Day 35: Perfecting the “Surprise Kiss” from the 1930s is BTS

It turns out that my first New England visit a few days ago has been such a hit with A.T. that I’ve been invited for an encore. In roughly three weeks, I will be sampling lobsters in Maine and driving around in Newport, Rhode Island. I’ve mentioned in an earlier post that A.T. is a hottie, so I’ll pretty much be a moth fluttering again to the fire with this second trip. The fact that A.T. is an oenophile and that I am rather easily persuaded when intoxicated might make it hard to stick to the sacrosanct “neck-up” rule the next time, especially when I’ve been forewarned by Dorothy Parker:

I like to have a martini,


Two at the very most.


After three I’m under the table,


after four I’m under my host.

Hmmm…What to do.

At a novelty shop in Provincetown, I picked up a smallish, quaint book called “The Art of Kissing: Tips & Techniques from the 1930s” by a Pietro Ramirez, Sr. knowing that I might have some use for it some day. What I didn’t anticipate was that I would end up having use for it sooner than I thought. The plan is, to distract A.T. from pursuing more advanced modes of sexual behavior, I will have to expand my kissing repertoire and inject as much variety and novelty to it as to be sufficiently entertaining to my host. I will therefore devote the next few weeks to becoming a connosieur of the smooch the old-fashioned way. If Nancy Sinatra’s boots were made for walking, A.T. will be reminded that these lips of mine were made for smooching. Below are the more interesting kissing techniques from the booklet:

The “Vacuum” Kiss

Here you start off by first opening your mouth a trifle just after you have been resting peacefully with closed lips. Indicate to your partner, by brushing his teeth with the tip of your tongue, that you wish for him to do likewise. The moment he responds, instead of caressing his mouth, suck inward as though you were trying to draw out the innards of an orange. If he knows of this kiss variation, your  boy will act in the same way and withdraw the air from your mouth. In this fashion, in a very short while, the air will have been entirely drawn out of your mouths. Your lips will adhere so tightly that there will almost be pain instead of pleasure. But it will be the sort of pain that is highly pleasurable.

When you decide that you have had enough of it, don’t suddenly tear your mouth away. Any vacuum when suddenly opened to air gives off a loud popping noise. The procedure is simply to open first a corner of your mouth. You will hear a faint hissing sound when this is done. Immediately, you will find the pressure in your mouth lessen. The muscles will relax. And a delicious sense of torpor will creep your entire body, giving it a lassitude that is almost beatific.

The “Nip” Kiss

In the “nip-kiss”, the kisser is not supposed to open his mouth like the maw of a lion and then sink his fangs into the delicate flesh of the kissee. The procedure is the same as the ordinary kiss except that, instead of closing your lips with the kiss, you leave them slightly open and, as though you were going to nibble on a delicious tidbit, take a playful nip into either the nape of the neck, the cheek or the lips. Just a nip is enough.

The “Kiss-Tease”

The old story of the fox and the grapes which were tantalizingly dangled over his head is the foundation for the method. Simply, the procedure is this: just before lowering your lips for the kiss, instead of planting the kiss, draw your head back again. Then, hold your lips in readiness but do not kiss. Hold this position for as long as possible, all the while you smile tantalizingly into the eyes of the boy. Finally, when both you and he can stand the suspense no longer, lower your lips, slowly, as slowly as you possibly can, and imprint the seal of love onto the avid mouth of your loved one. After that, the technique calls for no specific action. Kissing, like loving, is instinctive.

The “Surprise” Kiss

A most charming manner of kissing is called the “surprise” kiss. This is performed when one of the parties has fallen asleep, on the sofa, let us say. On entering the room, when the other sees his lover asleep, he should tip-toe softly over to him. Then, lowering his head slowly, he should implant a soft, downy, feathery kiss squarely on his lips. This first kiss should be a very light one. But, thereafer, the intensity of the kisses should increase until the sleeping one has awakened and, of course, even beyond that.

The effect of such an awakening to a sleeper is almost heavenly. For, while in the midst of a dream, a pleasant one, most likely, for it will concern the other half of the couple, he feels vaguely, faintly, as though it were the touch of a butterly’s wing, a subtle kiss on his lips. Naturally, in the depths of his sleep, he imagines that it is part of his dream and the result is a pleasant sensation, indeed. Then, gradually, although still asleep, he feels the kisses continue. And the pleasantness continues. Then, as he starts to come out of his sleep, he realizes that the kisses are too real for a dream. But he is sure that he is dreaming. And so, immediately, a relapse from the happiness sets in and a twinge of sadness comes over him because he knows that, instead of being with his lover, he is only dreaming of him.

