The trick to enjoying casual sex is to effectively lie to yourself. When
I was in college, the falsehoods tended to divide along gender lines. A young
man and woman's thoughts would turn merrily to the mating dance and they would
proceed to get horrendously plowed at a frat party and grope one another in some
random dorm room or an elevator stopped between floors in the psychology building
(You know, the elevator that has glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling if you turn
off the light -- or is that just me?) Anyway, the next day, in the harsh light of
morning, the chick would be thinking, "ick, ick, ick, I can't believe I did
that -- hey, maybe I'm really into that guy." Meanwhile, the guy would be
thinking, "ick, ick, ick, I can't believe I did that -- hey, maybe I didn't
really do that." Sometimes it did cause a wee bit of conflict to have the
female half of the act pretending it wasn't casual because it was meaningful,
while the male half was pretending it wasn't casual because it didn't happen.
The thing about sex with strangers is that it is terribly exciting
right before you do it. The combination of the terror and the lure of
the unknown makes your pulse race. Ah, the erotic tension of a
smoldering glance, the electric thrill of a momentary touch from a
desireable unfamiliar person. Will he or won't he? Does she or doesn't she?
Society's restrictions be damned! I decide who will make me come -- not society!
Of course, sometimes the situation dictates who will make you come. Casual encounters
can be pretty tedious when you actually go through with the generally clumsy ensuing
relations where the two (or more) of you discover that it really does help to know
the other person's body. Otherwise your memory of the interaction could be
overshadowed by a mental image of yourself lying there getting head for like
two hours while constantly instructing, "no, to the left, harder, harder,
the left, the LEFT, the OTHER HAND, thank you, ouch, NO, left, left, left, now
harder, HARDER and to THE LEFT! Oh, never mind."
I'd rather touch myself. I know where the clitoris is. Unlike Harvey1.
Then again, as my friend Bob2 and I used to joke3 there is something to be
said for the ego-sexual gratification that another person can offer. Plus, imagine if
I had spend my dating years going out, flirting, and just coming home to masturbate; a
proper cocktease might not have anything amusingly hideous to write in BLT and
then where would we be? Oh, never mind.
