed a lovely photo of her in a tailored suit, light brown hair in some Sixties style falling over her shoulders. I saw her once on (I think) the old "Tonight" show in the days of Johnny Carson. She was there to talk about her novels ("The Ravishers" and its sequel, "The Arousers"), and she was in pin-striped suit and tie. That's a memory that's stayed with me since boyhood. 

These days, now...are we allowed to find lovely long-legged garconne girls attractive? Are we still allowed to...gender-bend? What are the semiotics of girls in man-tailored suits these days? I suspect that the image of a girl in a man-tailored suit is regarded these days as being about anything except sex.

Some months ago, I read about a literary-world scandal involving Donna  Tartt. I've been a fan of Ms. Tartt since ever I read "The Secret History" when it first appeared. It seems that some podcast or other had interviewed some of Tartt's Bennington classmates about her life as an undergraduate, and somehow the podcast had become part of the gender wars. 

There were ex-classmates who argued that Ms. Tartt's signature elegant suits and ties were part of her whole design to "have sex like a young boy", and that (shock! horror!) her love life at Bennington was all about boys who were gay or gay-adjacent. I wasn't sure why any of that was supposed to be shocking...or the least surprising. From the first magazine photos of Ms. Tartt I saw, I'd taken it as a given that her boyfriends would be at least gay-adjacent. And I assumed that her own social pose would be "handsome gay boy at Oxford 1925".  I did laugh at one of the shock-horror types who went into gender wars mode and sniffed that there was no such thing as "having sex like a young boy"-- showing that here was someone who either being deliberately obtuse or had zero imagination.

I'd known girls all through my undergraduate days who desperately pursued arts-and-literature gay-adjacent boys, and who loved pretending to be pretty gay boys in some "Brideshead Revisited" fantasy world. I looked at the photos of Ms. Tartt in her suits and ties and knew exactly what was going on. It wasn't about the Trans Wars at all. It was about sex and class, or at least sex and aesthetics. After all...the whole "Dark Academia" thing always incorporated lots of sexual role-play and visions of academia as a setting for gay aesthetics. 

Whether it's Lydia Tár or Donna Tartt or the young Jane Birkin, the garconne look attracts me. It's sleekly elegant, which I always love, and it's very deliberately artificial. It's role-play, and that's always better than the current obsession with "authenticity". 

Even here, in the autumn of my days, I like the idea of a leggy co-ed in a tailored suit, and I like the idea of sharing my necktie collection with her.

Three Six Zero: Brushstrokes

There's a story I've told my friends for years.

Once upon a time, I was talking to a lovely, long-legged co-ed at the bar of a favourite pub. We'd been enjoying the conversation, and we'd been flirting shamelessly. She arched an eyebrow, looked at me over her wineglass, and asked, "So...are you grooming me?" I looked back at her and said, "Like a show pony." She burst into laughter and shook her head. "Oh my God," she said, "now I pretty much have to sleep with you, just for that line."

It's  good story, and one I like. The girl herself is still a dear friend, and we do have dinner or drinks once in a while. I know that she tells people that story, too.

The once-upon-a-time in the story wasn't that long ago-- five or six years, maybe. But I think it would be an awkward thing to have it happen today. There are far too many people out there who wouldn't take "like a show pony" as a fun line. The word "grooming" itself has been twisted into other, and (I think) grotesque political definitions.

As an aging roue, I've always had long talks with Young Companions about the word. We've sat at the bar or at coffee house tables and discussed the word endlessly. I've been known to argue that since my Young Companions are of legal age, the word means nothing more than "seduction".  Let's quote one Young Companion: "Does this mean that you'll be buying me lots of French s/m novels and showing me films about French girls and older lovers?"  Well, yes, it did mean exactly that.

The word itself was once a term of art. It meant the ways sexual predators or neighborhood pimps slowly enticed underaged girls into sex or sex work. It means other things now, and I don't understand some of the newer usages.

The new meanings seem to have come from the Trans Wars-- specifically, from the right-wing opponents of the TRAs, though I've been seeing the word used more and more by the GC side as well. There's a group called "Gays Against Grooming" that seems committed to stopping things like Drag Queen Story Hours. For the Gays Against Grooming group, having children around drag queens at all is regarded as "grooming". 

