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?
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Sunday, January 31, 2016
One Six Nine: Reports
I've been reading a piece by Ms. Flox, who's one of the best and most insightful of the sex bloggers out on the aether. I'll note that I've been reading her work in one form or another for a decade or more, and I'm quite the fan. Do read her work if you have the opportunity.
Ms. Flox writes that she has a notebook (a rather elegant one, if the photo accompanying her piece is correct) in which she and her partner(s) write down their sexual thoughts and experiences and keep an account of their encounters. She writes that the notebook is actually a "lab notebook", filled with "lab reports".
My first thought was probably predictable. I looked at the photograph of the notebook and thought that if I were going to try a similar project, I'd use a very different notebook. I'd want something much larger, something that exuded age. I'd look for something the size of an antique ledger, something in eighteenth-century binding. Of course I'd only write in it with a dip pen, in hand-blended coloured inks. I'd certainly want it to be much more a grimoire than a lab notebook or even a journal. If you're imagining me writing in it by lamplight or candlelight while dressed in an academic robe from Cambridge in the late 1700s, you'd almost certainly be reading my mind.
Ms. Flox and her partner(s) both write in her lab notebook. I'm assuming that they read one another's entries and share their thoughts. That's not something I could ever do. Remember, I'm writing in what I'd see as a grimoire. Those writings are secret and closely guarded. I'd never let anyone else read what I wrote in a journal about sexual thoughts and experiences. After all, I have read Tanizaki's "The Key". Whatever you're writing in the journal can go bad very quickly. It may start off as straightforward reportage and then graduate to passages meant to entice and excite the other reader(s). But it can go very bad very quickly. Jealousy, envy, self-justification, mockery, spite--- all those things can appear in a heartbeat. That's not a risk I'd take.
And a "lab notebook" does make you vulnerable to the outside world. It's evidence, after all. Proof that you've had bad (or incorrect, or problematic) thoughts. Proof that your performance or enticements or fantasies failed to please a partner. Proof of failure, proof that you're a failure.. Are you willing to risk it falling into outsiders' hands?
We live in the age of the gender wars. You know this. To have any fantasies, kinks, or particularized interests these days is deeply risky. Your kinks and fantasies may be politically "problematic". Or they may make you seem pathetic and needy or a failure in some way. To be interested in anything non-vanilla is to be at risk of mockery, derision, and contempt. Never forget that in a world of social media, you can almost instantly shamed worldwide, and you run a very clear risk that the shame will flow into the flesh-and-blood world where you have friends and employers and professional clients and contacts.
There was a time when I enjoyed talking with lovely young companions about adventures and explorations, about things we could try together. There was a time when I wanted to know how a lover experienced what we did together and how I could make it better for her. But this is the age of the gender wars. All those decades of magazine articles telling you to "communicate" and be "open" have to be erased. The lab notebook, the things in the lab notebook, would be far too risky to have around. The same, by the way, is true of love letters. Too risky--- a sign of emotional neediness, if nothing else. And if the love letters are about erotic plans and possibilities, you're back to the lab notebook. Others can find out that you enjoy things, want to try things, that are regarded as pathetic or contemptible or grotesque and ridiculous. How much risk are you willing to take?
Last week we saw what can happen on social media. The rapper Kanye West was mocked by a particularly vile ex for what he liked done to him in bed. He's no one I feel any particular sympathy for, mind you. I dislike his music, dislike him as a person and a persona, dislike his attitudes, dislike his wife and her extended family. Be clear about those things. But I was horrified and appalled that the loathsome ex had the power to reduce him to sputtering and futile denials and subject him to web-wide shaming and contempt by claiming that he had a particular sexual kink. Remember this, here in the new century and the age of the gender wars: you cannot (and perhaps especially if you're male) afford to have any non-vanilla kinks or interests. To be safe, you cannot afford to have any interests at all. You cannot afford to have fantasies. You cannot afford to express approval or interest in (let alone arousal by) any particular things at all. You cannot afford to be in a position where you can be judged for what excites you or for your performance. You cannot afford to have these things down on paper or on a screen.
A "lab notebook" filled with "lab reports" about what you really like, or what you'd like to try, with reports by a partner about what you do--- and what you do wrong ---is as dangerous as a Stasi dossier back in the years of the DDR.
I once told a lovely young companion that her body was like the map of an unknown country, a new land for me to explore. She was thrilled when I said that, and she kissed me and asked rhetorically why no one had ever said that to her before. That wasn't so very many years ago. I'd never say that to anyone now. I've always seen myself as someone whose skills were about telling stories, about creating worlds for myself and a lover. I've seen myself as a gentleman of a Certain Age, and thought that the one advantage my age gave me was that I could offer up experiments and recherché games. I've had to give up those ideas. I won't risk telling anyone what I might like; I won't put myself in a position where my fantasies are derided as pathetic or poorly-constructed or boring.
Well, Ms. Flox may share things with her partner(s). But here and now, I can't afford that. No lab reports, no lab notes. No discussions about making things better, or about things to try. If I ever kept a notebook, it would be guarded as fiercely as any grimoire. The safest thing of all is to have no secrets, to do nothing and think nothing that could be mocked. At the very least, secrets have to be protected by coded language and dead languages and clear denials to all questions. It's a cruel age, and some risks aren't worth taking.