Imagine, then, his extreme gratification, when, while thinking these drab thoughts, he feels the actuality of an intense, ardent kiss on his lips. His heart flutters wildly. His pulse runs riot. Perhaps he is not asleep, he argues to himself. Then he opens his eyes. And he sees the darling face of his beloved bending over him. And he feels the sensuous touch of his lips on his. Truly, no awakening can be more pleasurable!

 

It’s time to pucker up.

In The Penile Colony (Part One)

A penis, by any other name: On certain men’s propensity for naming their junk

The moment D.W. made it past the first quatrain of Sonnet 116, reciting “O no! it is an ever-fixed mark/That looks on tempests and is never shaken”, it was all I could do not to rip his shirt off him in that Japanese restaurant in Chelsea. This was a few years ago; we were on our fourth date and had both agreed to take things slow before jumping into bed. Perfect, dreamy D.W., who adored Rauschenberg, played Chopin with the best of them, and could tell his Kierkegaard from his Kant (he was a former seminarian). What’s not to love about D.W.? He was funny, caring and – I imagine – hairy in the right places. Earlier that evening, he had invited me to his place after dinner “to show me something” – finally! – as I counted the weeks before we moved in together and got a dachshund. Things couldn’t possibly get any better.

Until later at his place. When he called his penis Moses.

Taking my silence as an invitation to plow on, he explained, “You see, everytime Moses raises his staff, the Red Sea parts”. As the Mariah-Whitney song from The Prince of Egypt started playing in my head, I realized there was no hint of irony in his voice, no wink to dismiss the whole thing as a joke. In fact, he believed every word and said it in a vaguely reverent tone one must use when speaking of a Great Moment in Penis History.  I didn’t know what to think of Moses – I wanted to think this new side to D.W. was the exception and not the rule – but it was hard not to notice him looking up at me, a southern proboscis that would make Monsieur de Bergerac blush. D.W. spent the next two hours regaling me with Moses’ adventures, exodus after Red-Sea-parting exodus. But no matter how much I liked D.W., I realized then that I wasn’t ready for the ménage à trois he had in mind. I had a feeling that Moses would come between me and D.W. in more ways than one.

I decided not to see D.W. after that and I’m sure Moses has since brought a fair share of men to the promised land.  If D.W. had just a little sense of humor about it, I think I would’ve admired the spunk of mixing up these strange bedfellows, sex and religion. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder: Was it wrong to dump a guy because he gave his penis a pet name?

What’s In A Name?

I became interested in what makes guys (and apparently one out of five do) want to give their schlongs terms of endearment and the circumstances under which this usually happens. When it came to naming one’s penis, does size matter? Do cockier guys do it to advertise their junk and think that, there being truth in their advertising, they could get away with it anyway? On the other hand, is it a gesture of self-deprecating humor among the modestly endowed set, a way to neutralize their sexual partner’s reaction upon encountering the cold, hard – and little – truth? Second, is it a question of a guy’s comfort with sexual language? Nicknames, after all, are euphemisms. If a guy prefers to call it “Mr. Robinson” instead of the more ubiquitous “dick” or “cock”, is he trying to mask his prudishness with cheeky nomenclature? Or is it an attempt to humanize sex by injecting humor, making it more playful and therefore emotionally engaging? 

Most importantly, does it have anything to do with his psychological health?

Dr. Paul Hoch doesn’t seem to think it’s healthy, maintaining that “many men even speak of their penis as if  it were not a part of the body, but a distinct personality apart. Often, ‘it’ is even given a name (Peter). The fact that Peter, but not me, does the copulating, of course, removes me from any responsibility”. This reminds me of that joke that goes: Why do men name their penis? Well, they like to be on a first name basis with the one making most of their decisions. In “Studs, Tools, and the Family Jewels: Metaphors Men Live By”, Peter Francis Murphy contends that “[the name] objectifies the [sex] act, removing from it any emotional connections. By personalizing their penises, ironically enough, men objectify them; they treat them like pets they can train to do tricks, and they relegate them to a place outside their humanity.”

The Boner Supremacy

Michael Kimmel has less of an issue with it, pointing out in “The Gendered Society” that:

If men’s sexuality is “phallocentric” – revolving around the glorification and gratification of the penis – then it is not surprising that men often develop elaborate relationships with their genitals. Some men name their penis – “Willie”, “John Thomas”, or “Peter” – or give them cute nicknames taken from mass-produced goods like “Whopper” and “Big Mac”. Men may come to believe that their penises have little personalities, (or, perhaps, what feel like big personalities), threatening to refuse to behave the way they are supposed to behave.