The group-- and others like it --seem to think that any exposure of children to the presence of people in drag, or any lessons indicating that some people are trans and that it's okay to be trans is "sexualizing" or "grooming" the children. Those attitudes set my caution lights flashing. It's a very, very short step from there to the right-wing / Evangelical goal of saying that children should not be told that gay and lesbian people exist or that it's perfectly fine to be gay, lesbian, bi.

That's all a part of the Trans Wars that I don't understand. I've no problem with drag queens reading children's books to young children. (I had no problem at all with porn stars like Sasha Grey doing reading outreach with kids, either). Small children will think the drag queens are cool or funny, since to them it'll all be dress-up. And I think that Miss Penis Colada won't be doing the same bit she does at the club on Saturday nights. And it's bad tactics for the GC types, many of whom are themselves LGB, to stand next to right-wingers who'll use "protecting the children" or "safeguarding" as a way to attack LGB people next. 

I should note that the right is upset that children are "sexualized" (whatever that means in this context) by being taught that gay couples exist when so many ordinary children's books center on the standard heterosexual family. 

Be clear here. I do not believe that trans women are women, nor do I believe that trans men are men. I believe that they're trans, and that they deserve full civic and employment rights and the full and equal protection of the law, including protection from violence. But I believe women have a right to sex-based protections and single-sex spaces.  

I also don't believe that sex and gender are the same thing. One is about plumbing and architecture, the other is about social presentation. I saw a post at Twitter once that showed someone holding a sign that read "Gender Is A Performance". Well, yes, of course it is. Culture is a performance. All culture is a performance. What we do in society is cosplay. We act out our assigned roles-- class, gender, nationality, ethnicity. There will always be people who are gender non-conforming or trans (and those are very different things), people who fill the role of trickster and fill a niche for people who can bend the rules about social presentation. Yes, being GNC is an assigned role, too. Someone is Odin, someone is Loki. There's a niche role for everyone. All social life is cosplay, for better or worse.

And I'll reiterate something I've said before. There's nothing wrong with cosplay. If a male wants to wear a dress and make-up in public, fine. But he's not a woman. Biology matters, architecture matters.

I lean towards the GC side in the Trans Wars, and I refuse to accept the TRA assertion that anyone who doesn't instantly accept "self-ID" as the way to designate sex is guilty of attempted genocide. But I find the whole "grooming" panic dangerous. It's far too easy to manipulate "safeguarding" into an excuse for despising anyone who doesn't fit some right-wing myth. 

The Trans Wars have to be hard for transvestites (remember them?). Anyone who gets some psychological or sexual satisfaction from knowing, avowed cosplay is regarded as a traitor by TRAs and as some AGP perv by the GCs.  Too many GC writers seem to be rejecting sexual pleasure and sexual experimentation; too many TRA types seem to be rejecting the idea that someone can be lesbian or gay at all.  

I've snarked here before that we're all at the mercy of what I call Authenticity Fetish. We can't enjoy cosplay or experimentation. Any social presentation has to be real, permanent, and reflect some inner true identity. It's no longer possible to simply act out a role for a day, or act it out in certain spaces. Identity can't be provisional, and it can't be tried on, worn, and taken off.  

I miss the days when "grooming" could be taken to mean "seduction", and I miss the days when there were daylight identities and night identities, when life could be about social cosplay. 

 

Three Five Six: Damals und Heute

 I've been watching David Cronenberg's new film "Crimes of the Future", and I'm deeply impressed, It's an alluring and disturbing film, and I will be acquiring my own DVD of it. 

There's a moment in the film where Kristen Stewart's character says that "surgery is the New Sex". That's a lovely line, and as good as "long live the New Flesh!" from Cronenberg's "Videodrome". That of course is the basic element of the film-- that body modification is the New Sex, and its results are as powerful and unsettling as anything sexual can be.

I'll note that Viggo Mortenson's character responds to Ms.Stewart at one point by saying that she might be right, but that in any case he was never very good at the Old Sex. 

