Breaking up is hard to do

Breaking up used to be easy. You'd call your girlfriend, tell her you need to talk, and deliver the news. As a callow youth in Australia, I dumped Stephanie in the comfy chair room of the local pub one night. We called it the comfy chair room because it had nice big wing-backs and deep-cushioned arm-chairs of the sort one's grandparents owned. It was the kind of place pretentious teenagers would sip red wine and solve the world's problems, in that way only teenagers who know nothing can.

Ending a relationship in such a setting isn't recommended. Much better to choose somewhere well-lit and uncomfortable with many exits.

After 'the talk' I went straight to the back bar to be with my mates. Brutal, but honest. Stephanie and I reunited a week later, but eventually split. The first time never takes, right?

Thesedays one needs a checklist for action items after the fact. First, change your Facebook and/or Myspace status. Write a blog post reflecting same. Then Tweet that, plus any other random social networking site modifications you need. Rifle through your Flickr or Snapfish or similar accounts to consider whether to remove cutesy pics of you and the now-ex. (Special consideration to what your next girlfriend might think.)

Now you need to email everyone you've ever told you had a girlfriend and inform them of your status. Maybe call parents and siblings, if they haven't already IMd you from Facebook. Check your place for pieces of clothing she might have left, plus makeup, shoes, toothbrushes and 'personal items' and return them.

Lastly, make a decision about the most sensitive stuff. What to do with the sex videos? Delete them, joint custody, or just lie about deleting them? Hmmmm.





How to break up gracefully. [link]

Thanks to Kat for the inspiration. [link]

Concubine

The word might not have been courtesan after all. Is is possible I was looking for 'concubine'?

Nope, I read the all-knowing Wiki (pedia) only to discover that concubines are like wives, only poorer. [link] Interesting that concubines are actually held in very high esteem, on the same social and religious level with wives. Wives, you see, had dowries whereas concubines did not. So marriage (at least in its Biblical iteration) was not about love, but something else.

This is interesting too:

Since it was regarded as the highest blessing to have many children, while the greatest curse was childlessness, legitimate wives often gave their maids to their husbands to atone, at least in part, for their own barrenness... The children of the concubine had equal rights with those of the legitimate wife...

Barrenness. Now there's a word we don't use much any more.

The painting above is called "Interior Scene with Sultan and Concubine" by an American named Thomas Buchanan Read. [link] How in the heck did a guy from Chester County, Pennsylvania end up painting such a piece? [link] And why does it move me so?

Mysteries.

Courtesan

Courtesan. Courtesan is the word I've been after all week. It's a kind of old-fashioned expression, out of use thesedays, but it perfectly describes some women's place in society.

My boss's ex-girlfriend, for example, is a courtesan. [link] She has no visible means of support and yet she lives in a very nice house in a swell neighbourhood. (A guy in Chicago pays the rent.) From what I understand, she courts wealthy, powerful or high-profile men and exchanges her company for money. Or goods, I guess, but no doubt she prefers cash.

Principal among the courtesan's abilities is knowing how to flatter the man. Catering to his ego is, in my opinion, more important than great sex skillz or even a great body. Attraction and sex is all in the mind, so if our courtesan knows how to push her paymaster's buttons, she's golden.

Sex will be a part of her duties, too, no doubt. More than that will be her willingness to always be on her lover's side, to always be sympathetic, and to never take an opposing position. Wives and girlfriends lose out in this game, because they have a will of their own. What a man buys in a courtesan is suspension of her own wishes, replacing them with his. At least for the time she's in his company.

In her own way, she does get her way. She has the company of likely pretty interesting men. She gets to spend a lot on herself - clothing, makeup, jewelry, spas, facials, waxing, lasering, hairstyling and whatever else. She doesn't have the drudgery of a regular job, and if she grows tired of the man, she gets to withdraw her services. It's really the ultimate work-from-home business.

I wonder if there's a male equivalent.




Illustration from here. [link]

More on courtesans here. [link]

Friday Fluffer - The Streets of San Francisco

If you're a kid like I was living in a suburb of a provincial Australian city, everything from anywhere else is glamorous.

If television is your window to the world, glamorous shows kidnap your imagination. There was no more compelling show than The Streets of San Francisco. That theme music still gives me shivers.

My infatuation with all things United States can be traced back to Friday nights with Karl and Mike. This ep has the longest list of co-stars in history. I still love this shit.

Being Elin Woods

The problem with being Elin Woods is that she will only ever rise to being number 16 in Tiger Woods's life.

