That's me in the corner. With Elin.

You might have seen me standing there, away from the crowd, on my own. I am there because they're not my crowd, and I'm not their person.

Everyone in the world understands the details of or knows about or has experience with Makeup Sex except me. I don't think I ever had Makeup Sex, although I might have unwittingly had MS and mis-labelled it. It is possible that a session of Sunday Morning sex should have been scored as Makeup Sex, but I'm not certain.

When people talk about it, I stop talking to listen closely. When I find an article or blog post about it, I pay particular attention. And still I don't get it.

The problem is with me. My skew is that Makeup Sex follows a contretemps between a couple. More than a contretemps, does not Makeup Sex require an actual argument? I always thought that the trigger - or the cocking of the hammer - is a good ol' barney, with shouting and preferably something chucked at the other. But I could be wrong.

My deal is that I dislike argument, and will avoid it any way possible. Argument to me is disagreement with heat. Argument is more about playing the man than the ball. And that's the big thing I want to avoid: moving from communicating contrary ideas to attacking a contrary person makes me nauseous.

Ergo, if Makeup Sex requires an argument, I've missed out, but it's possible that might be a good thing. In any case, I'm a minority of one, because apparently everyone else is getting their fair share. Except maybe Tiger.





Photo of Elin Woods from all over the internet.

Disparate desires

What to do with a mind full of disparate desires? Every day we need to decide for one thing and against another. Some days we'll make lots of choices; on others, very few. A lot of the time we don't even know we're making a decision.

When the big forks in the road arrive, I find myself more aware of the one door opening/one door closing metaphor. Confusion is not the right word, because I understand that this is a universe built to favour Boolean logic - if this happens, then that cannot happen (at least not right then.) It's more like I am eternally quizzical at the fractional dimensions of our minds. And yet despite that logical detachment I never get any closer to an answer.

Inclusion, exclusion; success, failure; 1 or zero. I get it. But that doesn't make the process easier.


I want:

To travel, and stay at home.

To be attached, but independent.

To be true to myself, and still not offend everybody.

To climb mountains and swim at the beach.

To say what I think, but not create foes.

To be alone, and to be with.

To keep it real dude, and make it big.

To avoid ego, and still be the man.



You see the dilemma.

Check her out.

Do women understand the actions over which men have no control? I am thinking here in particular of one thing, although you might have experienced others.

No?

Here's the one I have in mind:

Walking down the street, if an attractive woman passes me going in the opposite direction, I must turn and look at her after we cross. It is physically and mentally Im-Possible for me to not do so. An irresistible force compels my muscles to slow, turn, and check her out from behind as she sails on down the sidewalk.

Pervy, perhaps. But it doesn't feel like that. I sense that the instinct resides deep in my autonomic programming, living happily beside the modules for breathing, heartbeat and blogging. No wonder I prefer cities to the country, and walking to cars.

How can I put this more clearly? I know. Passing a woman on a city street is like a gift, a beautifully packaged shortbread cookie that won't make you fat. It's a treat, a bouquet, a surprise, a puff of perfume with no downside.

A simple daily wonder.




Picture from here. [link]

Later edit: Photo REALLY from here. [link]

Friday Fluffer - The Chickipedia

The Chickipedia is another fine internet app. [link]

In true wiki style, it caters for every taste. [link]

Even women with blue hair. [link]





Previously on K&B. [link]
Liz Taylor's photo from here. [link]

Stockings and Gum

War is no excuse for abandoning sex. That was the attitude of many folks during World War 2, especially the American boys based in the UK preparing for D-Day. And who can blame them? The 1.5 million guys who arrived between July 1943 and June 1944 knew they were training to take back Europe from the Nazis, and it wasn't likely to be fun.

Knowing you might be dead in a few months is a decent spur to taking advantage of the moment, I'd say.

The poor old Brits had been deprived of much since 1939. Relying on convoys of goods from North America, their food and fuel were rationed and luxuries were like gold - expensive and rare. So when the robust lads began arriving from Stateside in 1942, they were like people from another world.

Time Magazine described it thus:

The Americans, bursting into an England gone drab and gray and plagued with shortages of everything after four years of war, were nothing if not jaunty. Residents of Somerset still remember G.I.s tossing chocolate bars and gum out of passing trucks to goggle-eyed children. According to a popular gag, so much American chewing gum had been tossed in the fountains of London's Trafalgar Square that the pigeons there were laying rubber eggs.