I once read a horror thriller where the heroine has a nipple cut off during sex and I remember sitting there with the book feeling disturbed, appalled, and yet thrilled at the scene. Yes, fine, that's a tribute to the author's skill, and it means that the author did succeed at the 1990s game of transgression. But creating something alluring and disturbing at the same time is a dangerous move. "Crimes of the Future" left me with that same uncanny feeling. The surgical scenes are graphic, oddly distanced, powerful, and highly erotic. There's a moment where Lea Seydoux drops to her knees not to give head to Viggo Mortenson, but to slide her tongue into and along the open surgical cut he has across his stomach. It's a stunning scene, and her face is as beatific as any blowjob scene in a porn film. I don't know what to make of the scene, and I don't know how to analyze my own response to the scene and to the film as a whole.

Odd thing. I know what my response to Mlle. Seydoux is, of course. In the film, she's had her hair cut to a short pixie cut, and she (like Ms. Stewart) dresses in tailored slacks and tops-- a very alluring garconne look. She's naked a fair bit in the film-- maybe more so than in "The French Dispatch" --and while Google tells me that her bra size is a 32B, she has very large ("Oreo-sized") areolae and nipples. Large areolae have always been a particular favourite of mine, but I've never known how to just say that, or (again) how to analyze that. 

I've stayed away here from discussing my personal preferences. In 2022, and if you're a straight, cis, white, over-thirty male, discussing your personal sexual tastes and interests simply isn't done. No cis-het male in 2022 could write a sex blog or do a sex podcast where his own personal experiences are part of the conversation. 

If I say anything, I'll note that my tastes run to the tall and slender-- lithe, lanky, lissome, long-legged. Always long-legged. And underwear-averse. Yes, sharp hipbones and collarbones. Yes, a dark tan-- something that Gulf Coast co-eds still favor. I do not like the current fashion for tiny waists and big hips. I do not like the idea of Big Butts. I do like short haircuts-- see Mlle. Seydoux in "Crimes of the Future"; see Ms. Stewart in several earlier films. Big areolae, yes. But that's as much as I'll say. I'm sure I can be attacked just for having preferences at all.

"Crimes of the Future" is stunning. David Cronenberg's body horror films have always been stunning and stunningly erotic, all the way back to "They Came from Within", down through "Naked Lunch" and "ExistenZ". I've just  had the local library get me a copy of Cronenberg's novel "Consumed". I read it once long ago, but after seeing "Crimes of the Future", I need to read it again. I need to see if Mr. Cronenberg did make cannibalism and underground surgery sexualized. 

I do note that Ms. Stewart is described in the film as "sexy...in a bureaucratic way". There's very little of her flesh on view-- her tailored blouses are buttoned to the neck, and she's clearly wearing a bra. But she has a very thrilling look-- messy hair, a look of starved obsession and compelling desire. That look of inner compulsion is very sexy. 

I do need someone with whom I can discuss the film, and all the lovely Young Companions I've relied on seem to have vanished over the past few years. If you're reading this from out over the aether, do comment. I'd like to hear what my Imaginary Reader-- a young, over-educated comparative lit major with concealed dreams of transgression --has to say about David Cronenberg. 

Three Five Four: Sundress

There's a phrase I've been hearing this summer: "getting railed in a sundress". It's something girls on social media say-- a small summertime fantasy of sex in a stylish little sundress. 

Here in this particular summer, that may not be something to aspire to. This is one of those heat-dome summers that makes you realize that Wm. Gibson is right about the Jackpot arriving. In half the country it's too hot to go outside, let alone have sex outdoors. 

Still, I like the idea of railing a girl in a sundress. There are some interesting markers encoded in the phrase. Sundresses go with a kind of J. Peterman World or an L.L. Bean catalog world-- picnic hampers, bottles of wine, pastel skies, a kind of idyllic summer afternoon. Sundresses themselves, now? They're designed to call up dreamy summer days, to make a lovely girl look like she's floating along, light as air. 

That perfect sundress is light, airy, evocative of leisure and a kind of innocence that's so deeply erotic. If the fabric is gauzy, it calls up lots of David Hamilton photographs from the late 1970s. There are often straw hats and strappy sandals involved. And of course any lovely girl knows that sundresses are worn next to the skin. As well they should be.