Of course, Moses, Peter and their brethren – both straight and gay – also have ardent fans and they all happen to belong to Miss Becky’s Charm School:

Actually, it is very convenient for a man’s penis to have a name, because we all know that Southern belles love euphemisms. Good gracious, it is just so embarrassing and direct to say “penis”! And, it makes it so much easier to talk about sex. Instead of the very stilted, “Are you interested in having sex now?” the Southern belle can ask, “Sugah, can Big Baby come out and play?” See how much better that is? So yes, naming the penis is important. Personally, I think a man who has not named his penis might serious be lacking in a sense of humor, and no Southern belle wants a man who cannot laugh at himself.

Would you date a guy who referred to his third leg in the third person? Or would it depend on the name he gave it? (More on this in Part Two). 

Day 14: Meeting Joel Derfner, blogger extraordinaire and author of “Swish”, is BTS

Despite evidence to the contrary, I’ve always thought of myself as chaste and virginal. Sure, I had allowed morally depraved, horny men to have their way with me in the past but this was only because I thought that rebuffing them would mean denying help to the needy, and Mother Teresa had never refused to attend to the blind and crippled, no? This enlightened take on things, however, seemed to have gone above the heads of my friends and Manhunt subscribers. So now you know why I’m doing this blog: To reclaim my true virginal nature and prove, once and for all, that one can be disarmingly innocent AND hot at the same time. If I were Eve, these 100 days would start as she and Adam are being banished from the Garden of Eden and rewind, in slow motion, back to that exact moment when the apple is placed strategically before her lips, the serpent cajoling her to take a bite, as she opens her mouth and…FREEZE! Voila, Paradise Regained.

Anyhow, as most screenplays go, such rehabilitative experiences are supposed to traverse an emotional arc where the protagonist starts out being an ugly, loathsome, shallow or ignorant brute and transforms into – after dramatic scenes of soul-searching – a wise, empowered, charming and fully-realized beauty. I already have the ‘beauty’ part nailed down but, knowing that I would eventually become a “wise, empowered, charming and fully-realized beauty” after 100 days, wouldn’t it just be fun and exciting to art-direct my own character makeover? So I asked myself: who should I fashion my transformation after? The usual suspect would be Eliza Doolittle of Shaw’s “Pygmalion” but that wouldn’t work as, medical researchers would be quick to point out, I’m more likely to develop a speech impediment after 100 days without sex, not to mention arthritis. And then an epiphany came over me, as I figured out the one character who could possibly be the role model for my “After” self: Joel Derfner.

Although I first met Joel at the launch of his second book, “Swish: My Quest To Become The Gayest Person Ever” last month, I had started reading his blog, “The Search for Love in Manhattan” four years ago and have been a fan since. It’s an uproariously funny, witty and insightful chronicle of his experiences living in Manhattan and covers pretty much everything that a gay man should know, from Egyptian hieroglyphs, knitting, cheerleading and — the pièce de résistance – orgy etiquette. The idea for his new book “Swish”– his first was “Gay Haiku” — came at summer day camp when Joel was six and he tried to sign up for needlepoint and flower arranging, but the camp counselors wouldn’t let him because, they said, those activities were for girls only. That very day, he decided to embark on a solemn and sacred quest: to become the gayest person ever. What ensue are delightful forays into musical theater, step aerobics and go-go dancing, among other things.

Even though he’d be the first to disagree, I say that meeting Joel Derfner over a light meal is BTS. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that “Better Than Sex” was inspired by “The Search for Love in Manhattan”. And Joel, who’s happily engaged, proves that – with humor, balls of acrylic yarn and an impeccable command of the English language – the search for love in Manhattan can be one that ends beautifully. 

Did I Give Up Sex for This? (Part One)

Studies show that sex improves bladder control, reduces the risk of arthritis and makes the prostate “happier”. So am I just digging myself an early grave here?

Just when I think I’m onto something with my “Down with Sex!” manifesto, along comes a violent mob of scientific and medical researchers ready to burn me at the stake of sexual heresy. Clearly Google is in bed with the conspirators against my crusade – a search of “benefits of sex” yielded 1.75 million web pages. I did find an entry that was potentially sympathetic to my plight but, alas, “Benefits of 80 Million Years of Sex” turned out to be about asexual microscopic organisms called bdelloid rotifers whose continued existence for millions of years have boggled scientists who believe that asexual life forms should become extinct after a short period of time.  The prejudice against the no-sex crowd runs deep, preying on everything from prehistoric amoeba to readers of Cosmopolitan magazine (admittedly not a considerable stretch).