Why number 16? Because if you are Tiger Woods, you have fourteen golf clubs in your bag, and a caddy. That's fifteen, then comes the wife, at number 16.

Elin's in a Catch 22, or, as we might call it, a 16 Handicap. To make Tiger the superstar he is, he needs those clubs. To hand him the clubs, carry them around the course, hold his umbrella and give him "yardage" he needs Steve Williams, his Kiwi caddy.

If Tiger's without any of these elements, he's just another guy. The hundreds of millions of dollars, the ocean-going yachts and all the luxury don't accumulate unless he has those clubs. And his buddy.

Elin knows this. That's why she's so mad. Like most married women, she'd like to be Numero Uno, but can never be if she wants to keep enjoying a life of opulence. A mistress would be acceptable but being considered behind golf clubs and a bloke in shorts? That's an insult.

Her Pussy Smells

I met my boss's girlfriend over the weekend. Ex-girlfriend, more accurately, although they're still friendly.

Do you know why I dropped her? he whispered conspiratorially.

No, I replied, thinking: because you're married?

Because she smelled bad.

What. BO?

No, he said, moving his index finger under his nose, eyebrows raised.

She had a smelly pussy?

Yep. I couldn't handle it.

Did you tell her? She might have an infection and doesn't know.

No. I can't deal with that shit.

But they all smell a little bit. It's part of their charm.

Yeah. But it was easier just not to see her anymore.





I'm figuring a way to ask him for her number.





Image from here [link]

Sex in Space

Look, does anyone really know what's happening on the International Space Station? I've been suspicious of this low-orbiting satellite since the first bits went aloft in 1998. NASA has this huge website telling us how wonderful and space-licious this thing is, but, I mean, can they point to one thing they've actually achieved there? [link]

Pictured is Astronaut Nicole Stott. Congratulations to Nicole for just returning from 91 days on board the ISS. While she was up there she blogged, she tweeted, she checked her email and she looked out the window; in short, she spent her day much like the rest of us. [link] Has space travel become as boring as my own life?

Congratulations too, to Astronaut Randy Bresnik. Randy’s wife, Rebecca, gave birth to their baby girl, Abigail Mae, in Houston late Saturday night. [link] To celebrate, he went for a walk outside the Space Shuttle - which was attached to the ISS at the time - to smoke a cigar, which mightily ticked off NASA people. Then he posted on Facebook.

I think it's clear what's going on here. Abigail Mae is America's first space baby. She was actually born on the ISS two weeks ago to Astronette Nicole, and Tiger Woods is the father. That would explain his domestic misadventures, given that he neglected to tell his wife, Elin, that Nike had paid him a truck-load to father the first 'alien' human. [link] No sex, just a donation, you understand, all they wanted was his DNA.

So now it's all turned pear-shaped, because Elin went batso with a putter over Tiger's head. He then knocked over a fire hydrant and now won't talk to the cops. NASA's hugely peeved (again) that they can't point to wee Abby as the crowning achievement of $100 billion spent on an orbiting cathouse.

Nike's the only winner. Abigail just got her card for the Ladies' PGA tour, and they have her sponsorship locked up from here to Pluto.

Secret World of Women

DocAnnie alerted us to Dr Marta Meana's appearance on Oprah talking about her research. [link] Dr Meana's studies of women and desire led The Oprah to her and resulting fame. I have pulled a few quotes from the article. They need no help from me.

~

Being desired is the real orgasm...

~

...while moments of pleasure are great, it's the anticipation and buildup to those moments that really excite women.

~

...being desired means that a man doesn't just want to have sex. He wants to have sex with you.

~

One of the most common fantasies when it comes to women and sex is to be dominated by a desirable man...They throw caution to the wind, and they're going to take a chance that you're going to be okay with it...

~

Passion is dependent on novelty, discovery, desire...

~

One of the most complicated aspects of female desire, Dr. Meana says, is that women often want different things at different times...

~

There is an additional article here about the science of attraction. It confirms much of what many of us have come to understand, that smell is way more important than we have thought to date. [link]

Pole Dancing

Somewhere between Cirque du Soleil and Mons Venus Gentleman's Club lies the new heat in pole dancing. It's gone suburban, apparently, this ancient art-form, even mainstream. In that wonderfully American way in which anything, no matter how salacious, can be formalized, there is even a Pole Dancing Federation.[link] Their next convention is to be held in Redwood National Park, I understand. Them's some might fine poles there, hot-diggety.