"Hi ya, cutie" was the universal greeting called out to females from 15 to 50. "They took all the girls," mutters one British war veteran who on the whole liked the Americans. And indeed the walls outside American barracks were lined every night with panting couples twined in a last embrace before bed check. William D. Kendall, who represented the town of Grantham, complained in Parliament that "it is unfit for a woman to walk unescorted" there because of the "unconcealed immorality" of the G.I.s. Others of course had a different opinion; some 60,000 British women eventually became American war brides. [link]


Another view:

Conditions were harsh in Britain in the early 1940s and there was also an undercurrent of unease...especially amongst British men, who resented the attraction of GIs, with their ready supply of nylons and cigarettes, amongst British women. The artist Beryl Cook, who was a young woman at the time confirmed this in an interview to the BBC in the late 1970s. I can't find the transcript of the interview, but from memory it was words to the effect of, 'food was scarce, but we supplemented our income by a little impromptu whoring with the GIs - we all did it'. Many of these liaisons were love matches rather than merely commercial transactions though, as the thousands of marriages between US servicemen and British women (the GI brides) is evidence of. [link]

Hi ya, cutie. No wonder they were referred to as "Oversexed, overpaid and over here."

Try getting laid with a pair of stockings and a packet of Marlboro Lights today.

How to Compliment People and Lose Yourself

Some well-meaning person recommended Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" to me when I was kid. I read it in only that way that precocious pre-mature children can, which is to say completely literally.

Under the heading "Six Ways to Make People Like You", Dale gives us this pearl of wisdom:

Remember that a man's Name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

You might imagine what happened next. Every conversation I had with Paul, I would make sure that I dropped his name, Paul, as often as possible because you know, Paul, I want to be your friend. Paul. Yes. Your friend, Paul.

Within two weeks all my mates were no longer. Acquaintances ran. I ate lunch alone, and even my parents began taking their meals at times and places without my presence. Figuring this was all part of the way Dale's magic worked, I kept up my creepy use of names even though by now I was talking exclusively to myself. That probably didn't help.

Eventually I grew bored with being alone, and so dropped the mid-sentence use of the name of the person to whom I was talking, and my life gradually drifted back to normal. Although Mr Carnegie had some good advice, I learned that manipulating people by communication is not that easy. Dear reader.





Photograph from here. [link]

First Date Mistakes

I am so stupid. For the longest time my automatic suggestion for a first date was dinner. Why, why, why? It is the worst possible way to start.

:holds head in hands:

A dinner is the wrong choice for the following reasons:

~ Dinner is too formal, even at an informal restaurant.

~ Dinner with a (probably) complete stranger is odd no matter what your intention.

~ Dinner assumes you and/or your date will want to stay for more than ten minutes.

~ Dinner highlights sometimes nasty biological necessities. Chewing, for instance.

~ Dinner makes a relationship statement before you have written a script.

~ Dinner involves problematic clothing choices (particularly for women).

~ Dinner requires investment beyond that which the fundamentals require.

~ Dinner is a performance which impedes natural interaction.

~ Dinner raises the question of 'Who Pays?'

~ Dinner as a first date doesn't allow for enjoyment of the food.



In short it's too much, too soon. Too many moving parts all resting on.....nothing.

Someone slap me, please.

Friday Fluffer - Lingerie Football

Game on!

In case you missed it, the best spectator sport ever devised is back. The Lingerie Football League championship is under way, the (sadly, short) season culiminating in February with the Lingerie Bowl. [link]

My team is the Tampa Bay Breeze, who lost their first game last weekend. They're a mix of young and experienced comers though, so don't be surprised if they go all the way. [link]

If I was running the league, the first thing I'd change would be the names. [link] Tampa Bay Breeze? WTF? More like the Tampa Bay Tush. Or the Tampa Bay Ta-Tas, or even the Tampa Bay Trim.

Okay, so it should be about the lingerie. The Tampa Bay Bustiers? Tampa Bay Brassieres?

Either way, these ladies rock.






Photograph from here. [link]

Sex Education

Horrified. That's how I remember my first exposure to sex education. I was ten or thereabouts, and hugely embarrassed as only a little boy can be.

Not that the boring presentation about all that stuff in which I had no interest bugged me. I was horrified at having to sit next to Karen Goodier. For a full forty minutes I was boxed in, with my mother on one side, and Karen's next to her, with no escape other than to disappear under the rows of chairs in front or behind. Believe me, I considered doing a crawl and a runner, to head out to something I understood and loved - the playground!

