Of Movies And Sex And What Feels Good

When it comes to sex on the Silver Screen, my tastes run the gambit from phoney and air-brushed to sweaty and realistic. We've all seen the scripted pornography where two incredibly sexy people fuck for twenty minutes, and then orgasm together. If a fellow can thrust inside a woman for more than five minutes he either suffers from a disorder or he put a dab of benzocaine on his man-clit. Either that, or he's wearing a condom the thickness of a banana peel. In reality, the meeting of a stone hard cock and the moist flower of a vagina leads to, at best, a few minutes of classic, old-fashioned "fucking." Usually, it's over in less than two minutes. Sometimes it's over in less than two seconds, and then you say, "Aw, honey, that's never happened to me before" or "I couldn't help it, you're so damn hot."

For the woman, if there is no tongue there is no orgasm. It's a fallacy that cunnilingus is a new phenomenon. I was looking at a book of Victorian Era pornography a couple of months ago, and commenting on it with a female friend of mine. The first thing she noticed is that there was a lot of muff-diving. We probably think that people only fucked in the missionary position, and women never got off, because we equate the past with old people. As if old people were always old. And that people of the past were somehow more uptight. That attitude feeds a lot of myths. One myth is that in the colonial period people fucked through a hole in a sheet. Sometimes you hear it as Orthodox Jews fucking through a sheet. Either way, it's not true. Every generation likes to think that they are more open-minded than the last. It's nice to think that you're living in a time when every taboo is being challenged, at least if you're a person who admits to liking sex a great deal. But I can assure you that every generation has done it before, and that there is nothing new under her bun.

Personally, I admit that there are times when I like to get really freaky in bed, and there are times when I want my pecker left alone. Depression is like that, and mania is the opposite. When I'm manic, I want every hole crammed with goodness; hers and mine. So what I'm doing in bed, if anything, reflects the status of my mental health. That makes sense. If I'm in too good a mood, I start pointing out attractive women to my lesbian friends, which annoys them. It's hard not to, though, when you're manic and horny. And if I my occasional observation that a man is sexy makes you nervous, you're too square to be my kind of cat. I'm so hep. And when I'm in a good mood, I just can't hold it in.

This leads me to my point about sex and movies. I just saw a movie called, "Perfume" that recently opened in theatres. It's a very sexy movie based on a very sexy novel. And it does idealize the classic image of feminine sexuality as youthful and wide-eyed and just breaking with innocence. Girl, you'll be a woman soon. Remember that Neil Diamond song? Anyway. The movie also does something very rare in movies. Perhaps because it's not a very mainstream product. It shows average looking people fucking their brains out. Here in a fantastic orgy scene. I won't ruin the story and explain why, but in one scene a whole crowd of people just decide to fuck the person standing next to them. It's wild, man. Men on men, women on women, along with fat, skinny, hairy, old, young, you name it. The odds of your neighbor looking like Natalie Portman or Brad Pitt are pretty slim. And this movie honestly reflects that. That alone is compelling cinema.

Sex doesn't belong only to the young and gorgeous. Your ass doesn't have to be sublime to be spanked, and if your lover isn't an idiot, he or she will forgive your tiny cock. A friend of mine complains that her marvelous tits are flawed because one is slightly larger than the other. That's the kind of fucked up world we live in. Perfection is sought everywhere. Honestly, though, if you have skin and a libido, sex is for you. We all like to look at models, and see a fine, tight ass or cute little glistening clit mounted before the camera. But I never knew any pornography that was more than a moon-cast shadow next to a willing partner lying naked in the bed beside you. I'm not even talking about love here, just lust. Love adds another dimension. The poets have that covered. If you're lucky enough to be fucking the person you love, then you are fortunate indeed.

The best sex I've ever had was with a woman who was not pretty by any standard. The worst sex was with a woman who would only fuck with her underwear on. She would pull it to one side. I kid you not. She became vaguely catatonic after penetration. I'm not picking on her, I don't know what she's been through. Perhaps she was abused (that's my theory). But Madison Avenue presumes to know what you want in the sack, and they define it primarily as young, immaculate and enticing. I'd like to tell them a little secret; young people don't know how to fuck. It's a generalization, I know, but advertisers think in generalizations. I'm sure there are some wunderkinds out there who really know what they are doing. For the most part, though, knowing how to fuck well is something you learn, coupled with a modicum of empathy, humility and geneuine concern for your partner's enjoyment. So you can't be selfish, either. Experience is important, though, and that can only come with age. Another pun. This post is rife with them. Like fleas in cheap African hotel. Personally, I think people generally fuck best in their 30's thru 50's. Those years combine physical well-being with hard-earned knowledge. And that doesn't necessarily mean multiple partners, either. A couple that communicates their wants well will learn more in a week than a couple that stays quiet and just hopes by some miracle that the sex will get better year after year.