What exactly am I missing out on by taking a vacation from sex? I imagine medical researchers pointing maliciously at me, some of them laughing uncontrollably, as the judges did at Joan of Arc, as they go about tooting the horns of sex, as follows: 

Improved sense of smell: After sex, production of the hormone prolactin surges. This in turn causes stem cells in the brain to develop new neurons in the brain’s olfactory bulb, its smell center. (I suppose this comes in really handy when trying to probe into, post-coitus, your sexual partner’s personal hygiene habits.)

Pain-relief: Immediately before orgasm, levels of the hormone oxytocin surge to five times their normal level. This in turn releases endorphins, which alleviate the pain of everything from headache to arthritis to even migraine. (I guess it also diminishes the possibility of hacking off one’s playmate as sex gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy and happy people don’t just kill their husbands.)

Better bladder control: Heard of Kegel exercises? You do them, whether you know it or not, every time you stem your flow of urine. The same set of muscles is worked during sex. (Bondage and discipline sessions are recommended for advanced practitioners.)

Reduced risk of heart disease: By having sex three or more times a week, men reduced their risk of heart attack or stroke by half. In reporting these results, the co-author of the study, Shah Ebrahim, Ph.D., displayed the well-loved British gift for understatement: “The relationship found between frequency of sexual intercourse and mortality is of considerable public interest.” (Fine.)

Weight loss, overall fitness: Sex, if nothing else, is exercise. A vigorous bout burns some 200 calories–about the same as running 15 minutes on a treadmill or playing a spirited game of squash. The pulse rate, in a person aroused, rises from about 70 beats per minute to 150, the same as that of an athlete putting forth maximum effort. British researchers have determined that the equivalent of six Big Macs can be worked off by having sex three times a week for a year.  (As God is my witness, I will never be caught dead devouring a Big Mac – and three of them in the same week, at that!)

Better teeth: Seminal plasma contains zinc, calcium and other minerals shown to retard tooth decay. Since this is a family Web site, we will omit discussion of the mineral delivery system. Suffice it to say that it could be a far richer, more complex and more satisfying experience than squeezing a tube of Crest–even Tartar Control Crest. (Is it just me or was the writer actually comparing the penis to a tube of Tartar Control Crest?)

A happier prostate? Some urologists believe they see a relationship between infrequency of ejaculation and cancer of the prostate. A study recently published by the British Journal of Urology International asserts that men in their 20s can reduce by a third their chance of getting prostate cancer by ejaculating more than five times a week. (Duly noted.)

Going on and on about the benefits of sex will only expose my masochistic streak so I’ll end here. But while my naysayers have a straight flush, they don’t exactly know the hand I have. “All warfare is based on deception,” Sun Tzu said. “Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive.” The debate is far from over, and you’ll know what I have up my sleeve in the second part of this entry. 

 

Day 10: Having ice cream with a Buddhist Monk is BTS

It’s only my tenth day of celibacy and already I feel that I’ll be upgraded to a higher state of being when I’m reincarnated. The heavens seem to be conspiring it; why else would I cross paths with a Buddhist monk, have ice cream with him (raspberry razzle) and even get to second…cone? (Actually, the path-crossing part might seem a bit disingenuous considering that I orchestrated the whole ice cream setup and was gloating about it to friends for weeks prior.)

R.Z. is a former English professor in New York City and was ordained last February by the Dalai Lama himself. He is presently based at a monastery in the Southwestern region of France, about two hours away from the Pyrenees mountains, but is here for a week and he was a panelist for a literary event I put together. We got to talking about how one ends up making a vow of celibacy (although mine was admittedly the partial sort). Aside from one’s religious beliefs and neuroses about catching sexually transmitted diseases, the diagnosis we came up with cuts with a kind of penetration I haven’t felt in weeks. That my 100 days was an attempt to regain a sense of self and independence from other people. That I was avoiding being emotionally hurt. That I wanted to cultivate a relationship according to an ideal of chastity. And there I was, guilty on all counts. While Laszlo merely nodded vigorously, another attendee at the reading, after hearing part of my conversation with R.Z., appeared to be deep in thought before suggesting, “Have you ever thought of joining Sexual Compulsives Anonymous?”

While I have yet to get past the fact that the SCA was a running joke in the Will Ferrell roller-blading movie, I can’t deny that everyone is driven by a compulsion, a force that may be irrational and yet beyond our control. (In one’s teenage years, they’re called hormones.) Giving up sex for the summer is a compulsion in itself, absurd in the way that one’s sexual peak is perceived to be in one’s twenties and here I am putting my libido on hold. Which means that I’ll have to channel my appetites into something else. I don’t know what it is, but I have I feeling that it’ll be something unexpected, something incredible. 