Ms. Flox writes that she has a notebook (a rather elegant one, if the photo accompanying her piece is correct) in which she and her partner(s) write down their sexual thoughts and experiences and keep an account of their encounters. She writes that the notebook is actually a "lab notebook", filled with "lab reports".
My first thought was probably predictable. I looked at the photograph of the notebook and thought that if I were going to try a similar project, I'd use a very different notebook. I'd want something much larger, something that exuded age. I'd look for something the size of an antique ledger, something in eighteenth-century binding. Of course I'd only write in it with a dip pen, in hand-blended coloured inks. I'd certainly want it to be much more a grimoire than a lab notebook or even a journal. If you're imagining me writing in it by lamplight or candlelight while dressed in an academic robe from Cambridge in the late 1700s, you'd almost certainly be reading my mind.
Ms. Flox and her partner(s) both write in her lab notebook. I'm assuming that they read one another's entries and share their thoughts. That's not something I could ever do. Remember, I'm writing in what I'd see as a grimoire. Those writings are secret and closely guarded. I'd never let anyone else read what I wrote in a journal about sexual thoughts and experiences. After all, I have read Tanizaki's "The Key". Whatever you're writing in the journal can go bad very quickly. It may start off as straightforward reportage and then graduate to passages meant to entice and excite the other reader(s). But it can go very bad very quickly. Jealousy, envy, self-justification, mockery, spite--- all those things can appear in a heartbeat. That's not a risk I'd take.
And a "lab notebook" does make you vulnerable to the outside world. It's evidence, after all. Proof that you've had bad (or incorrect, or problematic) thoughts. Proof that your performance or enticements or fantasies failed to please a partner. Proof of failure, proof that you're a failure.. Are you willing to risk it falling into outsiders' hands?
We live in the age of the gender wars. You know this. To have any fantasies, kinks, or particularized interests these days is deeply risky. Your kinks and fantasies may be politically "problematic". Or they may make you seem pathetic and needy or a failure in some way. To be interested in anything non-vanilla is to be at risk of mockery, derision, and contempt. Never forget that in a world of social media, you can almost instantly shamed worldwide, and you run a very clear risk that the shame will flow into the flesh-and-blood world where you have friends and employers and professional clients and contacts.
There was a time when I enjoyed talking with lovely young companions about adventures and explorations, about things we could try together. There was a time when I wanted to know how a lover experienced what we did together and how I could make it better for her. But this is the age of the gender wars. All those decades of magazine articles telling you to "communicate" and be "open" have to be erased. The lab notebook, the things in the lab notebook, would be far too risky to have around. The same, by the way, is true of love letters. Too risky--- a sign of emotional neediness, if nothing else. And if the love letters are about erotic plans and possibilities, you're back to the lab notebook. Others can find out that you enjoy things, want to try things, that are regarded as pathetic or contemptible or grotesque and ridiculous. How much risk are you willing to take?
Last week we saw what can happen on social media. The rapper Kanye West was mocked by a particularly vile ex for what he liked done to him in bed. He's no one I feel any particular sympathy for, mind you. I dislike his music, dislike him as a person and a persona, dislike his attitudes, dislike his wife and her extended family. Be clear about those things. But I was horrified and appalled that the loathsome ex had the power to reduce him to sputtering and futile denials and subject him to web-wide shaming and contempt by claiming that he had a particular sexual kink. Remember this, here in the new century and the age of the gender wars: you cannot (and perhaps especially if you're male) afford to have any non-vanilla kinks or interests. To be safe, you cannot afford to have any interests at all. You cannot afford to have fantasies. You cannot afford to express approval or interest in (let alone arousal by) any particular things at all. You cannot afford to be in a position where you can be judged for what excites you or for your performance. You cannot afford to have these things down on paper or on a screen.
A "lab notebook" filled with "lab reports" about what you really like, or what you'd like to try, with reports by a partner about what you do--- and what you do wrong ---is as dangerous as a Stasi dossier back in the years of the DDR.
I once told a lovely young companion that her body was like the map of an unknown country, a new land for me to explore. She was thrilled when I said that, and she kissed me and asked rhetorically why no one had ever said that to her before. That wasn't so very many years ago. I'd never say that to anyone now. I've always seen myself as someone whose skills were about telling stories, about creating worlds for myself and a lover. I've seen myself as a gentleman of a Certain Age, and thought that the one advantage my age gave me was that I could offer up experiments and recherché games. I've had to give up those ideas. I won't risk telling anyone what I might like; I won't put myself in a position where my fantasies are derided as pathetic or poorly-constructed or boring.
Well, Ms. Flox may share things with her partner(s). But here and now, I can't afford that. No lab reports, no lab notes. No discussions about making things better, or about things to try. If I ever kept a notebook, it would be guarded as fiercely as any grimoire. The safest thing of all is to have no secrets, to do nothing and think nothing that could be mocked. At the very least, secrets have to be protected by coded language and dead languages and clear denials to all questions. It's a cruel age, and some risks aren't worth taking.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
One Six Eight: Graph Lines
When I began writing here, I positioned myself as a Gentleman of a Certain Age, an aging roué, someone of certain old-guard attitudes. I'm still all those things. I do look in the mirror in the mornings and list the things that go into how I define myself, and those things are always there. What else? Well, having grown up one of the older cities in America, one with its own very carefully-curated personality. Having left here to go to university at a place in New England that trades on its own carefully-curated image. Being a native of a region that habitually inspires a complicated and often painful relationship to its culture and past. Being someone who has lived his life inside books. Having spent so many years in academia, I define myself by that. And by being someone who tells stories. Being a raconteur is a key part of being a roué.