So I'm still going to spend some of my time looking at womens' asses on the Internet. And most of those asses will be young asses, like age 5 or 6. I'm kidding. Probably mostly asses in their 20's and 30's.. But as Bruce Willis' girlfriend says in Pulp Fiction, "What is pleasing to the eye and what is pleasing to the touch are seldom the same." Excellent, I ended with a movie quote.

A Matter Of Civil Rights

My response to what happened here in Massachusetts this week, regarding gay marriage, is simple. The legislature is not legally or ethically bound to vote on any proposed referenda. And precedent shows that "taking action" on a referendum doesn't mean having to have a vote. In fact, six out of seven referenda have gone without a vote in the past few years. So this is all sad and pathetic, and hopefully the new legislature will kill it by choosing not to take a vote.

That a matter of civil rights might be put up for a popular vote sickens me. You can't vote away a person's right to get married! Just like you can't vote to have different bathrooms for blacks and whites, or different drinking fountains. Preventing gay marriage is just as stupid and cruel as segregation.

And what could possibly be at the root of such truculence? What motivates the leaders of the "defense of marriage" organizations that spit venom at loving couples who want to be married? Naturally, they are compelled by religion! Only religion could rob a person of his or her ability to reason, or blunt our natural predilection towards compassion. Empathy is the analogue of compassion, and it naturally travels in the minds of every human being. Only a herd of believers of an imaginary super being full of intolerance, malice and stupidity could abandon logic and lenity without collapsing in shame. Without compassion or reason one may as well be a psychopath; a threat to every thinking, feeling person. And when it comes to protecting the civil rights of a minority, a turn to violence is justifiable. If you saw a crowd beating up a fellow on the street, wouldn't you think it right to step in and stop the slaughter? What we have in Massachusetts is a gang of thugs, motivated by their sky-king and funded mostly by out-of-state money, trying to destroy the lives of a small group of people. If they win, the time will have arrived to hit back, literally. I will take pleasure in touching one of those barbarians on the nose, with my fist. I despise violence, but I believe in self-defense.

I'll end with a fantastic quote from Inherit The Wind. It's speaks of a different from of bigotry, the one against science. It also shows how religion can rob people of their brains and hearts. Enjoy.

Can't you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we'll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!

A Failed Attempt At Heroism and My Flitting Ego

Last night I danced like a fat penguin back into the world of bachelorhood and burst from my cocoon of isolation. A social butterfly emerged! Well, for one night, anyway. I know that social anxiety and paranoia will return, it's the nature of my illness. Crippling me with strange thoughts, a desire for self-destruction and a world view that has everyone hating and/or mocking me is what my illness does. It sucks, but at least medication and therapy triumphs on occassion and I'm allowed to feel good about myself, and perhaps even desirable. Those moments fucking rock.

Now I'm back in my flat, of course, with nothing of interest standing between me and surgery on Thursday. I'm a little on edge about it, but for the most part I'm doing well. It will be good to feel the pain go away. I think about the well-being of my friends, and my brother and father, a lot these days. Hideous nightmares and an almost constant sense of urgency plague me. I imagine that something terrible is about to happen, or just has, and I need to do something RIGHT NOW. I deal with it the same way as I deal with most of my insane notions, I take a pill.

Pills, wonderful pills.

I made a major design decision when I removed the "Blue Nude" painting from my wall. I'm still getting used to it's absence. In it's place I've put an enormous wall map that will allow me to track who the US is invading. At some point I'll memorize all those African countries. Perhaps when I'm convalescing next week. You may have seen the "Blue Nude" in some of my webcam photographs. It was painted by a friend of Donna's several years ago, and it's painfully mediocre. It was getting on my nerves, so it had to go...it just had to. If it were awful it would bother me less. In an odd way, a failed attempt at creating art is more compelling than a moderately successful one. We all aspire to greatness, and have experienced and understand failure. But the stink of mediocrity is a foul one. At least when we fail, we can pretend we didn't try. Oh, how cynical. Yes, I'm aware. If you want it, let me know. With the map behind me I look like I'm doing the nightly news when I'm on my webcam.

You can't pick your nose with an oven mitt on.