Stripping and poles go hand-in-hand. As a youth on my first visit to a strip club, it was clear that the girls on stage felt more comfortable with a prop, especially the greenhorns. Putting myself in their position, it's natural to be nervous, what with all your bodily wonders and flaws visible to the leering mass of drunk sweaty wallets....I mean customers. Holding onto a pole must feel like holding onto your dignity, at least until Miguel comes backstage during your break and offers you a little something to get you through.

*sniff*

Okay, it's unavoidable, I know. I can't be cute about this: yes, there is a connection between the "pole" and a man's penis, otherwise known as a "pole". There, it's out in the open now.

What's that? Women don't see it that way? Oh.

Well we do. How else to interpret a disrobing female cavorting around a stiff cylindrical verticularity? Can there be another explanation?

In the end, I guess women pole-dancing with their sig.oth. as an audience is the natural result of men unable or unwilling to learn a few dance steps viz: Tango. Women want to dance, they want to do it with their guy, so why not invite an inanimate brass third to help things along - to grease the pole, if you'll pardon the pun. Good luck to them.

And if ever Vegas needs a new attraction it would be this. The strippermobile, complete with pole. A new high in family entertainment. [link]

Fluffer Friday - The Tango

Today I honour Ferdinand Magellan and all matters South American. On this day in 1520 (that's 489 years ago) Ferdy with his three ships successfully navigated the dangerous waters that separate the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Upon realizing they were the first Europeans to find such a watery path, the crews immediately starting dancing a step that was eventually to overtake South America. Originally known as "The Magellan" it came to be known as "Tango", especially when the crew found women when on shore leave.*

So for Fluffer Friday I give you street dancing in Argentina. Sheesh, it's no wonder the economies down there are always in the tank - why work when you can do this?



*Not all statements herein are facts.

**Note to self: learn to Tango. Chicks must dig this stuff.




Illustration from here. [link]

Respect

In my previous post about trust, I pondered whether we would not be better off replacing the concept of 'love' with 'trust'. [link] A few reasons come to mind: love is often confused with other feelings, like chemistry; love is prone to a quick peak and a long decline; love is a catch-all word for a lot of interpersonal stuff, like sex.

Trust, on the other hand, appears to me to be more tangible, if less easily described. Trust often starts slowly, and improves over time. Trust can exist between any two people even without other relationship connections. And trust builds upon itself, with or without love.

Thinking about these two leads me to believe that they need a third leg to create a triumverate, namely respect. In this circumstance, the noun respect I stipulate to mean:

...esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability.

The key phrase there is sense of, because nailing down precisely what is respect, is not easy. Slippery beastie, this respect. One way I've figured to describe it is thus:

If I have respect for someone, I value their opinion approximately the same as mine. If I really respect them, I will likely put their opinion above mine. The subtext to this is an assumption that some people can be given the benefit of the doubt - those we respect - and some cannot.

And there we are, edging into the territory of trust again. If we trust someone, and we respect them, we're likely to let them adjudicate the big life decisions. Less respect than trust, and we'll listen to what they say. Less trust than respect, and we'll listen, but act on our own. In a sense, they're like the bass and treble control on a radio, they're variables of a greater whole.

The idea of the three of them forming a tripod on which lasting relationships grow appeals to me.

Clearly, I'm still unable to articulate precisely what's going on here. In general though, in relationships, I think the ideal progression is:

Respect -----> Trust -------------------->Love.

Funny, that looks like the (admittedly few) really good relationships I've experienced.




If you want a lot of words and some glimmers of understanding, here's a philosophic description of respect .[link]

Illustration from here. [link]

Pussification

Pussification, the term, is the work of George Carlin, a now dead comedian. I found a difficult to read but decent working definition here. [link] But I think that pussification deserves more than a sociologist's bland words, so here's an illustrative story.

Once upon a time, there was a young man. This young man lived in Sydney, a big city on the east coast of Australia. He had many friends, and, being single, at least one eye open on the lookout for sweet young ladies.

A friend of his had a party one night, an event at which our hero met his friend's new housemate. The housemate was a bouncy blonde, self-employed and rather attractive. She also owned an automobile that our young man coveted, so, during the course of the party, a date was made to go for a drive in the sweet ride.

On the day of the driving-date, the weather was calm and warm, so the bouncy blonde wore a short skirt, a tee, and sandals. Everything went well. Our young man got to drive, bought the young lady lunch, and found himself attracted to his companion.

As the date drew to a close, an argument sprang up inside his head. The question? Whether to make a move, or whether to not make a move. All it would have taken was to casually place his hand on her naked knee as they drove along. A simple, unequivocal sign of carnal intent would have been met with either her removing his hand, or her not removing his hand.