I told you at the beginning, I live in genteel poverty in a flat on the edge of a lake, in a bohemian neighborhood in a city on a river. I define myself in part by memories of cities where I've lived, by memories of downtown streets and shopfront reflections.
What I've been wondering tonight is about how my life can be graphed. I'm not sure what axes I need to be plotting, though. Wealth and career success? I won't fare too well on those. Cultural capital? Well, a bit better.
I'd like to graph factors of attractiveness, of course. The result might well be very disheartening, but on any seriously complex graph I might be able to find enough axes to move along to shift myself into desirable regions. The question remains--- what to graph? What are the factors to be graphing for attractiveness as a male? And how are they to be balanced against one another? How do you compare, say, age versus cultural capital versus social status?
Here in the new year, sitting alone in my flat, with Carnivale season beginning, I do wonder what the factors should be for the graph. If you're reading this, I'm open to thoughts. What are the factors for male attractiveness here in the new year? What are their exchange rates and relative buying power? What should be part of my graph, and how should I read it?
I told you at the beginning, I live in genteel poverty in a flat on the edge of a lake, in a bohemian neighborhood in a city on a river. I define myself in part by memories of cities where I've lived, by memories of downtown streets and shopfront reflections.
What I've been wondering tonight is about how my life can be graphed. I'm not sure what axes I need to be plotting, though. Wealth and career success? I won't fare too well on those. Cultural capital? Well, a bit better.
I'd like to graph factors of attractiveness, of course. The result might well be very disheartening, but on any seriously complex graph I might be able to find enough axes to move along to shift myself into desirable regions. The question remains--- what to graph? What are the factors to be graphing for attractiveness as a male? And how are they to be balanced against one another? How do you compare, say, age versus cultural capital versus social status?
Here in the new year, sitting alone in my flat, with Carnivale season beginning, I do wonder what the factors should be for the graph. If you're reading this, I'm open to thoughts. What are the factors for male attractiveness here in the new year? What are their exchange rates and relative buying power? What should be part of my graph, and how should I read it?
Saturday, January 9, 2016
One Six Seven: Hostesses
The other morning I ran across an on-line article at the Observer.com website for 13 October 2014, a piece called "NYC's Latest Slew Of Underground Sex Parties Have Nothing To Do With Good Sex". The article focused on how the "latest slew" of sex parties was as much about status and performance art as about sex--- more about status than anything else, really. Well, I can't be averse to that, of course. As I've said so often before, sex for me is class-aspirational or its nothing. I don't take--- have never taken ---unmediated physical pleasure in, well...anything. I experience everything in my life as a scene in a novel or a film, and I judge all experiences against how they'd look in a novel or a film. I'd have a certain interest in seeing this "latest slew" of parties (the cited examples in the article include Behind Closed Doors, Chemistry, and Lip Service; I've no idea if those are still being held), but I'm quite clear that I'd have problems with hosted sex parties.
The woman who runs Behind Closed Doors explained to the author of the Observer article that, "We’re not fascists, but the whole point is to be surrounded by other members who are sexy and turn you on,” they continued. “For those who are morbidly obese, hideously ugly, or likely to turn up in a track suit, there are plenty of other parties out there for you." The criteria don't seem very different from those at some of the London parties I've read about, though the Manhattan standards about looks are more stringent and the London hosts are more open about setting financial criteria. I'm quite certain that I'd never get past the interview process in either London or Manhattan. I don't wear track suits, since I'm neither a chav nor a Russian oligarch, but it's simply a fact that I wouldn't pass the criteria for looks, age, or finances. The Observer writer sniffed that the New York hosts seemed to be selecting for "artistes" and "pseudo-intellectuals", but I doubt that my academic background would get me past the velvet ropes.
I passed the article along to a friend in London who's both attended sex parties there and worked as staff. I am hoping for her comments and thoughts. I passed it on, too, to an acquaintance--- Ms. Flox ---who's been a long-time on-line writer about sex. I'd like her comments, too. I will have to rely on third-party experiences here, since I'm unlikely to be allowed into any hosted sex parties, and I'm certainly unlikely to have the social skills to function in any sex party settings.
Once upon a time, back in the far-distant past, I was at a party that tried to become a sex party. I remember it as being extraordinarily awkward. I recall people trying to be naked, or near-naked--- almost all of them girls, who seemed to be self-consciously un-self-conscious topless or just in expensive thongs. A couple of them had toys--- soft floggers, dildos ---that they were showing off. There may have been one or two males near-naked--- I think boxer briefs had just happened, and they were showing off...packages...against thin fabric. I do remember that one boy had pretty much a line of co-eds waiting to be shown that he was uncircumcised--- something Deepest South upper-middle class girls in those days hadn't usually seen, and something they associated with boys who were "European" or exotic. I think rumors of his size may have been involved, too.
As for me...well...I think my shirt may have been unbuttoned. That's likely to have been s far as being undressed went. Oxford-cloth button-down shirt worn over a black cotton t-shirt--- on any day or any night all the way back deep into the last century, that's what I'd have been wearing. At some point, the shirt may have been black instead of French blue. (Is it only waiters in hip restaurants who wear black shirts these days?) Unbuttoned shirt--- I might've done that, but no more.