Returning to my abode this morning, something wild happened on the subway. We call it the "T" here in Boston, because we're so fucking clever. Actually, an advertising firm in the 1960's came up with that at the request of Mayor Kevin White. Now you know. Anyway...the wild thing. I was running down the stairs to jump onboard the waiting train at South Station, and as I made it through the doors I caught the eyes of a young lad who smiled at my Indiana Jones-like last minute leap. Well, it was good for a fat fuck like me, anyway. Then I suddenly heard people yelling, and the guy who was smiling at me looked horrified. I turned around and saw a Korean woman screaming because her ankle was caught in the doors of the subway car. Naturally, people were yelling, "Don't start the train!" and "Open the doors!", that sort of thing. I dropped my stuff and did a Samson immitation, trying to use my pathetic, weak arms to force the doors open. She didn't stand a chance of me releasing her. Then the train started to move, and everyone went batshit. I went batshit. I thought this poor woman would be getting a new nickname..."Stumpy." People were pulling on her, I was pulling on the doors, and in Paris a small dog peed on the Rue de Madelaine. To my amazement, the train did stop and the doors opened. The middle-car conductor showed up and said she should go to a doctor, but she didn't speak English very well and just repeated, "No, I OK" over and over again. I didn't have to hear her spotty English to know that she was visiting, or an immigrant. No American would give up the chance to sue for some fast cash.

When everyone calmed down, I sat and caught an occassional glance at an attractive middle-aged woman who was reading, "Lolita." That book keeps showing up around me. As sweat poured down my fat face, I started to feel proud about what I did. It wasn't much, and I didn't even force the doors open. But most people just screamed and looked on. I caught a glimpse of what it must feel like to be needed. To be of assistance instead of relying on the kindness of strangers myself. It was nice. For a brief moment, my ego developed from a gross little maggot into a fat fly, which was subsequently squashed flat again in due course. Yes, a fly is tiny and disgusting, and look what one of those things did to Jeff Goldblum. But it was good to have even a tiny ego for a moment or two. Although I do have a huge ego when it comes to religion, philosophy and politics. On the subject of me, however, I got nothing. But if you tell me that the invisible hand of laissez-faire economics works...well, then, we have something to talk about. I'd destroy you in a debate. If you try to get me to believe in an omnipotent, omniscent, loving god, then I'd like to talk to you about the Problem of Evil. And if you think gay marriage is wrong and shouldn't be treated as a civil rights issue, go fuck yourself. So that's good, I'm not ego-free. I can prick it up with the best of them.

Cram that in your bong and smoke it, Picard.

Benjamin, Mitt And The Nasty Pie We Share

Just spoke to the hospital to go over the last details before my orchiectomy. Barring a terrorist attack or my getting hit by a bus or something, my right testicle, Professor Benjamin T. Ramthorne, will be removed a week from Thursday. Yes, I named the little fella. I also imagine that he speaks in what is known among linguists as a "non-dominant vocal accent," much like Bob Dylan. Unlike Bob Dylan, however, he can't write music at all, and his lyrics are maudlin and sentimental.

The surgery is to take about two hours, but I should be allowed to go home the same day! I can't remember if that was the case last time. So with a positive attitude and a modicum of surgical skill this whole affair should be merely unpleasant and not much more. And I'll have a four inch long scar on the right side to match the left. Finally. I hope they give me a big honkin' bottle of Vicodin.

Depression and anxiety in general is really nasty right now, but that's just the way of things. I simply cannot shake the feeling that my brother, and most of my friends, are very angry with me about something. That's the paranoia, I suppose. It's extremely unpleasant, and there is an ongoing sense of urgency and a feeling of panic. My gut aches because of it. But I can't complain, as I have a place to flop, happy cats, a relatively healthy father and food for my face.

Mitt Romney, the Republican douchebag governor of Massachusetts, is apparently inching closer to a formal declaration that he is going to run for president. He's been a terrible governor, and there is no reason to think that he wouldn't be a terrible president, and we can't afford any more bad presidents. We've had our fill. He needs to be taken seriously by the Democratic Party. In my view, being a Mormon won't hurt him. Red state goobers want a believer as president. Polls indicate that the specific religion is less important than one might think. After Bush won in 2004 (2000 was shocking enough) I vowed never to dismiss any boob as "unelectable" ever again.