In either case, the question would have been answered.

But he didn't. And she didn't. And now we'll never know.

That, my friends, is pussification, when a man will not risk rebuff from placing a hand on a woman's knee on a driving date.








Picture from here. [link]

Trust

Trusty is a brand of dog-food, and dog-food is what you'll end up if you trust the wrong person. Trust improperly placed leads to anger, unhappiness, self-doubt and sexually transmitted disease, and I guess a hundred variations of these things. You know what I mean if you've eaten from that particular bowl - the aftertaste can last for a long time.

I see trust as a more tricky creature than love. Love has positive overtones - even falling out of love has a romantic side, but falling out of trust is deadly. Wouldn't relationships look different if we replaced the word 'love' with 'trust'?

~ I think I'm falling in trust with her

~ He's so trustable I could squeal

~ Every day I wake up and trust her more

He's a sneaky varmint, too, that trust, because he has a self-destructive streak. He often works against those who are closest to him, acting and thinking contrary to his (and their) best interest. One day he's a docile household pet, the next he's sneaking home at all hours smelling of drug-store perfume and rum. And yet it's impossible to lock him up and tame him, because trust is as much about the trustor as the trustee. Trust exists, and can thrive or die, in a mutual space.

Actually, forget the trust-as-animal analogy. A better thought is to liken finding trust to underground mining. The idea is to find seams of gold or opal hidden amidst tons of other rocks. You keep digging away, day after day, and with each discovery of a nugget comes joy, and hopefully an addition to your bank- (or trust-) balance. That sounds about right to me. Trust is often found unexpectedly, often hard-won, and accumulates over time.

If there's another way, I'm unaware.






Photo from here. [Link]

Fluffer Friday - The Crochet Bikini

Crochet bikinis - crochet anything, really - send a mixed message. On one hand, there's the loose-weave lewdness of sweet lady-parts so covered.

On the other is the 'my mother made this and sells them at the local craft fair' stigma. Not so sexy.

I guess it's not a mystery why our beaches aren't awash with multi-coloured unravelling wool 'kinis.

And here is Friday's Fluffer photo - safe for work. [Link]

Loving Winter

The inevitable question: If squirrels hide nuts for the winter, what do pussies store? Tuna fish? Shrimp cocktail? Steak au jus? One can only wonder.

Winter in the northern hemisphere is about staying warm, because cold really happens here. In Australia winter is a kind of limp-wristed summer, a season merely without as much sun, like it's (the sun) gone on vacation for a while and left just the pilot-light burning. Sure the days are shorter and people wear more layers, but it's not 'winter' in the same way that Minnesota has winter. Or Manitoba. They're from the same animal family, but many, many cousins removed.

Open fires and dead animals are a staple of winter, and not just the cooking of. In my top one-hundred list of things to do before I leave this piece of space-time is #76:

"Make Love to the One I Love on Animal Rug in Front of Open Fire."

There it is, right there, below #75:

"Spend Week in Bed with Miss Venezuela (any year will do)".

It's another of those nagging cliché-type thingies, yet still keeps its exoticness. Exoticity? It looks to be a neat thing to do.

Sophisticated people move past making love on dead animals early in life. I think they complete all the standard sexual fetishes and variations before leaving university, which explains a lot about universities. And because I attended universities, but didn't graduate, it explains why I still need to find a woman, a fire, a dead-animal rug, and the time.

This winter, I swear.



Photo from here. [Link]

Funky Cold Medina

She was in bartending school, so it was only fair that I helped with cocktail memorization. Rifling through the index cards, I'd find the most obscure drink recipe and quiz her:

Okay, give me a caipirinha, I'd ask.

2 tsp granulated sugar
8 lime wedges
2 1/2 oz Sagatiba Pura (cachaca)

Muddle the sugar into the lime wedges in an old-fashioned glass. Fill the glass with ice cubes. Pour the cachaca into the glass. Stir well.

Alright, how about a Long Island Iced Tea?

1 part vodka
1 part 1800® Tequila
1 part rum
1 part gin
1 part triple sec
1 1/2 parts sweet and sour mix
1 splash Coca-Cola®
1 oz Absolut® vodka
1 oz Southern Comfort® peach liqueur
1 oz Blue Curacao liqueur
top with cranberry juice
ice

Pour over ice and top off with cranberry juice.