(A very tall and lovely young girl was once with me in a parked car, topless. I know I'd been kissing something off her bare nipples when she stopped me and noted that while she was topless and I got to kiss whatever we were drinking off her, all she could get from trying to do the same thing to me was a mouthful of black cotton. But I'm never, never without a t-shirt. Can't even imagine not wearing one.)
The party back in those lost days... It needed more bedrooms, certainly. And it needed a theme. It needed some kind of order of ceremonies. It needed a director (directrix?) of activities, a master/maitresse of ceremonies. A sex party, like a dinner party or even a good garden party, needs someone to take charge, make introductions, move events along, keep conversations flowing. A good sex party needs...an old school Southern (or Parisian?) hostess. I think Ms. Flox agrees with me on that. My friend in the London demimonde may agree as well.
As for me...well, I remember walking around with a drink, staying on the edge of things, doing my best polite smile at co-eds in lace thongs, making a point of not staring. At one point I was in the kitchen looking for ice cubes and a very dejected young guy was standing downcast by the sink. His problem, he told me, was that there was no one else gay there, and his ride home was straight and off somewhere with a girl. Well, I was better off than he was. I at least wasn't stuck at the party. I had my own car; I'd done that much right. I wondered at the time if that made things better or worse. If I was still there, and was still not part of things, wasn't that my own fault? I could've just driven off to do something useful--- donuts possibly, or late-night chili dogs. Hoping against hope is always a painful thing, especially in a townhouse filled with blonde co-eds.
Tonight, here at my writing desk, I recall my shirt, and I recall drinking vodka. I don't recall kissing any girls, though I must've been doing that at some point, since my shirt did end up unbuttoned. But whatever happened, I've lost that memory altogether.
That's my only sex party story. As usual, I got to check off that I'd been there without actually being part of anything. My resume has always been like that--- great on paper, a disaster in actual quotidian life.
And as for the current wave of expensive, upmarket sex parties of the sort mentioned in the Observer article...well, I lack the money, looks, wardrobe, and chiseled abs to attend. I don't think there would ever be a small line of girls waiting to look at my size (fashion note: I've never understood boxer briefs nor have I ever owned any), and I wouldn't risk even the slightest chance of having my size or turgidity judged and found wanting. If for some unknown, mistaken reason I was allowed past the door, I'd still be the guy with the drink at the edge of things, mostly nodding politely and using my drink ("Sorry--- I need ice and a refill, nice to have met you") as a prop to keep a certain distance between myself and others.
I'm not good at parties of any kind, and I suspect that I'd be no good at all at any kind of hosted sex party (again, always assuming arguendo that I'd be allowed in). The Observer article did at least make the claim that there were parties out there that were designed to be performance art, designed around aesthetics and style rather than merely physical interaction, and I'm certainly attracted to that idea. Yet any party I'd be at would require a hostess or director to keep everyone in line for an order of ceremonies, to keep everyone moving toward fixed goals, to keep the performance moving along. I might be good at that sort of party. If nothing else, it would remind me of the Mass or a well-done stage presentation.
Sex must be class-aspirational or it's nothing. I've always believed that. All my sexual interests come down to style and a dream of decadence and dark elegance. I'm afraid that physical pleasure plays only a secondary part in things. You'd think that hosted sex parties would be something I'd like, something I'd do well at. I'm not likely ever to be let past the interview process, let alone the velvet ropes. Despite the Observer article, the parties out there that do claim to be a kind of structured performance seem to lack clear focus and clear scripts. I'd still be the outsider with the drink, fully-clothed, sitting off at the edge of things, nodding politely and leaving early.
The woman who runs Behind Closed Doors explained to the author of the Observer article that, "We’re not fascists, but the whole point is to be surrounded by other members who are sexy and turn you on,” they continued. “For those who are morbidly obese, hideously ugly, or likely to turn up in a track suit, there are plenty of other parties out there for you." The criteria don't seem very different from those at some of the London parties I've read about, though the Manhattan standards about looks are more stringent and the London hosts are more open about setting financial criteria. I'm quite certain that I'd never get past the interview process in either London or Manhattan. I don't wear track suits, since I'm neither a chav nor a Russian oligarch, but it's simply a fact that I wouldn't pass the criteria for looks, age, or finances. The Observer writer sniffed that the New York hosts seemed to be selecting for "artistes" and "pseudo-intellectuals", but I doubt that my academic background would get me past the velvet ropes.
I passed the article along to a friend in London who's both attended sex parties there and worked as staff. I am hoping for her comments and thoughts. I passed it on, too, to an acquaintance--- Ms. Flox ---who's been a long-time on-line writer about sex. I'd like her comments, too. I will have to rely on third-party experiences here, since I'm unlikely to be allowed into any hosted sex parties, and I'm certainly unlikely to have the social skills to function in any sex party settings.
Once upon a time, back in the far-distant past, I was at a party that tried to become a sex party. I remember it as being extraordinarily awkward. I recall people trying to be naked, or near-naked--- almost all of them girls, who seemed to be self-consciously un-self-conscious topless or just in expensive thongs. A couple of them had toys--- soft floggers, dildos ---that they were showing off. There may have been one or two males near-naked--- I think boxer briefs had just happened, and they were showing off...packages...against thin fabric. I do remember that one boy had pretty much a line of co-eds waiting to be shown that he was uncircumcised--- something Deepest South upper-middle class girls in those days hadn't usually seen, and something they associated with boys who were "European" or exotic. I think rumors of his size may have been involved, too.