When I got home that night, I saw that my friend R. had sent me an email, with the header: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

It read:

Anthony Bogaert, Ph.D., in a 1999 Archives of Sexual Behavior article, “The Relation Between Sexual Orienation and Penile Size,” stated:

“The relation between sexual orientation and penile dimensions in a large sample of men was studied…

Penile dimensions were assessed using five measures of penile length and circumference from Kinsey’s original protocol. On all five measures, homosexual men reported larger penises than did heterosexual men.”

And just like that, my campaign to reincarnate as a higher form of being got a little harder. 

Day 6: Fantasizing about a certain naughty professor is BTS

Where does one find them in Manhattan, these gentlemen who exude an air of mystery and menace?

If you’re in the mood for a tease and a delicious sadist, look no further than Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. When I first picked up the novella last year (a long, heinous decade after my years as a “nymphet”), I was expecting to read the literary godmother of Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” video or American Apparel ad campaigns. Instead, Nabokov whisked me off to a world of precarious morality and erotic danger and, wouldn’t you know, he had me nodding in scandalized complicity with Lolita’s predator, Humbert Humbert. Very naughty, that Hum. 

Now I do not tolerate pedophilia of any sort but what fascinated me about Hum as an artistic creation is that he was in no way a loutish caveman but a wit and connosieur with, shall we say, very particular (albeit esoteric) tastes. Introducing Humbert Humbert – scholar, narcissist, devourer extraordinaire – who has this to say of his own virile splendours: “Let me repeat with quiet force: I was, and still am, despite mes malheurs, an exceptionally handsome male; slow-moving, tall, with soft dark hair and a gloomy but all the more seductive cast of demeanor.” Less eloquent words than these have reduced me to putty; a glimpse of his chest hair would render my surrender complete and this blog non-existent.

Whenever I’m bored on the subway, my eyes occasionally wander, absorbed in a private game of “Where’s Humbert?” as I survey the car for potential Hums. Lolita – which has since become the favorite of my Dangerous Liaisons – is to blame for the amorous tremors that men in their thirties and early forties have sometimes triggered in me. There’s something I find incredibly sexy about men who’ve grown into their sexiness and let it settle comfortably in their skin. Where does one find them in Manhattan, these gentlemen who exude an air of mystery and menace? I must admit that I’m quicker to swoon over a man’s mind than his chiseled pecs, hence my predilection for graduate school classrooms over sweaty gyms. For some reason, there’s an insouciant grace in the swagger of Hum’s kind – George Michael swaggering his way into toilets and public parks, however, is a different story.

While Humbert’s crime is unforgivable – he chose Lolita, after all, over me – my affection for him remains undiminished. For a day, sex is certainly worth trading for fantasizing about a guy who could’ve made NAMBLA a real contender if he played for the other team. What bliss that the spirit of my dark prince charming who would’ve given Dorian Gray a run for his cheekbones lives on in a NYU classroom or two, inhabited by a minority I fondly refer to as PILF or Professors I’d Like to…Fantasize About (since my blog forbids me to do that other thing). 

Play me again, Hum. 

Day 4: The Mystery of the Compromised Wax Penis is BTS

While trying to make myself breakfast early this morning, I found an erect penis inside the freezer. It was made of wax and wrapped in plastic, snuggled between Ziplocked bags of ground beef and lima beans. Don’t get me wrong; it was like running into an old acquaintance – it used to adorn a chocolate marble cake with the inscription “Make a Wish and Blow!” that my roommate M. ordered for my birthday party last March. Its entrance was met with fits of squealing and giggling from the guests of the smallish party, who were mostly women, feigning scandal at the sight of an engorged male member. Preying on the guests, M. forced each one to have her picture taken with the cake but, in no time, the ladies seemed to have warmed to the appendage and found it terribly amusing to be caught by the camera doing indelicate things to it with their mouths – and this was just the wax version. Being the birthday celebrant, I felt betrayed about being upstaged by what seemed like the central attraction of a zoo. I felt a little like Moses coming down Mt. Sinai only to find the Canaanites worshipping the Golden Calf. By the end of the night, only R.’s 70-year-old aunt managed to keep much of her dignity intact (although she did agree to one or two photographs). 

