A Not Quite Exact Analogy, but Close Enough

by Anne Alexander

What was the name of this novel? Because it’s shameful not to credit the author. If whoever wrote it reads this, get in touch! Everybody else, just stay with me, because the scene is important. It’s archetypal, and obviously it’s memorable, which is why I’m going on about it here.

There’s a DEA agent down in Mexico who contemplates going over to the dark side. If I remember right, he’s disillusioned with the perfidy of his own government. He figures, as a token good faith, he will bring the drug cartel some very important information. But before he can act on this, he is kidnapped by the drug cartel, taken to a barn loft, stripped down, injected with a spinal anesthetic, and tied to a table. A doctor slits him open from collarbone to groin.

The agent doesn’t feel anything, but gets to see the whole process. The doctor asks for the very important information, with the implication that it’s not too late to sew him back up. The agent tells the information. The doctor talks about how it’s going to feel when the anesthetic wears off. The agent understands that he won’t be sewn back up. Lying there watching the dust and pieces of hay and spiders drift through a beam of sunlight and land in his body cavity, he says, “You didn’t have to do this.”

That’s what I felt like saying to a certain man. He cultivated my affections, not in conventional ways, but in ways that particularly meant a lot to me. Which is so much more meaningful. Except when it isn’t. He will tell you all day long that he’s innocent, but you know what? It’s just not possible to get somebody as hooked as he got me, without encouraging it. And especially, it’s not something a man can do unaware.

To say it the old-fashioned way, he led me on. For a long time. And then I found out something that he should have told me. It wouldn’t have made any difference. I would have still wanted to be as close as he would let me be, and would have still done the things I did for him, and so on. But learning about the false pretenses, that was rough. So that’s what I want to say to the person who hit me up with painkiller and then gutted me. “You didn’t have to do this.” I would have given anything you wanted anyway.

Worst. Sex. Advice. Ever.

Loose Change is Sara Davidson’s autobiographical novel, or minimally fictionalized autobiography. She and her friends were students at Berkeley in the midst of the Free Speech Movement.

In 1963, Candy went to a gynecologist who “informed her about the difference between vaginal and clitoral orgasms and advised her to practice having the vaginal kind.”

Candy herself is quoted:

My mom told me it took years for her to have vaginal orgasms. This doctor said you could practice by putting a plastic shampoo bottle in you and pulling it out fast.

Wouldn’t that cause, like, a ruptured uterus or something? Plus, the opportunity for infection. I’m guessing there are several excellent reasons to not do this.

How Do I Turn Her On?

by Felice

If you’re a male, you’ve probably asked yourself that question at one time or another. If you’re a female, you’ve probably wanted a man to ask himself that question.

It’s the wrong question.

Why is it the wrong question?

A guy who’s thinking, “How do I turn her on?” really means, “How do I arouse this woman enough so that she’ll let me get my rocks off?” Something is missing from that equation.

Another thing: Many women are easily arousable. Especially in the hormonal hyperdrive years. And at any age, a woman might be so highly arousable, she finds a delirious amount of pleasure from skin on skin. The skin is the largest organ, you know, and when it’s perceived it as a sex organ, there is a universe of sensual delight in lying close to another body. But this is the activity men tend to denigrate as “just cuddling.”

Why would he want to complain about that? I mean, supposedly, he wants to turn her on, right? And that turns her on. Where is the problem?

“Aha,” he says. “I’m aroused too. And I want to get off. That is the problem!”

Well, sure it is, and we’ll get back to that.

But here’s something to consider. You wouldn’t say, “How do I make this person hungry?” Sure, it’s possible to do. But people get hungry anyway. You don’t need to do anything to make that happen. It occurs naturally. And so does lust, which is just another word for “easily turned on.” There’s a good chance that a woman doesn’t need to “be turned on” like a household appliance. Most probably have a natural amount of lust.

The right question, gentlemen, is, “How do I make sure she’s satisfied?”

If it’s not clear to you why this is the right question, just go back four paragraphs and see if this sounds familiar:

“I’m aroused too. And I want to get off. That is the problem!”