My friend in New Zealand wrote me once about being in the perfect sundress at some sort of cricket championship in Wellington. She wrote about walking barefoot back to her Older Admirer's Range Rover, sandals in her hand, a bit tipsy on Martinborough sauvignon blanc, feeling the summer air under her dress on waxed, bare skin, and knowing that she'd be having sex very soon on a picnic blanket somewhere in the hills above Wellington. Blue and white, the dress was, and just below her knees. And Jill never, never wore anything under a dress like that. A perfect look for being a posh Kiwi girl getting railed after a cricket match. I did sigh over her letter. I did want to be the one sliding that sundress up over her hips and feeling her legs-- long, slender, dark-tanned --over my shoulders. 

The woman I met at Peychaud's, the phone sex woman, told me that she shared fantasies like that. "Getting railed in a sundress" meant not only the idea of summertime sex and posh picnic hampers, it meant getting to buy and wear dreamy dresses as well. I do like that-- sex and romance in a J. Peterman kind of world.

I have to email the woman from Peychaud's. She did give me her email address and her personal cell phone number. She was lovely, fun, and able to be a very good interlocutrix. I have no objection to arranging telephone appointments with her. She'd be worth the fee. And she likes dreams of J. Peterman World and Breton beaches as much as I do.

Getting railed in a sundress... That's an image I do fancy. It calls up all the sorts of settings I like with beautiful young companions, and it involves fashion that I like to see on lovely girls. J. Peterman World is always about a certain class image, too: let's not forget that. 

Wm. Gibson's Jackpot may spoil summers, but we do still have the dream of cool breezes, pastel blue skies, and a view of the ocean just off the bluffs. And we have the dream of lovely girls naked under feather-light fabric, smiling at the thought of the afternoon.

 

Three Four Eight: Signposts

I have been back at Escort Twitter, looking through feeds by FMTY Girls.

One thing I've found to think about is this. I've never liked lingerie. I understand, or at least think I understand, the semiotics of lingerie. When I look at the FMTY Girls' feeds, I understand what they're trying to say with photos of themselves in expensive lingerie or photos of the gift boxes expensive lingerie came in. 

Part of it is very simple, of course. Gifts of expensive lingerie symbolize luxury. They're a marker for the client "spoiling" the girl. Things like Agent Provocateur symbolize both luxury and "decadence"-- they symbolize upper-class lifestyles and what is always taken for "decadence": champagne for breakfast, willowy girls in nothing but lingerie at noon. High-end lingerie stands for a certain kind of sex, and it also stands for a life where the girl has nothing to do on any ordinary day but wear silk thongs and garter belts and be ready for sex in an elegant setting.

And yet...lingerie never meant anything to me. I am old enough to remember Helmut Newton's photos from the later 1970s and early 1980s, with all the models in black silk stockings and lace bustiers or bras. I thought of those things even then as a kind of obsession not with sex itself but the idea of "European" sex-- chateaux and castles, four and five-star hotels in Paris or London. Of course I'm attracted to the idea of decadence, but stockings and garters never seemed to be the markers to attract me.

You know this part. I prefer my girls to avoid lingerie. I prefer them to avoid undergarments altogether. I prefer girls who'll sleep naked-- or just in one of my shirts --to ones in silk teddies or camisoles. I have no idea what I'd say to a girl who wanted to wear a nightgown in my bed...except to explain that there's nothing sexy about sleepwear for beautiful girls. I'd offer her one of my dress shirts, but I'd hope that she'd sleep naked. 

I remember the early '90s and lots of Prince videos-- girls in very short skirts that left their stocking tops and garter belts clearly on display. That was a brief fashion moment, and my young ladies of the day were encouraged to forego stockings altogether. I'd much rather caress or kiss tanned, taut, sleek bare flesh than be kissing fabric. And I suppose, too, that stockings do run. Active sex is hard on stockings, and you'd have to replace them far too often.  Bare legs are always best. 