Although the sculpture has gotten a little moldy around the base (some greenish matter and random purple blotches), the craftsmanship is impressive. Its proportions seemed to be modeled after that of a respectably endowed man and if it had looked any more lifelike, I swear it could’ve been sawed off some unwitting celebrity at Madame Tussauds (I hear the Nicholas Cage in his fuschia satin shirt wears a stunned expression).  The cake company was not particular with the coloration, though – the whole thing was uniformly flesh-colored from the head of the shaft down to the compact balls – probably to dissuade customers from using a product intended for the kitchen the same way one uses accessories generally found in the nightstand drawer. However, with the economy in recession, I wouldn’t be surprised if the cake company faces antitrust lawsuits from dildo manufacturers.

Which reminds me. I couldn’t get over the fact that something kept in the freezer could have grown molds, which the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines as “a furry growth of minute fungal hyphae occuring typically in moist warm conditions, especially on food or other organic matter”.

Moist.

Warm.

Conditions.

Now, as far as I know, “Griffin” (which the wax sculpture shall be heretofore referred to as, saving me the trouble of looking up euphemisms for penis) has never been taken out of the refrigerator and deposited on a moist warm area. Or has he? The possibility brings to mind horrors I cannot even begin to imagine.

While there is something perversely comforting about having an erect penis in one’s freezer day in and day out, the possibility that Griffin can, from time to time, grow himself a body and limbs and walk out of the freezer to nestle into moist warm surfaces is not.

How to solve the mystery of the moldy Griffin? Shercock Holmes, we have a problem.

P.S. I thought better than to upload a photo of the subject of today’s entry. However, I will gladly email photos of it upon request. 

Day 2: Doing a ‘Golden Girls’ DVD marathon is BTS

I’m pretty sure everyone – or, more accurately, everyone with the XX chromosome – has her favorite moment in the Sex and the City movie; aside from making my friend sniffle her way through three boxes of Kleenex, “I’m sorry I screwed it up – but I will love you forever” has restored her faith in internet-facilitated relationships. There’s one masterstroke of sassy genius here, though, that never fails to bring a tear to my eye: Charlotte naming her baby Rose, in a winking, playfully subtle homage to the scatterbrained, lovable Rose of the spiritual predecessor to Sex and the City, post-menopause and pre-cosmos,The Golden Girls. Transplant Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha to 1980s Miami in their sixties and you get cougars emeritus Dorothy, Rose, Sophia and Blanche. Seriously, where else could Samantha Jones have picked up her talent at ball-juggling than from the original belle of the balls herself, Blanche Deveraux? (If you ask me, I want to be Bea Arthur, who plays Dorothy Zbornak, when I grow up.)

And so, earlier today, I feasted on four shows from Season 3 of The Golden Girls and the fabulous foursome deliciously succeed in hitting my, shall we say, G-spot every time. The repartee is hysterical, the chemistry between the four legends sublime and the show a cheeky chronicle of sociological issues, ranging from illegal immigration and euthanasia to domestic violence and Rose’s vansap kaka. So for a moment, allow me to trade your cosmos for a slice of cheesecake as my favorite sextagenarians dish on men’s endowment, men’s undergarments and more.

On Men’s Undergarments:

Blanche: Wasn’t it sweet, opening his closet and seeing his boxers hanging there with that provocative nickname on them.


Dorothy: Blanche, Everlast is a brand name, not a nickname.

On a Popular Myth Pertaining to Male Anatomy:

Blanche: By the way, did you girls know that the size of a man’s ears is directly proportionate to the size of his other body organs?


Rose: What do you mean?


Dorothy: He had a big floppy pancreas, Rose.

On Safe Sex:

Blanche: You know, girls, we are going on a romantic cruise with Jeff, Rich and Randy, and we may need to bring… you know… protection.


Rose: What do you mean?


Dorothy: Two armed guards, Rose. No, Blanche was talking about what’s over there, those… [points to a counter]


Rose: A Hershey bar?


Dorothy: Over one.


Rose: A pack of gum?


Dorothy: To the left.


Rose: Hair dye?


Dorothy: CONDOMS, Rose, CONDOMS, CONDOMS, CONDOMS!

On Breast Enhancement:

Blanche: I’ve decided what I’m gonna use my bonus check money for.


Dorothy: What?


Blanche: I’m gonna have my breasts enlarged!


Rose: Blanche, why would you want to do that?


Blanche: Rose, breasts are back in fashion! Besides, what God didn’t give me, Dr. Newman will. He’s the Picasso of plastic surgery!


Dorothy: Fine, Blanche. Just make sure he doesn’t attach one to your forehead.

On What I Might Have to Resort to Doing at One Point or Another in the Next 98 Days:

Michael [caught in the middle of an “armed struggle”]: Grandma, this isn’t what it looks like.

Sophia: Please! I’m eighty years old. I may not remember what it feels like, but I sure as hell know what it looks like!