As for me...well...I think my shirt may have been unbuttoned. That's likely to have been s far as being undressed went. Oxford-cloth button-down shirt worn over a black cotton t-shirt--- on any day or any night all the way back deep into the last century, that's what I'd have been wearing. At some point, the shirt may have been black instead of French blue. (Is it only waiters in hip restaurants who wear black shirts these days?) Unbuttoned shirt--- I might've done that, but no more.
(A very tall and lovely young girl was once with me in a parked car, topless. I know I'd been kissing something off her bare nipples when she stopped me and noted that while she was topless and I got to kiss whatever we were drinking off her, all she could get from trying to do the same thing to me was a mouthful of black cotton. But I'm never, never without a t-shirt. Can't even imagine not wearing one.)
The party back in those lost days... It needed more bedrooms, certainly. And it needed a theme. It needed some kind of order of ceremonies. It needed a director (directrix?) of activities, a master/maitresse of ceremonies. A sex party, like a dinner party or even a good garden party, needs someone to take charge, make introductions, move events along, keep conversations flowing. A good sex party needs...an old school Southern (or Parisian?) hostess. I think Ms. Flox agrees with me on that. My friend in the London demimonde may agree as well.
As for me...well, I remember walking around with a drink, staying on the edge of things, doing my best polite smile at co-eds in lace thongs, making a point of not staring. At one point I was in the kitchen looking for ice cubes and a very dejected young guy was standing downcast by the sink. His problem, he told me, was that there was no one else gay there, and his ride home was straight and off somewhere with a girl. Well, I was better off than he was. I at least wasn't stuck at the party. I had my own car; I'd done that much right. I wondered at the time if that made things better or worse. If I was still there, and was still not part of things, wasn't that my own fault? I could've just driven off to do something useful--- donuts possibly, or late-night chili dogs. Hoping against hope is always a painful thing, especially in a townhouse filled with blonde co-eds.
Tonight, here at my writing desk, I recall my shirt, and I recall drinking vodka. I don't recall kissing any girls, though I must've been doing that at some point, since my shirt did end up unbuttoned. But whatever happened, I've lost that memory altogether.
That's my only sex party story. As usual, I got to check off that I'd been there without actually being part of anything. My resume has always been like that--- great on paper, a disaster in actual quotidian life.
And as for the current wave of expensive, upmarket sex parties of the sort mentioned in the Observer article...well, I lack the money, looks, wardrobe, and chiseled abs to attend. I don't think there would ever be a small line of girls waiting to look at my size (fashion note: I've never understood boxer briefs nor have I ever owned any), and I wouldn't risk even the slightest chance of having my size or turgidity judged and found wanting. If for some unknown, mistaken reason I was allowed past the door, I'd still be the guy with the drink at the edge of things, mostly nodding politely and using my drink ("Sorry--- I need ice and a refill, nice to have met you") as a prop to keep a certain distance between myself and others.
I'm not good at parties of any kind, and I suspect that I'd be no good at all at any kind of hosted sex party (again, always assuming arguendo that I'd be allowed in). The Observer article did at least make the claim that there were parties out there that were designed to be performance art, designed around aesthetics and style rather than merely physical interaction, and I'm certainly attracted to that idea. Yet any party I'd be at would require a hostess or director to keep everyone in line for an order of ceremonies, to keep everyone moving toward fixed goals, to keep the performance moving along. I might be good at that sort of party. If nothing else, it would remind me of the Mass or a well-done stage presentation.
Sex must be class-aspirational or it's nothing. I've always believed that. All my sexual interests come down to style and a dream of decadence and dark elegance. I'm afraid that physical pleasure plays only a secondary part in things. You'd think that hosted sex parties would be something I'd like, something I'd do well at. I'm not likely ever to be let past the interview process, let alone the velvet ropes. Despite the Observer article, the parties out there that do claim to be a kind of structured performance seem to lack clear focus and clear scripts. I'd still be the outsider with the drink, fully-clothed, sitting off at the edge of things, nodding politely and leaving early.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
One Six Six: Crystals
I was at a small bistro downtown tonight, one of those places that's a hip version of an Italian restaurant from some designer-retro vision of 1950s Little Italy. You probably know the kind of place: Sinatra endlessly playing, the furniture dark and heavy, the wine list good yet one that would've induced shock and awe in the real 1950s. The clientele was exactly what you'd expect, too. Late twenties, early thirties, carefully tailored. Out in the dining area there were even a couple of tables with families who might well have been brought in by the designers. I was at the end of the bar--- a quick stop on my way home from work. You can imagine me there; you've known me here long enough to do that. At the end of the bar, always. The quiet figure with a glass of pinot grigio, older than the others at the bar, nondescript dark-grey fleece jacket on a crisp evening more October than two days before year's end. A glass of wine, a small plate of pasta with olive oil and a bit of garlic butter. Something simple and as nondescript as my jacket and my black chinos. Someone who's just there because the bar was a brief haven on my way home. Someone just there to watch.