Karen was okay I s'pose, but the ignominy of my mates seeing me thigh to thigh with her might have led to merciless ragging later, especially as I was SO CLOSE to the parts of her shown in glorious detail on the screen.

Wombat loves Ka-ren, Wombat loves Ka-ren.

It was bad enough seeing cutaway pictures of my own parts, surely she was cringing at her private architecture's public revealing?

What's more my penis didn't look like the one in the presentation. Mine wasn't nearly that big (why do they show men's dicks to boys?) and I am circumcised, so even the shape was different.

Sigh.

Like so much we take for granted, this stuff is misnamed. What Karen and I were subjected to here was Reproductive Education, not Sex Education. Why do we insist on conflating the biology - the organs and blood - with the abstract and emotional, which is all in the mind?

They are not the same thing. Even ten year-old boys understand that.

Cuba Libre

"You're the kind of guy I'd like to show the ropes. We'd have a good time together."

This, then, my first invitation to visit Havana, from a man of my very recent acquaintance. My guy has visited many times despite being an American travelling on a United States passport. There are people in Miami who make travel to Cuba possible despite the....difficult situation between the two countries. Problems have a price, and that price is $800 per person. This won't be an obstacle for me; I would use my Australian passport.

What, you might ask, am I doing flying to Havana with a stranger? Well, it's not for the surf, and it's not for the health care. It's not for the luxury hotels, and it's not to purchase a new car. And it's not to exercise my right to free expression or make political hay. The draw - according to my newest buddy - is the hookers, who are the best and most willing in the western hemisphere.

In a country where "...everyone is so happy..." it seems that pretty much any woman you see can be yours for a few greenbacks. You need a man to grease the wheels, of course, but there are lots of really straight shooters who know tons of really nice girls. Schoolteachers, office workers, nurses, that kind of thing. And you don't have to worry, they're all clean, as long as you have the right guy in place.

Most of them are in their early twenties, happy to hang around the house we'll rent for the week. And, boy, do those Latin people enjoy their sex. Not like American women; they're uninhibited and really enjoy it. In fact, they often say that if you want more, just raise your hand, and they're ready. Of course, it's another hundred bucks, but hell, what does that get you Stateside?

So here's what we're going to do: give me your number and email. I've got two good buddies who aren't loudmouths, and the four of us will plan a date in February. For two thousand dollars each we'll have all the food, booze, cigars and pussy we can eat - ha ha! - and party 24/7. Man, it'll be fun. But we need to be careful. The government runs everything there you know, and although they don't want to arrest us, the girls and my main guy there have to grease the wheels at every level. That's why you need me.

Whaddaya say. Let's go get those babes!






This, from a seventy year-old married man with six children, twenty grand-children and a wife who thinks he travels to take architectural photos.


Here is how I met this dude. [link]

Breaking up is hard to do

Breaking up used to be easy. You'd call your girlfriend, tell her you need to talk, and deliver the news. As a callow youth in Australia, I dumped Stephanie in the comfy chair room of the local pub one night. We called it the comfy chair room because it had nice big wing-backs and deep-cushioned arm-chairs of the sort one's grandparents owned. It was the kind of place pretentious teenagers would sip red wine and solve the world's problems, in that way only teenagers who know nothing can.

Ending a relationship in such a setting isn't recommended. Much better to choose somewhere well-lit and uncomfortable with many exits.

After 'the talk' I went straight to the back bar to be with my mates. Brutal, but honest. Stephanie and I reunited a week later, but eventually split. The first time never takes, right?

Thesedays one needs a checklist for action items after the fact. First, change your Facebook and/or Myspace status. Write a blog post reflecting same. Then Tweet that, plus any other random social networking site modifications you need. Rifle through your Flickr or Snapfish or similar accounts to consider whether to remove cutesy pics of you and the now-ex. (Special consideration to what your next girlfriend might think.)

Now you need to email everyone you've ever told you had a girlfriend and inform them of your status. Maybe call parents and siblings, if they haven't already IMd you from Facebook. Check your place for pieces of clothing she might have left, plus makeup, shoes, toothbrushes and 'personal items' and return them.

Lastly, make a decision about the most sensitive stuff. What to do with the sex videos? Delete them, joint custody, or just lie about deleting them? Hmmmm.





How to break up gracefully. [link]

Thanks to Kat for the inspiration. [link]

Concubine

The word might not have been courtesan after all. Is is possible I was looking for 'concubine'?

Nope, I read the all-knowing Wiki (pedia) only to discover that concubines are like wives, only poorer. [link] Interesting that concubines are actually held in very high esteem, on the same social and religious level with wives. Wives, you see, had dowries whereas concubines did not. So marriage (at least in its Biblical iteration) was not about love, but something else.