I'm fine with slender, toned girls in black leggings, but it's dark-tanned bare legs in short skirts that I prefer on my dates. In the Southern summertime, sundresses should never be worn with stockings or lingerie. Sundresses go next to the skin. If a girl tells me that she has summertime fantasies of "getting railed in a sundress", I always point out that there should be nothing at all under that sundress to get in the way. 

I'm not sure where I want to go with this. What I'm thinking is that I'm not sure what signs and symbols appeal to me. Lingerie, even the most expensive and most well-designed or made, isn't a symbol for sex-- at least to me. In the FMTY world, expensive lingerie has its own ritual justifications, both for companion and client. But those things don't speak to me.

The girl in a man's dress shirt. The girl in a very tailored, half-unbuttoned white blouse. The expensive sweater worn next to the skin with a pair of very short cut-off shorts. The girl in a man-tailored blazer next to the skin. Those things all appeal to me. Collarbones, hipbones, long bare backs, long slender legs-- those things excite me in ways that girls in Agent Provocateur or La Perla never can. 

I'm not sure what the social messages in my preferences are. They're more...what? Model Off Duty looks? And things that suggest Comparative Lit co-eds who are living out fantasies of being a Muse or Learning About The World from an Older Lover. 

But I just don't fit into the FMTY world. I can't afford its rituals, and I have far, far too little of the particular kind of social capital I'd need to ever have a dinner date with an FMTY Girl.

Three Four Four: Boxes

I have been going through Escort Twitter these days. It's springtime, and the FMTY Girls are going on spring/summer tours. I do envy them: a working vacation in a posh resort or a four-star hotel is still not a bad thing. I suppose I do wonder, though-- is it hard to enjoy yourself when part of your job is enjoying yourself-- being seen to enjoy yourself  --in a swank setting? 

These things are beyond me. I take no pleasure in travel, since I'm likely to be traveling alone these days and of course since I'm a gentleman of very limited means.  I have to wonder if I'm even capable of pleasure when traveling with a lovely young companion. I'd probably spend my time being far too anxious to experience pleasure. If I were with a lovely, long-legged, panty-free young companion, I'd compulsively worry about all the things that could go wrong while traveling. I'd worry about whether she was having anything approaching a good time, about whether I'd reveal myself as a provincial-- a rube --in my choices for a hotel, for dinner, for wine. I'd be far too likely to paralyze myself with those anxieties. 

The FMTY girls post photos of gifts clients and patrons have given them. So many of the photos show the gift boxes as well as the gift. I can recognize some of the brands-- usually expensive lingerie. I understand that Agent Provocateur is an expensive line of slinky lingerie, although lingerie is never a gift I'd choose. I'm not fond of girls in lingerie. I prefer girls panty-free, after all. The stockings-and-garters look hasn't appealed to me since the start of the Nineties. Long, sleek, taut, tanned bare legs attract me more than silk stockings. I'm far more attracted to a girl in just a man's dress shirt than in lingerie, and of course I prefer my young companions to sleep naked. All I can do is look at the boxes and try to gauge what the price might be and what statement each gift-giver is trying to make. 

I'll admit that I do like some of the boxes-- elegant things. 

I have limited resources, so I'm not likely to give Agent Provocateur lingerie or jewelry. Books-- I do give books. And I have been known to buy my young ladies men's shirts or pullover sweaters. My gifts have been hand-delivered in New Yorker tote bags, but never in boxes from exclusive boutiques in NYC or London Town.

One of the FMTY girls did hint at her fee schedule. A gentleman admirer, she noted, was flying her somewhere for a long weekend. The fee, she noted, would pay her rent for two months. Based on rents for the city where she makes her home, that's probably half again my salary for that same period. Far and away out of my league. 

Well, I wouldn't know what to say to a high-end escort anyway. I know nothing about business-- and so many girls at Escort Twitter do say that they love talking about "entrepreneurship". Many are basketball fans, too. I know nothing whatsoever about sports. And I'd be far too scared to attempt anything with a menu or a wine list. 

These days, I'd feel the same about some young companion here. I'd be too anxious to go anywhere outside of a few small, hip places. I'm not even sure I'd risk a good sushi bar. I'd certainly never risk anything with a wine list. Doing anything where I can be seen to fail in public, where I could be seen to fail at being the person I used to believe I was, is far too much of a risk these days.