There was a party of girls just down the bar. Four of them, all mid or late twenties, corporate chic, streaked blonde, two of them with State-issue ID/access cards still on cords around their necks. Exactly the demographic the bistro was designed for. One of them was showing off an engagement ring, happy and proud of the diamond on her hand, clinking glasses with her friends. So easy to imagine how thrilled she was--- so easy to imagine that she'd be spending her spring planning a wedding and a honeymoon.
I'm not mocking her at all. I don't want you to think that. A lovely girl, out with her friends, and genuinely happy about the next stage of her life. I did smile at them and nod--- a quiet stranger who was nodding at her happiness.
I may have told you before, though I'm not certain. In the course of my life, I've asked two girls to marry me. Both accepted. Neither time came to anything--- nothing all that awful happened, it just didn't work out. My record, though, is perfect: two proposals, two acceptances. No, I've never been married, and at this stage of my life, I'd probably be awful at it. There's a point at which you're too used to living alone to finally marry. There's a point, too, where the number of people who might consider you as a partner falls away to nothing, a point where those you might ask are either already married or too traumatized or exhausted by previous marriages to risk anything on you.
Still and all, I do miss the idea of marrying. I've said before that I suppose I like the idea of having been married more than the idea of actually being married. I miss the idea that I could still participate in a major social ritual.
I'm not particularly excited by the idea of a wedding. I'm male, and I know what my role is at a wedding--- to stand to one side in a rented tuxedo and say "I do" at the prompts. Which is fine, after all. I can wear black and learn my steps and responses in a few minutes. I'm a quick study, and I wouldn't forget the ring.
I think the moment of putting a ring on a bride's finger attracts me: symbols are magic, after all. I like the reverse of that, too. A lovely girl putting a ring on my finger in response is like...what? I've been through a doctoral hooding, and I imagine that it would be like that--- a formal reminder of being translated into some new state. I vaguely recall being very young and going through a confirmation ceremony in a dark old stone church; that comparison might be more appropriate. The attraction is the same, and I'm sure it's something the girl at the bar understood. It's about becoming something new, about being recognized as something new.
You've been reading me here for a while. You've heard me say more than once that I like ritual and the idea of ritual. Ritual makes so many things easier. Ritual makes so much of social life possible. And rituals give us a place in the social order.
I'm a gentleman of a certain age, and a gentleman of limited circumstances. I'm not the target demographic for De Beers. I'm not sure I could offer a girl a diamond even if I wanted to. But I miss the idea of being part of a moment where someone would let me slide a ring onto her finger, where she'd be recognizing that I have value in the social order.
You fall in love with an individual, but you live in a social world. Being formally with someone establishes you in a role in society. Having someone accept a formal proposal is a statement about your social value. Missing out on the ritual at an appropriate point in life means that you'll be left farther and farther behind in the social world and that you'll seem more and more suspect in terms of your social value. It's not just you're assumed to be Oedipally-challenged or perhaps gay. It's that you're increasingly assumed not to have the necessary value to be part of social structures.
Two more days 'til the end of the year. The week after Christmas is always a melancholy thing, or at least always is for me. Tonight at the bar, I did envy the girl with the ring. Somewhere in the spring or summer of the new year she'll be taking a public, socially-sanctioned step into a new phase of life. I envy her that--- the social transition, the rite of passage. Well, I hope that in ten years she'll look back on this season and be happy. I do wish her well. I'm running out of moments of transition and growth, of rituals that affirm my value and place. I do worry that I've run out of time altogether.
There was a party of girls just down the bar. Four of them, all mid or late twenties, corporate chic, streaked blonde, two of them with State-issue ID/access cards still on cords around their necks. Exactly the demographic the bistro was designed for. One of them was showing off an engagement ring, happy and proud of the diamond on her hand, clinking glasses with her friends. So easy to imagine how thrilled she was--- so easy to imagine that she'd be spending her spring planning a wedding and a honeymoon.
I'm not mocking her at all. I don't want you to think that. A lovely girl, out with her friends, and genuinely happy about the next stage of her life. I did smile at them and nod--- a quiet stranger who was nodding at her happiness.
I may have told you before, though I'm not certain. In the course of my life, I've asked two girls to marry me. Both accepted. Neither time came to anything--- nothing all that awful happened, it just didn't work out. My record, though, is perfect: two proposals, two acceptances. No, I've never been married, and at this stage of my life, I'd probably be awful at it. There's a point at which you're too used to living alone to finally marry. There's a point, too, where the number of people who might consider you as a partner falls away to nothing, a point where those you might ask are either already married or too traumatized or exhausted by previous marriages to risk anything on you.
Still and all, I do miss the idea of marrying. I've said before that I suppose I like the idea of having been married more than the idea of actually being married. I miss the idea that I could still participate in a major social ritual.
I'm not particularly excited by the idea of a wedding. I'm male, and I know what my role is at a wedding--- to stand to one side in a rented tuxedo and say "I do" at the prompts. Which is fine, after all. I can wear black and learn my steps and responses in a few minutes. I'm a quick study, and I wouldn't forget the ring.
I think the moment of putting a ring on a bride's finger attracts me: symbols are magic, after all. I like the reverse of that, too. A lovely girl putting a ring on my finger in response is like...what? I've been through a doctoral hooding, and I imagine that it would be like that--- a formal reminder of being translated into some new state. I vaguely recall being very young and going through a confirmation ceremony in a dark old stone church; that comparison might be more appropriate. The attraction is the same, and I'm sure it's something the girl at the bar understood. It's about becoming something new, about being recognized as something new.
