Photo: Lev Dolgatshjov
Sometimes living in the age of sexuality is tiring. Don’t get me wrong; I like sex despite the rumors that my husband may be spreading. There’s just so much of it around. We are swimming in it. And frankly, some of us are drowning. The ubiquitousness and unlimited variety of it is wearing me out. Everything is accepted and — the worst part really — expected.
When I started out in all this sex business, having sex itself was the risqué part. Sneaking off with sexy Joe V., wearer of the suggestive football jersey number 69, and coming back with a hickey and a serious smile on my face — that was dangerous, that was cutting edge. I used to set the pace. I was sexually free and loving it.
But then I became busy — birthing babies or some other mundane middle age thing — and suddenly I’m no longer cutting edge. No longer dangerous. I am ordinary to the world revolving around me. I’m even almost a fuddy-duddy. That’s right, I’m admitting it — I am a missionary-position-middle-aged-mama. Can it be? Can it really be?
If you go by the hype, at any given moment on the clock at least half of the population of planet earth is bonking. And it’s not just wham bam, thank you Ma’am. It’s serious stuff with orgasms popping left and right, sweaty bodies, eardrum-damaging groans, sheets thrown to the floor, heavy breathing and no TV on.
Place is also critical. Normal everyday people, people who would have in the past been your parents, keep a list of the places they’ve had sex. They even have clubs like the Mile High Club. Honestly, it’s bad enough I must make sure that my husband and I have sex every other second and that we must play Around The World in our own home — first on the kitchen table, then on top of the wall unit, in the dog house — now I must find a way to do it on an airplane? Is anyone else getting tired here or am I alone? On an airplane, with all of that cramped space and oxygen deprivation? It might very well be unhealthy.
Look around. When I was coming of age, lesbianism was for those athletic girls who hovered around the gym teacher. As I was a member of the liberal sect, it was okay by me, whatever they wanted, whatever made them happy. But now, thanks to that attention grubbing Madonna and her equally attention grubbing New Millennium Prototypes Britney and Christina, we must all be up for a healthy romp with the girl next door. Now we must either be seen kissing other women or at the very least leaving it open as a serious option. As if we even have the time for that.
Then there’s oral sex. If a woman performed oral sex on a man in the past, she used to be hanging on the edge of normalcy. Men who performed oral sex on women were saints sent straight down from heaven with soft, golden backlighting and harp music twinkling in the vicinity. It was rarer than a coelacanth. But then along came Sex and the City and boom. Not only was everybody expected to be putting mouth to genitals every chance they could get, they better make damn sure they know how to do it right. It’s all so complicated now.
Then, of course, there’s all of this orgasm stress. You can’t just have sex anymore. You must have tantric orgasms. My husband is really stressed by this one. He read that the male orgasm is not ejaculating. Ejaculation is just orgasms for dummies. If you are serious about orgasms men must have something called a “full body orgasm”. The article was vague about what exactly it was and how you go about achieving it but it seemed to involve complete loss of consciousness and uncontrolled shaking. It sounds to me like a good time to call 911, but maybe I’m wrong.
And what about this Key Party thing? When did this happen? Right, I could just see my husband and I and our group of married friends getting together and having a key party. Put all of our keys in the bowl and pick to see who goes home with whom. How would I ever look at these people again? Is this really a common everyday thing and I’m just seriously out of it? I’d have to plaster a warning label on my husband: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, ALLOW TO LIE VERTICAL ON A COUCH. WILL LEAD TO UNCONSCIOUSNESS WITHIN MINUTES FOLLOWED BY LOUD THREATENING SNORES.
And who would I get? A quick perusal of my choices, and unless I suddenly develop a propensity for trousers worn below underpants (not intentionally) or a stomach that could easily be home to a fetus in its last trimester, I don’t see myself having a sexually stimulating night of it.
I certainly have no intention of becoming my mother, no one does. When I was that wild, sex-filled teenager it was unimaginable. But now I know, it’s not really about you changing. I’m the same. Really. I’m trying not to loose the edge but the edge is moving at warp speed and I’m still stuck with an outdated, petrol engine.