This is interesting too:

Since it was regarded as the highest blessing to have many children, while the greatest curse was childlessness, legitimate wives often gave their maids to their husbands to atone, at least in part, for their own barrenness... The children of the concubine had equal rights with those of the legitimate wife...

Barrenness. Now there's a word we don't use much any more.

The painting above is called "Interior Scene with Sultan and Concubine" by an American named Thomas Buchanan Read. [link] How in the heck did a guy from Chester County, Pennsylvania end up painting such a piece? [link] And why does it move me so?

Mysteries.

Courtesan

Courtesan. Courtesan is the word I've been after all week. It's a kind of old-fashioned expression, out of use thesedays, but it perfectly describes some women's place in society.

My boss's ex-girlfriend, for example, is a courtesan. [link] She has no visible means of support and yet she lives in a very nice house in a swell neighbourhood. (A guy in Chicago pays the rent.) From what I understand, she courts wealthy, powerful or high-profile men and exchanges her company for money. Or goods, I guess, but no doubt she prefers cash.

Principal among the courtesan's abilities is knowing how to flatter the man. Catering to his ego is, in my opinion, more important than great sex skillz or even a great body. Attraction and sex is all in the mind, so if our courtesan knows how to push her paymaster's buttons, she's golden.

Sex will be a part of her duties, too, no doubt. More than that will be her willingness to always be on her lover's side, to always be sympathetic, and to never take an opposing position. Wives and girlfriends lose out in this game, because they have a will of their own. What a man buys in a courtesan is suspension of her own wishes, replacing them with his. At least for the time she's in his company.

In her own way, she does get her way. She has the company of likely pretty interesting men. She gets to spend a lot on herself - clothing, makeup, jewelry, spas, facials, waxing, lasering, hairstyling and whatever else. She doesn't have the drudgery of a regular job, and if she grows tired of the man, she gets to withdraw her services. It's really the ultimate work-from-home business.

I wonder if there's a male equivalent.




Illustration from here. [link]

More on courtesans here. [link]

Friday Fluffer - The Streets of San Francisco

If you're a kid like I was living in a suburb of a provincial Australian city, everything from anywhere else is glamorous.

If television is your window to the world, glamorous shows kidnap your imagination. There was no more compelling show than The Streets of San Francisco. That theme music still gives me shivers.

My infatuation with all things United States can be traced back to Friday nights with Karl and Mike. This ep has the longest list of co-stars in history. I still love this shit.

Being Elin Woods

The problem with being Elin Woods is that she will only ever rise to being number 16 in Tiger Woods's life.

Why number 16? Because if you are Tiger Woods, you have fourteen golf clubs in your bag, and a caddy. That's fifteen, then comes the wife, at number 16.

Elin's in a Catch 22, or, as we might call it, a 16 Handicap. To make Tiger the superstar he is, he needs those clubs. To hand him the clubs, carry them around the course, hold his umbrella and give him "yardage" he needs Steve Williams, his Kiwi caddy.

If Tiger's without any of these elements, he's just another guy. The hundreds of millions of dollars, the ocean-going yachts and all the luxury don't accumulate unless he has those clubs. And his buddy.

Elin knows this. That's why she's so mad. Like most married women, she'd like to be Numero Uno, but can never be if she wants to keep enjoying a life of opulence. A mistress would be acceptable but being considered behind golf clubs and a bloke in shorts? That's an insult.

Her Pussy Smells

I met my boss's girlfriend over the weekend. Ex-girlfriend, more accurately, although they're still friendly.

Do you know why I dropped her? he whispered conspiratorially.

No, I replied, thinking: because you're married?

Because she smelled bad.

What. BO?

No, he said, moving his index finger under his nose, eyebrows raised.

She had a smelly pussy?

Yep. I couldn't handle it.

Did you tell her? She might have an infection and doesn't know.

No. I can't deal with that shit.

But they all smell a little bit. It's part of their charm.

Yeah. But it was easier just not to see her anymore.





I'm figuring a way to ask him for her number.





Image from here [link]

Sex in Space

Look, does anyone really know what's happening on the International Space Station? I've been suspicious of this low-orbiting satellite since the first bits went aloft in 1998. NASA has this huge website telling us how wonderful and space-licious this thing is, but, I mean, can they point to one thing they've actually achieved there? [link]

Pictured is Astronaut Nicole Stott. Congratulations to Nicole for just returning from 91 days on board the ISS. While she was up there she blogged, she tweeted, she checked her email and she looked out the window; in short, she spent her day much like the rest of us. [link] Has space travel become as boring as my own life?

