I recently spoke to a man in his fifties who expressed relief that much of his sex drive had left him. He said that only once his libido eased off, did he realize he had gone through his entire adult life with a metaphorical hard-on, letting it govern all his decisions like a weather vane. Ladies and gentleman, I relate. I am a teenage boy with a perpetual hard-on the wind doesn’t even have to blow to activate. To say I am easily aroused is a euphemism; everything in life reminds me of how much I like fucking, and that is not as much fun as you’d think.
When I say I walk around with a constant boner, I am not speaking in a Bruce Jenner way. I don’t feel male. I am certainly trapped in the right body (though still trapped) and definitely not opposed to strapping on a penis for something a little different. The language simply does not exist to describe this female state. Using the term “always horny” is a male idiom, popularized by frat culture, but originating from the 18th Century term for a hard-on being like a “horn.” (Oh Google, you make me wet.) Perpetually wet? That could be apropos, except it doesn’t describe the inner state, simply the physiological response. My brain is horny, the question is, what exactly is it horny for?
Go down to Venice, CA and you will see men so hot it is criminal they keep making them. Or wherever it is for you. (The Monster Truck Rally? To each their own.) I just. Can’t. Beautiful men with beards, tall, scruffy men with hard bodies or soft but cuddly, looking like you can disappear for hours into those arms. People can have such incredible coloring, eyes and thick hair… it makes you weep knowing you can never fuck all of them. Just logistically, even if they wanted to. Or the surfers changing by the roadside in Malibu, for G-d’s sake gentleman, I AM NOT MADE OF STONE. It is spring in our Hemisphere, after all. I can’t walk down the street without seeing at least ten men I would love to fuck, and I have high standards. If you lined up the men I have been with in the two and half years since my marriage ended, I would be proud. To each their own, but I believe I have excellent taste. I would like to think they do too, but what I am expressing here is not about that…
I am talking about my desire for men, not their desire for me. When the two coincide it is magical, and I am fortunate that this still happens, but equally terrified of the day when it doesn’t, when I walk down the street and NO-ONE LOOKS. I have heard post-menopausal women describe this as a relief, as their libido also falls off with hormonal changes. Perhaps these things are meant to coincide, but right now I live for this shit. For the young or young-ish men who notice me, for the older men (some of them, I have a little problem enjoying older male attention without finding it creepy) who make eye contact, sometimes these moments make my day. Those who chat with me in the art supply store even though they have wives they love, who flirt when I see them at baseball though both of us know nothing will ever happen, these things make an otherwise frequently hideous life better and brighter. Is this a sign that I am truly a desperate housewife, the original bored MILF who relies on these interactions to feel better about the monotony of kids/aging/paying the fucking Verizon bill? I mean, why do they have to make everything so difficult?
Clearly I have too much time on my hands. My thoughts would be better consumed with politics, social injustice, the drought in California. I am aware of things, some peripherally, some with more depth, but when I look outside and even at a basic level see people in my building watering around the pool, or fucking LEAF BLOWERS (see what I mean about life being hideous?) it fills me with so much frustration, I find it imperative not to focus on these things at all. Should I be agonizing over the earthquake in Nepal, banning assault weapons and ending all forms of LGBTQ intolerance? What can I personally do to counteract the endless racial violence in this country? Fuck a black guy. Obviously. For me, the political begins with the personal.
I have an internal state of longing that burns so brightly sometimes it threatens to consume me. If you psychoanalyze it, it may just be a desire to CONNECT to another human being, on a level more profound than can be achieved just through friendship. But if so, how come I only want to “connect” with the hot ones?
While I describe myself as a teenager, my views on sex are obviously a little more sophisticated, informed as they are by decades of fine fucking and watching French films. Like a teen boy though, I get horny when I am not supposed to, I read sexual innuendo into everything and I can’t stop staring at tits. Let’s not even get into the whole bi thing…
I am as visual as any man, I can compartmentalize like men, but in another sense I am fighting biology. As much as I do not want to admit it, I fall in love at least a little with every person I fuck. How exhausting is that? I am not what’s advertised. I claim I want something “casual” and then my femaleness, not to mention remaining traits of a treated personality disorder, defeat me every fucking time (literally.) I keep this information from the subjects of my affection as much as I can, as I know it is an added pressure they neither want nor signed up for, but energetically they feel it. And it makes them drift away, at times detaching violently. It has been like a recurring wonderful dream that predictably turns into the worst nightmare. The good news? Even if I don’t feel emotionally safe, I always come. (That would be the compartmentalizing part.)
The only solution I have found is to keep a roster of willing participants, who can rotate out when things get too heavy. I’m currently assembling such a roster because I don’t know what else to do. Sex is a distraction for me but also a source of such great joy. When I go celibate I turn into a complete cunt, who is also a bad parent. I struggle to find a balance between the total lack of hang-ups I have in the bedroom, and the potential devastation that can begin as soon as the door shuts behind the person I’ve just had the hang-up free sex with. I welcome any and all suggestions. I am at a loss. I have learned to be better at waiting for a text, but it is not optimal. I don’t want to wait for anyone or anything to “complete” me. Jerry Maguire can kiss my motherfucking ass.
“I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together.”