Mix ingredients together over ice in a glass. Pour into a shaker and give one brisk shake. Pour back into the glass and make sure there is a touch of fizz at the top. Garnish with lemon.

Hmmm. Good. How about a Funky Cold Medina? I asked, with one arched eyebrow.

There's no such drink! She said, implying I was being underhanded.

Sure there is. Her cue-cards didn't contain the recipe for a Funky Cold Medina, which is how we ended up using the internet to research cocktail recipes. That naturally led to us discovering the Pink Squirrel.

Not the drink.

Prize goes to Miss T-Shirt for guessing correctly.

Pink Squirrel (definition one.) [Link]

Beloved Mistress, Miss English

It's maddening. The English language can be inspiringly precise, or horrifyingly opaque. With this mercurial tool we attempt to convey to others everything about ourselves: emotions, feelings, ideas, and all kinds of complicated stuff. It's incredible, when you think about it, just how much we can move from our heads to others, and pretty accurately too.

At one time I spoke and read fluent Bahasa, the national language of Indonesia, a much less nuanced tongue. My appreciation of her beauty began when I understood just how much better one can express oneself in English. Maybe the reason she is so valuable is because of her flexibility. We use old words, make up new words, steal words, synthesize words and generally mess with Miss English's undergarments without even asking her first. And yet she blushes not at all.

So I'm in love with Miss English, but she sometimes doesn't love me back. It's probably the fact that I attempt to shove her into a blouse that's too small for her, namely texting, and her boobs keep popping out. I loathe texting. The mis-communications that happen over simple things is astonishing to me, and I wonder if I'm not cut out to text. Perhaps I am trying to dress Miss English for a ball, when all she really wants is an old shirt to go get some groceries.

It's a shame to have this beautiful woman, capable of so many things, only to dress her down with the likes of txtng. She'll always be a Princess to me, no matter how others defile her.


Illustration from here.

Friday Fluffer - Rock Her World

One advantage of writing a blog vaguely about sex is that people send me interesting things. Like this book. I quote from the back-cover blurb:

"...women were asking me how they could get their men to be better lovers. It didn't take me long to figure out that 2+2=69 and that there was a need for a book like this."

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, porn arithmetic.

Review follows.

Safety Word

Or safeword or even Safeword is short-hand for "stop what you're doing now, I'm at my limit."

Being tragically ill informed about the BDSM world, this is about the extent of my experience. As usual, a little knowledge is dangerous. Trying to be cool with stuff about which I know nothing always gets me into trouble. For instance, I made a joke with Angie, the bartender at my local pub the other day.

We need a safety word, I said.

Isn't that safeword, Wombat? she looked at me like I was from outer space.

Sure, whatever, safeword. I want my safeword to mean you should stop serving me drinks and give me the check.

Why can't you just ask for the check, and I'll stop serving you, she said, giving me that duh look she keeps for particularly specious customers.

Oh, c'mon, that's no fun. I want my safety word...

....safeword....

Sorry, safeword to be Pink Squirrel. I am triumphant now.

Pink Squirrel?, she repeated, without enthusiasm but with an extended duh look.

Yep, Pink Squirrel.

Angie walked away shaking her head. I think she thinks I'm weird.



Picture from here.

Ten Dates, Ten Days, Ten Kisses, Whatever

A little history. Years ago I posited the idea that we should delay fist sex (whoops, Freudian slip, FIRST sex, although beginning with that other way would be awesome.....where was I?) to prevent our hormones running away with our lives. As Maryanne says, chemistry is not love.

Pretty boring stuff, but here it is:

Ten Date Rule Part One.

Ten Date Rule Part Two.

At the time, the second installment created a shitstorm in comments (some of which are sadly deleted, narcissism at work) because I referred to oxytocin. I dared to suggest that women are more susceptible to this hormone, and that its power might overwhelm their best interests in the long-term. The gall.

My motivation for all this argy-bargy was to hint that delayed gratification might save lots of heartache.

The idea of ten dates being the magic number is risible, of course. Everyone is different. The point was to open up discussion about some general realities of the way men and women behave around the early stages of getting-to-know-you. The point I'm trying to describe is when a man's ardency (word?) is modified by noticing that the woman is a person too. It might be at the first date, and it might never happen. Only you will be able to tell.

People still laugh at the concept, which is fine. I wish there was a catchier title than 'Ten Date Rule' - something like 'early sex might lead to a sex-only based relationship' or 'when he calls to simply chat without conditions you're good' capture the meaning, but not the spirit.

Happily there are no relationship police, because we're all self-policing. Which really works a treat.



Picture from here.