Congratulations too, to Astronaut Randy Bresnik. Randy’s wife, Rebecca, gave birth to their baby girl, Abigail Mae, in Houston late Saturday night. [link] To celebrate, he went for a walk outside the Space Shuttle - which was attached to the ISS at the time - to smoke a cigar, which mightily ticked off NASA people. Then he posted on Facebook.

I think it's clear what's going on here. Abigail Mae is America's first space baby. She was actually born on the ISS two weeks ago to Astronette Nicole, and Tiger Woods is the father. That would explain his domestic misadventures, given that he neglected to tell his wife, Elin, that Nike had paid him a truck-load to father the first 'alien' human. [link] No sex, just a donation, you understand, all they wanted was his DNA.

So now it's all turned pear-shaped, because Elin went batso with a putter over Tiger's head. He then knocked over a fire hydrant and now won't talk to the cops. NASA's hugely peeved (again) that they can't point to wee Abby as the crowning achievement of $100 billion spent on an orbiting cathouse.

Nike's the only winner. Abigail just got her card for the Ladies' PGA tour, and they have her sponsorship locked up from here to Pluto.

Secret World of Women

DocAnnie alerted us to Dr Marta Meana's appearance on Oprah talking about her research. [link] Dr Meana's studies of women and desire led The Oprah to her and resulting fame. I have pulled a few quotes from the article. They need no help from me.

~

Being desired is the real orgasm...

~

...while moments of pleasure are great, it's the anticipation and buildup to those moments that really excite women.

~

...being desired means that a man doesn't just want to have sex. He wants to have sex with you.

~

One of the most common fantasies when it comes to women and sex is to be dominated by a desirable man...They throw caution to the wind, and they're going to take a chance that you're going to be okay with it...

~

Passion is dependent on novelty, discovery, desire...

~

One of the most complicated aspects of female desire, Dr. Meana says, is that women often want different things at different times...

~

There is an additional article here about the science of attraction. It confirms much of what many of us have come to understand, that smell is way more important than we have thought to date. [link]

Pole Dancing

Somewhere between Cirque du Soleil and Mons Venus Gentleman's Club lies the new heat in pole dancing. It's gone suburban, apparently, this ancient art-form, even mainstream. In that wonderfully American way in which anything, no matter how salacious, can be formalized, there is even a Pole Dancing Federation.[link] Their next convention is to be held in Redwood National Park, I understand. Them's some might fine poles there, hot-diggety.

Stripping and poles go hand-in-hand. As a youth on my first visit to a strip club, it was clear that the girls on stage felt more comfortable with a prop, especially the greenhorns. Putting myself in their position, it's natural to be nervous, what with all your bodily wonders and flaws visible to the leering mass of drunk sweaty wallets....I mean customers. Holding onto a pole must feel like holding onto your dignity, at least until Miguel comes backstage during your break and offers you a little something to get you through.

*sniff*

Okay, it's unavoidable, I know. I can't be cute about this: yes, there is a connection between the "pole" and a man's penis, otherwise known as a "pole". There, it's out in the open now.

What's that? Women don't see it that way? Oh.

Well we do. How else to interpret a disrobing female cavorting around a stiff cylindrical verticularity? Can there be another explanation?

In the end, I guess women pole-dancing with their sig.oth. as an audience is the natural result of men unable or unwilling to learn a few dance steps viz: Tango. Women want to dance, they want to do it with their guy, so why not invite an inanimate brass third to help things along - to grease the pole, if you'll pardon the pun. Good luck to them.

And if ever Vegas needs a new attraction it would be this. The strippermobile, complete with pole. A new high in family entertainment. [link]

Fluffer Friday - The Tango

Today I honour Ferdinand Magellan and all matters South American. On this day in 1520 (that's 489 years ago) Ferdy with his three ships successfully navigated the dangerous waters that separate the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Upon realizing they were the first Europeans to find such a watery path, the crews immediately starting dancing a step that was eventually to overtake South America. Originally known as "The Magellan" it came to be known as "Tango", especially when the crew found women when on shore leave.*

So for Fluffer Friday I give you street dancing in Argentina. Sheesh, it's no wonder the economies down there are always in the tank - why work when you can do this?



*Not all statements herein are facts.

**Note to self: learn to Tango. Chicks must dig this stuff.




Illustration from here. [link]