 

 

Day 1: Pork Ramen at Yakitori Taisho is BTS

 

It’s not exactly like rain on your wedding day, or a free ride when you’ve already paid but, for some reason, my first Better Than Sex selection turned out to be something enormous, meaty and felt really good in my mouth. Who would’ve thought a bowl of Chasyu Tonkotsu Ramen at Yakitori Taisho would do the trick? Apparently, my friend LH, who dragged me into the scrappy Japanese pub at St. Marks place to try the ramen noodles with extra roasted pork in pork soup base. We were going for dinner there before scooting over to Film Forum for Jean-Luc Godard’s “Vivre Sa Vie”. While the hooker Nana had her “life to live” in that film, I had my own palate to please.

After demanding that the waitress swear to the dish not having a single trace of bananas, pumpkin seeds and figs – the top three “super foods to increase libido”, according to http://www.raiselibido.com – I was instantly won over as soon as the bowl landed in front of me. What’s not to love about the tonkotsu ramen, whose every thick slice of pork melted as you ate them, and every spoonful of its rich and milky broth possessed my taste buds? (And at 8.50, it’s just the right length price.) The pork, above all, churned my butter. To paraphrase Mae West, “It’s not the meat in my life, it’s the life in the meat.” And the pork slices are practically bursting with it, locked in a seductive tango with the broth. Some of the the fat melts into what’s left of the broth which taste better the longer the pork resides in it. The broth returns the favor, adding a bit of flavor to the meat and – I’ll stop right here as obsessing over meat clearly does not augur well for this blog. 

Let me point out, though, that ramen isn’t the specialty of Yakitori Taisho – the kind of Japanese pub that I imagine worn-out Japanese executives roll up their sleeves at while hunkered over a bowl of no-nonsense grilled fare at day’s end – its incredible variety of skewers is, and LH and I helped ourselves to chicken liver, beef guts and quail eggs. We also had a delicious serving of Agedashi Tofu (deep-fried tofu) and Mentai Potato (french fries with spicy cod roe and mayo sauce).

That’s one day down, 99 more to go. 

Flirt Flirt Bang Bang

Why flirting can be just as orgasmic — if not altogether better — than sex. 

As I’m about to embark on my hundred-day quest for things better than sex, I wax nostalgic about great dates in the past that ended with both me and my date still having our clothes on. My first date in 2006 is pretty high up there.  But “date” doesn’t exactly cut it: there was no dinner, candlelit or otherwise, and no token movie afterwards either. Just two cups of midnight cappuccino at some out-of-the-way café, two reluctant insomniacs, and…an honest-to-goodness three-hour flirting showdown.

Perhaps our flirt-à-tête was less ambitious than the soul-baring exchange between Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in “Before Sunrise” but, at its best, it swung the romantic pendulum towards “artful coquetry”, as my date put it. Eschewing the overrated transfusion of bodily fluids for a duel of wits, our date was as Wilde as it could get.

Such as it was, the date was a pure delight, one I’m tempted to call, with my resurgent pretensions to sophistication and sexual naïveté, both an intellectual exercise and a social experiment. For one, it will certainly go down in my book as the time I officially coined the term (and future buzzword, methinks): “FQ” or Flirting IQ. For the longest time, sex has been thought to be flirting’s logical or, to the more id-indulgent, inevitable conclusion. This simplistic notion overlooks the fundamental tension between the two; this nugget of erotic wisdom was best served in Milan Kundera’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”: “Flirtation is the promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee.”

Indeed. Which brings up the question of “chemistry” between two people. First we have romantic chemistry, about two people being emotionally compatible that leads to a commitment. Then there’s sexual chemistry, with the culprits being physical attraction and raging appetites of the nasty sort. But a different kind of chemistry – just as consequential, I think, and even more interesting than the first two, curiously slipped out of people’s radar: flirting chemistry. That smoldering magical spark we see between legendary Hollywood screen pairs wrapped up in their witty repartee? Flirting chemistry. (And Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid can tell you all about it. *wink*)

I suspect that the reason why flirting chemistry isn’t getting as much ink as, say, its sexual counterpart, is because flirting is habitually viewed as – ugh! – foreplay, a mere pre-coital social lubricant. Nothing wrong with foreplay, alright, but to simply engage in flirting to get into people’s pants is like having sex to breed. Flirting is a pleasure in and of itself, and unabashedly my drug of choice (and my date’s as well, who is a flirting virtuoso). I’ve realized too, having gone on a decent share of dates, that a flirt is only as good as his flirting partner. If hopeless romantics agonize over hard-to-find soulmates, the ideal flirting partner – and his unique concoction of wit, timing, sensual charisma and ingenious innuendos – is a lot more elusive.