Three Four Three: Preferences

 I may have mentioned this, but I'll recount the story again.

Once, long ago, I took a test found in (I think) Playboy. The test was something like "What Your Tastes in Women Say About You". I can't recall how old I was, but certainly very early in my teens. I ranked photos of actresses and models, and I chose my favourites out of drawings of body types. At the end, I added up my score and was told that the total meant that I must be gay. 

After all, the women I chose were very much not the body type that was in favor in those days. My choices were clearly all for tall, very slender, very long-legged and small-breasted women. "Buxom" or "curvy" never crossed my mind. No woman that I fancied in adolescence-- or now --would ever evoke something like "va-va-voom!" as a comment. 

I thought even then that the authors of the article were idiots. I stand by that judgment. Even at that age, I was clear about my preferences. For women, yes. And I like to think that society's beauty standards caught up with my own. The age of the "bombshell" was replaced by standards I liked-- tall, leggy, taut-bodied, thin. I'd have always chosen the young Audrey Hepburn over Marilyn Monroe. I'd have always chosen a young Jane Birkin or a young Marisa Berenson over the standard Playmate of those days. Those were my preferences then, and they remain my tastes. Karlie Kloss and Anja Rubik and Aymeline Valade are all examples of what I find to be beautiful. I have no use whatsoever for the Kardashian look.

And yet one of the problems of the current day is that physical preferences are themselves subject to increased and hostile review. Having preferences, let alone talking about them, is becoming a Bad Thing. I do not like the current emphasis on butts. I look at photos of the FMTY Girls at Twitter or of current social media celebrities and just have no use for a look that emphasizes butts. My gaze focuses on long, slender legs and flat, hard stomachs and butts. I do realize that saying that I dislike big butts and fail to grasp why women pay for butt-filler injections puts me on the wrong side of current taste...and leaves me open to accusations of racism and "misogynoir". I do realize that. 

But my tastes remain what they've always been. The Young Companion of my dreams is very tall, very lithe, very leggy. She has never needed to own or wear a bra. (She dislikes underwear, of course). In tailored linen slacks and a very tailored, dangerously unbuttoned silk blouse, she's all legs and erect nipples and has that slouch-down-the-runway look that I've loved since I was a teen and first began charting out beauty and its implications for class and style. 

Well, so many things that I like are becoming unacceptable. That may be inevitable, since I'm a gentleman of a certain advanced age and very much out of step with social rules. And those rules do exist. Make no mistake about that. 

Bodies matter. I take that as a given. Bodies always matter. So do the stories bodies tell. My preferences, whether for lithe and leggy girls or for some s/m games, always suggest stories or films I want to live in. I suppose I do look at girls and see myself as a casting director for the films in my head. I like bodies that suggest certain things about class and settings, and those films are not going away.

It's not just that my particular tastes in female bodies are now seen as obsolete and regressive (or maybe even oppressive). It's that I read these days how having any tastes at all is morally flawed because any preference by definition excludes. And we're not supposed to exclude, these days.

It gets harder to discuss what does attract and excite me, and it gets harder to talk about the why of what I like. I have to say that I do miss the days when matching bodies to stories was something to talk about with lovely young companions.

 

Three Three Six: Carpet

 I've brought the story up here before.

My friend Jill in NZ told me once that she'd once been naked in the passenger seat of an Aston-Martin Vanquish going at speed up the coast highway along the Tasman Sea. I don't find that wholly implausible. She grew up in a moneyed family, she works with successful businessmen and wealthy shareholders in her corporate life, and she tends to sleep with men who are substantially older and wealthy. So I can see her in that Aston-Martin, bare feet on the dashboard, stretched out naked and tanned while her older lover tested how fast his car could go. Or see her curled up naked next to him while the sea is there on one side and she bends to take him in her mouth.

That's not implausible. How likely is it? That I can't say. But it is plausible.

When I told a certain friend in London Town about that, she countered with her own tale of having been naked in the cabin of a (married) lover's private jet, bound for somewhere in the Mysterious East. Nothing, she said, could quite top being naked and drinking champagne in a private jet. 