You've been reading me here for a while. You've heard me say more than once that I like ritual and the idea of ritual. Ritual makes so many things easier. Ritual makes so much of social life possible. And rituals give us a place in the social order.
I'm a gentleman of a certain age, and a gentleman of limited circumstances. I'm not the target demographic for De Beers. I'm not sure I could offer a girl a diamond even if I wanted to. But I miss the idea of being part of a moment where someone would let me slide a ring onto her finger, where she'd be recognizing that I have value in the social order.
You fall in love with an individual, but you live in a social world. Being formally with someone establishes you in a role in society. Having someone accept a formal proposal is a statement about your social value. Missing out on the ritual at an appropriate point in life means that you'll be left farther and farther behind in the social world and that you'll seem more and more suspect in terms of your social value. It's not just you're assumed to be Oedipally-challenged or perhaps gay. It's that you're increasingly assumed not to have the necessary value to be part of social structures.
Two more days 'til the end of the year. The week after Christmas is always a melancholy thing, or at least always is for me. Tonight at the bar, I did envy the girl with the ring. Somewhere in the spring or summer of the new year she'll be taking a public, socially-sanctioned step into a new phase of life. I envy her that--- the social transition, the rite of passage. Well, I hope that in ten years she'll look back on this season and be happy. I do wish her well. I'm running out of moments of transition and growth, of rituals that affirm my value and place. I do worry that I've run out of time altogether.
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
One Six Five: Explanations
I found a video presentation on line today that brought up some of my current fears. The video itself was simple enough--- done in advice-column format. Part of a series, with a rather attractive girl with credentials in something like sexology and an accent that I couldn't quite place, something Baltic or East European. I suppose the British would call her an "agony aunt", but in contemporary America she'd be called some kind of therapist, or at least someone who does TED talks.
I can't quite recall her name--- Adina, Edina ---but she was there to answer questions, to allay fears and offer up what's still called "empowerment". Today's question was about fetishes, about how to bring up your own fetishes with a lover.
That is a dangerous topic these days. "Fetish" has moved on from merely being about kink and sexual adventures to having a political significance. "To fetishize" is now a bad thing, tied up with oppression and "objectification". It has intimations of "cultural appropriation", too, and of the "inauthentic". The trans* world despises mere cross-dressers as "fetishists", as somehow mocking actually being trans. To do something only--- merely ---because it has sexual value or is sexually exciting is now regarded with a moralizing gimlet eye that's even more harsh than one might've found in the 1950s. At least in the Fifties one's fetishes might have had some comic value, just as in the Eighties or Nineties they might have been seen as acts of (possibly stylish) defiance and thrilling transgression.
Today's question for the Presumptively Estonian Sexologist was simple enough. A male questioner wanted to know how he could tell his girlfriend that he wanted to dress up in heels, a dress, and lipstick before having sex with her. That's not very advanced as fetishes go--- it's fairly vanilla, really. He didn't even want his girlfriend to use a strap-on or for her to pretend that the two of them were a lesbian couple. He just wanted to dress up and wear lipstick while having very ordinary hetero-sex.
I forget what the Baltic girl's advice was. In the end, the advice itself is irrelevant. I'm sure it has something to do with "communication" and finding ways to make the fetish seem "playful" for both parties. What matters to me is the idea of how one goes about admitting to a fetish--- to having any non-standard, non-vanilla interests ---here at the end of 2015.
If you're reading this, I hope you'll tell me what your own take on the current social rules might be. What are the accepted rules for admitting to a fetish? What are the fetishes that the Arbitrary Social Rules say it's still acceptable--- socially, politically, aesthetically ---to have? If you've had to tell a lover about a taste, a preference, a fetish, how did you do it? If someone admitted a fetish to you, how did you react?
Write, then. Tell me what you think the rules about these things are these days.
I can't quite recall her name--- Adina, Edina ---but she was there to answer questions, to allay fears and offer up what's still called "empowerment". Today's question was about fetishes, about how to bring up your own fetishes with a lover.
That is a dangerous topic these days. "Fetish" has moved on from merely being about kink and sexual adventures to having a political significance. "To fetishize" is now a bad thing, tied up with oppression and "objectification". It has intimations of "cultural appropriation", too, and of the "inauthentic". The trans* world despises mere cross-dressers as "fetishists", as somehow mocking actually being trans. To do something only--- merely ---because it has sexual value or is sexually exciting is now regarded with a moralizing gimlet eye that's even more harsh than one might've found in the 1950s. At least in the Fifties one's fetishes might have had some comic value, just as in the Eighties or Nineties they might have been seen as acts of (possibly stylish) defiance and thrilling transgression.
Today's question for the Presumptively Estonian Sexologist was simple enough. A male questioner wanted to know how he could tell his girlfriend that he wanted to dress up in heels, a dress, and lipstick before having sex with her. That's not very advanced as fetishes go--- it's fairly vanilla, really. He didn't even want his girlfriend to use a strap-on or for her to pretend that the two of them were a lesbian couple. He just wanted to dress up and wear lipstick while having very ordinary hetero-sex.