Recalling the orgasmically unorgasmic success of that date, I’m now thinking of devoting this summer to an academic investigation of flirting, the art and science of it. Certainly, the date has inspired a thesis of what I think is a worthy Carrie Bradshaw entry:

“In the age of instant gratification, good old flirting has given way to the pick-up line which, in turn, has been losing its following to quickie-happy cruising, language be damned. Is flirting going the way of the dodo or, horrors, has it actually gone extinct?”

I couldn’t help but wonder.

Lust for Life

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged – in New York City, at least – that a single twentysomething gay man in possession of fairly good looks (and even better buttocks) must want to get laid.

This I found out at dinner a few weeks back where my friends and I got to talking about our plans for the summer. G. wanted to sign up for a cardio class; L. was going to take up knitting and travel to Barcelona; I decided to – what the heck – give up sex for 100 days.

Apparently, nothing can sober up a band of gay men teetering on vodka-induced incoherence faster than denouncing one of life’s deepest (pun intended) pleasures. They did try to be diplomatic, I think. Aside from being accused of squandering my youth away, I was merely told to expect the onset of throbbing headaches and, starting in the fourth week, the gradual deterioration of my psychomotor abilities, which last I heard was among the symptoms of syphilis. Hypochondriac that I am, this warning gave me pause, no matter how hysterical it was. When I was 8, I had convinced myself that I was going to die of Rabies after my Labrador Retriever licked a closed wound on my finger even when he’d already been vaccinated. The bitches at my dinner table, however, had not, making them a little harder to deal with.

“So tell us why you’re doing this,” L. gently prodded, the duel of bewilderment and amusement playing out nicely on his face. I can see why he’s curious – L. and I share a fondness of applying the metric system to certain parts of the male anatomy. By that point, I knew that “for kicks” will not do for this crowd. Sun Tzu said that the best way to neutralize your opponents is to stun them, so I did what any Catholic boy worth his circumcision would in moments of persecution: I took the high road.

“Are we totally powerless against our hormones that we can’t possibly shut down our sexual urges even for a while?”

Surely the minute the words flew out of my mouth I knew I’d asked a rhetorical question. For one, 100 days in gay calendar isn’t “for a while”, it’s pretty much the entire run of Sex and The City on HBO. 

But as glib and ironic as I was trying to sound, I caught myself seriously mulling over the question. I’m a single gay guy who has, in a fitting homage to aging Southern belles, occasionally depended on the kindness of strangers. As it so happens, the little – or big, if I’m lucky – acts of kindness are seldom transferable to actual dates or even coffee. The guys I do have coffee with first and end up dating seem to confuse sexual chemistry with emotional connection and we part ways eventually, leaving me just a little worse for the wear each time.

In this city that never sleeps – or does so with just one person – I know that there are countless others like me, men and women, gay and straight, friends and strangers, whose emotional lives might have gotten screwed by sex – and not in a good way.  What never ceases to surprise me, though, is that everyone manages to bounce back after the dramas and awkward mornings-after. That’s not possible if one has no anchor, some form of spiritual rudder keeping him or her from falling to pieces after walking one walk of shame too many. Almost always, we owe this to our relationship with the engulfing yet nurturing force that is New York City. (Well, New York City and Ryan Gosling.)

My Hundred Days of Solitude – and, by extension, this blog that will chronicle those days – will be an experiment: Will New York City keep me enamored and diverted long enough to actually be worth stepping back from sex for 100 days? For each of the 100 days, I’ll be looking for an alternative to sex, whether a dessert, an outdoor concert, an interesting character, anything under the NYC sun, that is Better Than Sex, which is what this blog is called. This is where you come in: you give me suggestions on things to do during my dry spell and help me finish the marathon. It feels nice depending on strangers for more than some splendor in the grass, the kind with the high thread count.

The experience will be quite an adventure too, not unlike the undertaking made by Sir Edmund Hillary more than fifty years ago. It’s like climbing Mt. Everest, only I’m not allowed to climax. And this will go on over and over. For 100 days. Did the Lady sing the blue balls yet? And more importantly, will guys continue speaking to me at parties once they find out about my deep, dark secret?

I’m going to have to count on the wisdom of Barbra to pull through this one:

 

“Ooh, life is juicy

Juicy and you see

I gotta have my bite, sir 

Get ready for me love

‘Cause I’m a “comer”

I simply gotta march

My heart’s a drummer

Don’t bring around the cloud to rain on my parade.”

 

Time to bite something juicy. Start the countdown.