Plausible? Maybe...just. She has entree to the worlds of art, law, and Oxbridge academia in Britain. She also has a history ("has form", British detectives say on TV) of older, married lovers who pay her rent and fly her places. One of her lovers, she told me, was one of the leading global figures in international arbitration law; another was a notorious and famous art auctioneer. Private jets aren't out of the question. Though I'm not sure how one handles the logistics of having a mistress naked in the cabin while remaining undisturbed. Would there have been an aide or two to dismiss to...somewhere? Would you get on the intercom to the crew and tell them not to leave the cockpit? So-- just plausible, but much less likely than Jill's Aston-Martin adventure. 

You'll note that I'm not assigning percentages here. As someone who's never seen an Aston-Martin in real life, let alone been a passenger on a private jet, all of that is as alien to me as the FMTY world I've been writing about.

I conveyed the story of the private jet back to Jill, and she snarked that being naked thirty thousand feet up on the way to Dubai or Singapore was all well and good, but what about the cabin decor? What if you had to walk barefoot or kneel to give head on...shag carpet? How...Seventies! How...bad Shopping & Fucking Novel! How, Jill asked, could any girl maintain her self-respect if there was shag carpet there?

Now I do love the idea of a response born from envy, and maybe she has a point. Though I can't recall what airliner floors are covered with. Not something I ever paid attention to. I can call up the visuals of Jill in the car seat fairly well, but the private jet cabin remains just out of imaginary reach. I can't even imagine what kind of plane a private jet would be. I'm sure that Lear Jets are passé; I don't even know if they're still made. The same is true for Gulfstreams. In my head, I take it for granted that the window shields would be raised. What would be the point of covering a window at thirty thousand feet? But imagining the cabin, let alone the carpet, is beyond me.

It is Christmas season, and the FMTY girls at Twitter are posting photos of the gifts their clients/patrons have given them. Lots of elegant gift boxes. Lots of gift cards to very high-end shops in London or Paris or NYC. Lots of photos of hotel lobbies and elegant dinners. The photos of gift-boxed lingerie do nothing for me, of course. I've never been a fan of girls in lingerie. I prefer girls to sleep naked and to wear nothing at all under dresses or tailored trousers when out with me. I understand lingerie as a class marker and as a symbol for high-end sex, but it does nothing for me as an erotic lure. A girl in just one of my dress shirts is far sexier than one in the most expensive Agent Provocateur or designer lingerie. 

The Aston-Martin, the private jet-- those things do belong in some "erotic thriller" on late-night cable or a Shopping & Fucking novel bought in (of course) an airport bookshop. Question-- here in a time of global pandemic, global economic uncertainty, and a new, critical attitude towards late capitalism, are there still Shopping & Fucking novels? We're a long way from the days of Judith Krantz or "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" here in 2021. "Champagne wishes and caviar dreams" doesn't sit quite so well when you live in a country that survived an abortive armed coup not even a year ago, a country where the pandemic has killed something like eight hundred thousand people since early 2020.  It's possible that, as a good leftist, I can't see the erotic possibilities of an Aston-Martin or a private jet any more.

I can still see the erotic possibilities in places, mind you. Being naked in an office after hours. Being naked in a classroom after all the teachers and students have gone home. Being naked in a university library. Or (like Liberty and Levin) in galleries and studios. Those are all things I can imagine having a beautiful girl do. Some of them I have done with lovers in the past. 

Places still have their own rank-ordering. A beautiful young companion being naked for you in a hotel pool is good, but only really counts if it's a rooftop pool. Extra points if it's an infinity pool cantilevered out over the city. Sailboats and private pools? No real points. Girls skinny-dipping off sailboats or in backyard pools is something very ordinary. Ditto girls like Liberty being naked while camping. Though I suppose a girl standing naked at sunrise (or just in hiking/climbing boots) on the slopes of some famous mountain would have some point value. Jill in Wellington hinted once that an older, moneyed lover wanted to take her to Everest Base Camp and have sex there. Some hip magazine-- Outdoor? Wired? --noted once that Everest Base Camp had become "a real sausage-fest" as soon as it became a tourist draw, with tech bros bringing their latest model/actresses there. But in general...the outdoors isn't really a place for nakedness, or for beautiful girls to have sex. Nature, at least in my mind, has never been erotic.