I forget what the Baltic girl's advice was. In the end, the advice itself is irrelevant. I'm sure it has something to do with "communication" and finding ways to make the fetish seem "playful" for both parties. What matters to me is the idea of how one goes about admitting to a fetish--- to having any non-standard, non-vanilla interests ---here at the end of 2015.
If you're reading this, I hope you'll tell me what your own take on the current social rules might be. What are the accepted rules for admitting to a fetish? What are the fetishes that the Arbitrary Social Rules say it's still acceptable--- socially, politically, aesthetically ---to have? If you've had to tell a lover about a taste, a preference, a fetish, how did you do it? If someone admitted a fetish to you, how did you react?
Write, then. Tell me what you think the rules about these things are these days.
Monday, December 14, 2015
One Six Four: Magic
I've been thinking about identity these last weeks.
I'm not a fan of what's come to be called identity politics, and of course I'm always suspicious of the way "identity" is taken to be something ineffable and something fixed. I'm no fan at all of the way the gender warriors insist that any professed identity must reflect something "real".
This goes to other arguments as well. I hate the whole idea of "cultural appropriation", too--- the idea that cultures should represent something fixed, some sacrosanct and precious possession guarded like Smaug guarding a treasure. I grew up in one of the more creolized cities in the Western Hemisphere, and I've taken it for granted all my life that cultures were sets of raw material to be discovered, shared, tweaked, re-made.
I read postmodernist theory at university and in grad school. I was utterly thrilled with it, mind you. Enchanted. I loved--- still love ---the idea of identity as mutable, as something that can be constructed out of bricolage, something always to be creolized, something to be worn like masks at a Japanese drama. I'm not a fan of the idea of an essential, "real" self. I'll remain old-school PoMo--- a believer in the re-created, shifting self.
I've said before that the last fetish we're supposed to find acceptable is authenticity fetish. We're supposed to assign a kind of ritual magic to being "authentic". We're not supposed to choose anything we are, let alone anything we find attractive or sexually alluring. Choice implies...what? Mere whimsy? We're at a point in the culture where choosing to try something or be something is regarded as...what? Lying to others? Are we supposed to think that anything can be chosen, tried, and rejected isn't worthy of respect? I have no idea why we obsess over being "real", why we insist on social presentation that's "real" rather than a transient choice, or something to be continually re-invented.
I'm old enough to remember when "fetish" was something that one was allowed to experiment with. I remember all the groups and "communities" devoted to fetishes, to the objects and accessories that came to be imbued with sexual magic. (Yes, alas--- some people did insist on spelling that "magick") Of course, to have a fetish, to do a fetish, was to be laid open to moralizing disapproval...or at least aesthetic critique. How strange, then, that "fetish" is now a bad thing again, something that the gender warriors and the Social Justice Cult see as morally corrupt. There's a suspicion out there that any specific sexual triggers, any attraction to particular looks, particular images, are exclusionary and oppressive. Which goes back to the idea that there's some inner essence that's unconnected to presentation, to the idea that we're only allowed to be attracted to the "real" essence and not to mere expressions.
Well, we can blame Plato as much as the queer theorists, I suppose. That seems only fair.
I'm not a fan of what's come to be called identity politics, and of course I'm always suspicious of the way "identity" is taken to be something ineffable and something fixed. I'm no fan at all of the way the gender warriors insist that any professed identity must reflect something "real".
This goes to other arguments as well. I hate the whole idea of "cultural appropriation", too--- the idea that cultures should represent something fixed, some sacrosanct and precious possession guarded like Smaug guarding a treasure. I grew up in one of the more creolized cities in the Western Hemisphere, and I've taken it for granted all my life that cultures were sets of raw material to be discovered, shared, tweaked, re-made.
I read postmodernist theory at university and in grad school. I was utterly thrilled with it, mind you. Enchanted. I loved--- still love ---the idea of identity as mutable, as something that can be constructed out of bricolage, something always to be creolized, something to be worn like masks at a Japanese drama. I'm not a fan of the idea of an essential, "real" self. I'll remain old-school PoMo--- a believer in the re-created, shifting self.
I've said before that the last fetish we're supposed to find acceptable is authenticity fetish. We're supposed to assign a kind of ritual magic to being "authentic". We're not supposed to choose anything we are, let alone anything we find attractive or sexually alluring. Choice implies...what? Mere whimsy? We're at a point in the culture where choosing to try something or be something is regarded as...what? Lying to others? Are we supposed to think that anything can be chosen, tried, and rejected isn't worthy of respect? I have no idea why we obsess over being "real", why we insist on social presentation that's "real" rather than a transient choice, or something to be continually re-invented.
I'm old enough to remember when "fetish" was something that one was allowed to experiment with. I remember all the groups and "communities" devoted to fetishes, to the objects and accessories that came to be imbued with sexual magic. (Yes, alas--- some people did insist on spelling that "magick") Of course, to have a fetish, to do a fetish, was to be laid open to moralizing disapproval...or at least aesthetic critique. How strange, then, that "fetish" is now a bad thing again, something that the gender warriors and the Social Justice Cult see as morally corrupt. There's a suspicion out there that any specific sexual triggers, any attraction to particular looks, particular images, are exclusionary and oppressive. Which goes back to the idea that there's some inner essence that's unconnected to presentation, to the idea that we're only allowed to be attracted to the "real" essence and not to mere expressions.
Well, we can blame Plato as much as the queer theorists, I suppose. That seems only fair.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)