Saturday, July 18, 2015

My Lesbian Haircut and The Men Who Hate It


A while back I was out in a bar with a friend when a fairly intoxicated older Irish gentleman approached us and inquired if we were Lesbians. Actually, he informed us that his friends down the bar (who were younger) thought we were Lesbians and he was coming over to confirm. As it happens the friend I was with is in fact a Lesbian, but I am not. I do (or did at the time depending on when you're reading this), however, have a very short haircut. One side was shaved and the top was a bit spiked and a formerly electric blue dye job was starting to fade. This is just my aesthetic. Short hair is easier and I like to try new things and hair dye is like a fun craft project. 

If you've been following this blog you know that I like men and I like them a lot. I like them so much that I will tolerate behavior that I would punish a child for just so I can get a good long whiff of man neck and man hair and man...other things. Being a lesbian would be lovely, but unfortunately I crave to have the weight of someone who will never understand me crushing me in abrupt post coital sleep. 
 I won't drag this out. My point is that a lot of men would not an do not approach me because of my hair. My lesbian friend assures me that my general reading is not at all of then LGBTQ nature, and maybe that's not even the issue, but I have to admit that I'm surprised at how much it had changed the way people treat me. Often it's positive like "woooow so badass I wish I had the courage" or "oh yeah I love girls with short hair" but it has never just not been an issue. I thought I was making a chic choice but  I first cut it short while I was in a relationship and I only recently starting noticing how it effects the way men interact with me. It is always a thing. 

Sunday, July 12, 2015

The Twofer Rule: A Discerning Lady’s Answer to the One Night Stand

The Twofer Rule: A Discerning Lady’s Answer to the One Night Stand

I am in favor of casual sex. I am also in favor of good sex. You see my dilemma.

(Disclaimer: This is a PERSONAL essay about a straight woman’s experience with heterosexual intercourse. I have no idea whether this represents anyone else’s experience and I am by no means trying to draw any conclusions that apply to anyone other than myself.)

It is very difficult to have satisfying sex with someone new, especially when there is alcohol, social anxiety, and mental fatigue in play. It is exhausting to be around someone who you want to sleep with when you think you might actually be able to do so.  If you do not find this to be true you may leave now and go polish your trophies for stellar social adjustment. You are not needed here. If you are a straight man who has never taken the time to really talk to women about their sexual experiences then I need to warn you that you might not be able to fully grasp the vast disparity between what “bad sex” means for a woman vs. a man. I don’t want to bore my more enlightened readers by explaining it, so please find a few women and host a little panel before reading further. I suggest buying a few rounds of cocktails and starting with the question “what is the worst sex you have ever had”.

My solution to this problem is to always try to have sex with someone on at least two separate occasions. I call this method the Twofer Rule and it has served me well. Unless someone’s company is so unbearable that the thought of further contact inspires visceral discomfort, or the physical chemistry was so poor that the chances against it being better the second time seem insurmountable, I do my best to adhere to this rule as often as possible. Even if the sex is never particularly great I at least feel like I have been proactive in my own enjoyment of life’s greatest free recreation.

If the sex was good the first time, then awesome! More good sex. If it was kind of mediocre to not-so-great, then the second time serves as an opportunity to improve. If it does NOT improve then at least I know I tried, and I also get a better sense of that person, so my memories of them are more concrete which helps me tell the story of our lackluster sex in more thrilling detail later on. Everybody- especially my friends and audience- wins.

It may seem like I am over-complicating things. My male friends especially contest that as a woman it is easy for me to get laid, and therefore I’m better off having sex with as many different people as possible. “It’s a numbers game, really” one once quipped while furiously and indiscriminately swiping right on Tinder, “and as a girl you could be banging someone new every night. I’m guessing at least like 1 in 4 knows what they’re doing”.  My vagina cringed at the suggestion.

Despite my cavalier and enthusiastic attitude towards sex I don’t actually have it very frequently. This is because I am what some people would deem “socially awkward and vaguely unapproachable” and others might call “breaking my balls for no goddamn reason” and what I like to refer to as “incapable of getting out of my own way even to serve my own agenda”. In other words I cannot, will not, do not flirt no matter how interested I am in someone or how badly I’d like to pony up. All of the sex I have ever had after anything less than a year of social warming time has occurred only by the graces of fate, the desperation and/or arrogance of my partners, or sheer resilience on my part.

I have found that no matter how little I smile and nod and how noticeably I avoid giving praise to his hand-carved wooden glasses and how frequently I am clearly NOT paying attention to his story about that time in Amsterdam with his buddies (all men in Brooklyn have this story) things are bound to progress if I just stick around until 4 AM. This tactic usually works the first time but does not tend to keep men crawling after me. This doesn’t bother me because I know that there are at least a few men who find my lack of charm charming, and who enjoy my explanations of how to clean the dried skin from a horse’s penis. For some reason this bit of knowledge never lands as well I expect (Not impressed, City Boy? Yeah OK tell me more about your fixed-gear bike). I bring this up only to highlight that I do not take my sexual experiences for granted, and I cherish the ones that go even remotely well.

Most of the better sex I have had has been with people who I already know are not going to work out in the long run, or even in the short run. I am grateful for this because good sex is like a rich bed of manure in which even the tiniest seeds of emotional attachment will flourish and bloom before ultimately being ripped out by the root and tossed in the garbage; I prefer it when there is no seed at all- not even a FRAGMENT of a seed. There is nothing more exciting to me these days than good sex with a man with whom I have nothing in common. Better yet, a BORING man with whom I have nothing in common and who doesn’t understand my jokes. My buttocks are clenching in delight just thinking of it.

“Hey it might be cool if we banged right now. No? Ok whatever man. Just let me know if you find yourself with a free evening and a hard dick”.  Most men I have slept with have had some form of this interaction with me within a month of the first engagement. It isn’t elegant but it tends to work sooner or later. If I get any response at all to this at all (unless it’s “NO”) I am confident that I can get to the second schtupping sometime soon even if it means staying on my toes, as my suitors rarely give me much more than a few hours notice if they do in fact decide to take me up on the offer.

I once received a text from a previous conquest while out to drinks with someone else and somehow found my way to his apartment in Greenpoint at 3 in the morning despite the fact that my phone died before I could confirm the details. I showed up sweaty and wide-eyed and ready for action. His exact words upon opening the door were “Oh my god. What are you doing?”. Granted he ended up being drunk as a lord and incapable of performing until after a nap and a sandwich,  but I was still glad that I was able to stick a bow on the whole experience and call it a win. A bow was, incidentally, the shape of the bite mark he left on my bicep. When I left his apartment, I turned in the doorframe and said to the half asleep and naked body in the bed in front of me “Thanks for having me!”. We have not spoken since.

The arguable downside to my approach is the potential loss of pride and the degradation of my self-esteem. If I don’t get what I am looking for it is easy to slip into the assumption that I don’t deserve it at all, and that my own poor life choices have relinquished me to an existence of bad sex and loneliness. It is important to remember though (and I tell myself this frequently) that sex is just a nice thing that you get to do with another person, and if you’re going to do it you might as well be on control of your own enjoyment. I have found there is nothing to gain from letting the other person tell you when it’s appropriate to want them. So long as I am honest and safe, and ultimately not unkind to those I choose to share this experience, I really don't see how it could be a bad thing.