Though I will note that I've seen a couple of very, very alluring fashion nudes shot in the desert. I haven't quite figured out why deserts are sexy and forests or hillsides aren't. That bears thinking about.

I try to think about the sound of the Aston-Martin going north along the eastern shore of the Tasman Sea and I can't. I can't imagine the cabin-- let alone the carpet --of a private jet. I haven't even seen porn with a private jet cabin as a setting. I certainly can't imagine what champagne my friend claimed to be drinking.

Trains, now. Just as a passing thought, there's always point value in sex aboard trains. That at least has been proven in both porn and film noir.

 

Three Three Five: FMTY Part Two

 A lovely Young Companion tells me that she's in a band these days, something post-punk. She plays bass guitar, and she strikes a pose on stage. Her band members all have a stage persona, and hers is a pretty gay boy named Lou. She slicks back her hair and wears a suit and tie on stage, something very tailored, very early-1960s with narrow lapels and a narrow tie. The effect is amazing. She looks like...well...a more aggressively sexual version of the young Donna Tartt. She and I were at dinner the other night, and she asked if she should dress like that to go out with me some evening. Well, of course. However not? I'd love to go to some elegant restaurant with her and raise eyebrows. She's deliciously queer in any event, and I love her ability to play with gender and fluidity. 

She and I had a long conversation about things while we drank Japanese whiskey and held hands. She looks brilliant in a suit and tie (and, yes, I will give her one of my good neckties very soon), but she also rocks a miniskirt and has excellent legs-- which I caressed with two fingers all through dinner and drinks. 

We talked about the world of FMTY escorts on Twitter. She agreed with me that the FMTY world is something alien. She and I both have spent our lives in small, hip enclaves. We're not Michelin star people. She understood my own fears of trying to book time with an FMTY escort. I told her that I'd feel like someone with an ordinary car crash case taking his legal problem to a high-end law firm-- I'd be wasting their time and skills. She agreed with me on that. 

She told me that being an escort at that level would be something she'd love to do for a year or so, and she sighed over the stories I'd told her about my NZ friend naked in the Aston Martin and my London friend naked aboard the private jet. She'd love to do both things, she said. But that all seemed like something that could only happen in some other, alien world. Though she opened her shoulder bag and took out a Moleskine I'd given her and  made notes-- a list of cities she'd love to go as an FMTY girl.  I took her pen and wrote down my own list under hers-- cities where I'd love to fly her if she was my FMTY escort. She took the pen and wrote: Anytime, darling. Good cities! Love, Lou. I hope she'll keep the notebook and open it in a few years and remember me...and remember why I'd love to fly her to Dunedin or Rabat.

One of the FMTY escorts at Twitter did a thread the other night about how simple it really is to book an appointment with an escort and have a cultured, charming companion for an evening. I had to disagree with the thread. Even if I could afford an escort, I wouldn't know how to book an evening or an overnight. I could certainly understand how to use an online method, but I remain afraid that I'd never pass the screening. I told my Young Companion about that, and she shook her head. I'd passed her screening, she said. Despite my age and my being male, and despite her friends and housemates all telling her that it was just "too surreal" to imagine her out with me, let alone staying overnight, she was there at the bar with me and enjoying the things we did. She kissed me and said, Surreal is my favourite real.  That matters a lot to me. 

She did tell me that I just needed to go on line and book a companion. Maybe not a FMTY experience, she said, but so many of the girls of Escort Twitter seem to go on tour-- I could see which ones were coming through the city where my Companion and I live. I'll come along and be your advisor, she said. I had to laugh at that. My Young Companion is twenty-three and fearless. I'd love to have her along...either as Lou or in a tailored miniskirt. 

The FTMY world is still beyond me, though I certainly see a role-playing adventure coming up. But on a night where my Companion brought me a belated birthday gift (a memoir by Patti Smith) and shared Japanese single-malts with me, I did feel better. I'm not flying someone from Manhattan to Vienna or from L.A. to a Pure Pod in the Otago hills, but at least someone lovely and wicked found me worth driving across the city and staying the night.