I suppose it's too early to ruminate on who will run and how they will do. Right now I'm more concerned with how the Massachusetts legislature is going to handle the referendum petition to put gay marriage on the ballot in 2008. They don't have to do anything and the petition will die, as it should. Most referenda die in the legislature without a vote, and not voting is completely ethical and legal. The legislature is called upon to act on referenda, and not voting represents action. It has precedent and it's the letter of the law. Mitt Romney is only coming out strong against civil liberties for gay couples because he knows that South Carolina is watching him. That's the most important of the early primaries, particularly for Republicans. Romney doesn't do ANYTHING without an eye on his political aspirations. What an asshole.

If you've ever tried to get signatures for anything, you know it's a pain in the ass. I've worked on numerous campaigns in my life, and on the surface getting 170,000 signatures seems like quite the accomplishment. That's what the enemies of gay marriage managed to get. But a closer inspection reveals the truth here. For one, many of the signature-takers lied about what people were being asked to sign. Professional petitioners with a record of unethical behavior were hired with money that has flowed into Right-Wing coffers from outside the commonwealth. In addition, many conservative Protestant churches crammed the petition down the throats of their parishioners. Using these methods it's very believable that they could get 170,000 signatures in a commonwealth of 7 million people. I wonder how many of that number knew that the hell they were signing.

And a matter of civil liberties shouldn't be on the fucking ballot to begin with. Right-wingers want you to get upset about two consenting adults getting married. This while they try to rationalize invading Iraq after 9/11. And that's just the upper layer of crust on the shit pie that Republicans have been serving up for years. They literally stand in opposition to a loving couple getting married while supporting the murder of innocent people and the crass, unscrupulous use of our armed forces. How evil do they have to get before they are run out of town?

Anyway, that's my take.

Peace And Quiet After The Age Of Pills

For reasons unclear, the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve seems like a month. I'm glad that the holidays are over and we can finally enter what C.S. Lewis called, "The waiting room of the world." Those months between the festivities of December and the warm, green blanket of spring. We have yet to experience a single snowstorm here in Boston. Not an Alberta Clipper or a Nor'easter in sight. It's tempting to blame the strangely warm weather on global warming, but few scientists predict such a rapid transformation. But it is a preview of the future, and that saddens me profoundly. I don't want to live long enough to see 70 degree winters here in Boston, or the extinction of polar bears, or the spectacle of countless refugees fleeing the rising sea. Technology is the cause of global warming, but it could also have been the solution. The nature of capitalism will prevent the best and brightest men and women from solving this problem. There's too much money to be made in not solving it. If you disagree that capitalism sucks, by all means, write me. Please do.

But that's enough of that for now. I'm in a rather affable and social mood today, so I've found myself on the phone frequently. I'm looking forward to my date with Linda on Friday. I've come to think very highly of her. I told her about my psychiatric hospitalizations and she didn't freak out, so I'm practically giddy about that. She probably knows that I'm a pill-popper, but if she doesn't I'll tell her that, too. I'm always putting something in my mouth to make the thoughts in my head go away. Sometimes I take too many and I get dizzy, then I stop for a bit. Soon after I start up again. Survival. I talk about the suicidal thoughts less than I used to, and I'm disinclined to talk about the harrowing, black fear of so many things.

I despise my illness, my disability. When I say that I suffer from depression, I'm leaving out much of the story. There's also paranoia and a frenzied anxiety that pulls at my gut until, of course, I take a pill. I'm tired of being disliked and of people having such a low opinion of me. I endlessly wonder what I'm doing wrong. Am I a pariah, or are my friends merely busy on the avenue or on the job? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, and no matter how many times I run it through my rancid brain I'm never going to know for sure if my brother is embarrassed by me or if he really likes me, or both. I'm not sure of anything. Pop a pill. I'm sure of them, anyway. My poor father must shake his head before he drifts off to sleep every night, thinking about what a stinking failure is his youngest son. That's me. And I know for a fact that my mother was ashamed of me, and that that quickened her death. All of my friends dislike me or resent me or are ashamed of me in a very specific and unique way. And I can never leave those thoughts behind. I'm allergic to whatever the hell it is that I'm supposed to be.

The time of yelling into my pillow, "Leave me alone!" and eating fistfulls of pills grows closer every day. I'm not right in the head, and it's worse than sensitivity or depression. And depression is pretty awful. Before I go, I'm going to make some people happy, do some good. But for the most part, the story of me is written. The great thing about being an atheist is knowing that the story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. When the end comes and they pull that black plastic over my face and cart me off to MedCure there will be no more need of pills. Quiet, just quiet.

But first, a little good, please just a little bit for those I care about. Just something to make them happy to know me. For fuck's sake, something.