Fluffer Friday

One advantage of childlessness is that my daughter will never announce:

Dad! I got a job today! I'm a fluffer!

OMG [link]

What would a father say? Does the job offer benefits?

Awesome, bitch.

I often wonder how to nail down self esteem. What is it exactly? Is self esteem the way I view myself - Wombat, blogger, Australian living in Florida - or is it more about the internals - Wombat, worried blog readers will dislike this post, wondering what dopey decision led him to live in Florida?

Parents of young kids seem inordinately concerned with their sprogs' self esteem. Schools in the United States appear to an outsider to be all about teaching it, along with how to address a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered person so as not to offend their self esteem.

But that's not my point of interest. I'm consistently confounded by the way in which women can appear to be loaded with confidence, and yet choose men who treat them like shit. How can it be that powerful females who look to have the world by the balls end up doormats for oaves? A friend explained it this way:

There is a certain je ne sais quoi to bad boys. I think there are a million psychological reasons as to why women go for them, each one of the reasons pretty fucked up. "I want to piss off my parents by showing them I'm autonomous", "He's a rebel and Hollywood shows us that rebels are hot", and my personal favorite, "It feels good when he makes me feel bad". It's true...some chicks dig on feeling like shit. Call it a Martyr Syndrome if you wish, but she gets off on bitching about everything. I had to consciously rip myself away from that path, lest I become like (that). Thesedays I prefer men who treat me like the fucking awesome bitch I am.

Indeed. Awesome.

Ponytails

I didn't have the stomach to search Flickr for photos, because I'm sure there's a ponytail fetish group there. Not that fetishes are bad (as I grit my teef through thoughts of Furries and other truly fringe weirdness.) It's more that I don't want to be thought of as being defined by my preference. Or get caught out by membership in a totally dweeby photo-based fetish organization. That's just too depressing.

So let's get it out there. I think women wearing ponytails are hot. More so if the ponytail is tucked through the adjustment strap of a baseball hat. That's it. Now I'm on record as having the lamest predilection ever.

Here are some reasons that make them sexy:

> The girly factor. Ponytails are feminine, and emphasize luxuriant, lustrous hair.

> The youth factor. They remind us of innocence.

> The vitality factor. Healthy, ruddy, active, tiger in bed.

> The shakeout factor. When the scrunchy is removed, and the hair falls free...

> The erogenous zone factor 1. Ears. We know that women's ears can be Zonal.

> The erogenous zone factor 2. Neck. We know that women's necks can be Zonal.

I hope no-one reads this.

Consider the Penis

Consider the penis. Poor thing suffers from negative headlines and poor approval ratings. Nobody likes him, at least not publically, and those who are supportive choose to shmooze in private. His life is - as the old chestnut goes - like a married man's; he's always in the shit, it's only the depth that varies.

He needs a new PR firm. The current one has either lost the client file or is concentrating on more lucrative accounts, like breasts or the vagina. I believe that the penis's lousy popularity is all about the way he's spun, media-wise, and not something intrinsically bad about him. How not to like what is basically a telescopic injection system?

At the moment Mr P has about the same cachet as Gary Busey, or, worse, David Hasselhoff. You know these guys have talent, and they've done good work in the past. But you'd be less surprised to see them featured on TMZ or the Smoking Gun than at the Oscars or the Emmys. Ditto the penis. His resume is filled with solid if dull work: he's a journeyman, and that's fine, but things are slipping in that 'I heard he's doing pills/saw him drunk at noon' kind of way. He's better than that.

A big part of the problem is the arm's length relationship men have with their penis. To most of us he's that distant friend we're not sure how we met, always there, mostly good company, generally well behaved. Unabashed mateship is possible, but we're aware that he harbours the ability to go rogue. Horrid cliche that it is, the penis has a mind of his own, and he can be willful in a way that leaves the rest of us looking bad. So we remain less close than you might imagine.

Vaginas have their Monologue, breasts have Hooters. What does the penis have? Yes, there is that puppet show, but does that really help to uplift the image? I think not. With an eye to engaging a marketing firm, the penis's abstract would go something like this:

External variable-length dual-function mammalian appendage needs re-imaging. Delightful pleasure-centre with whimsical side sometimes appeals to adult women. Mysterious qualities worth highlighting. Relationship with owners usually good, but lacks spark without female interaction. Penis name is stale, although the right campaign might rescue it. Key issues: bad reportage, low public awareness, downside only highlighted in mainstream media. Recommend completely new media strategy.

The Bullpen

Baseball is supposedly the national pastime in America. That makes it ripe for use in metaphors, so here's one for you to ponder. A certain kind of woman maintains men in reserve, a backstop against her main squeeze bailing. This emergency pool of guys is remarkably similar to the way the pitching rotation works in baseball.

Let's take a step back. In baseball, the bullpen is the area to the side of the playing field in which secondary pitchers await the call. To use a farmyard analogy, the men therein are for when the main man fails to perform - in the parlance, they pitch clean-up.

In the game of sex, a bullpen is where a woman stashes her prospective suitors, the ones she can call on should her starter fail to perform. He might also consider himself a free agent and leave for another team, in which case his ex will want a replacement.

I have been reliably informed that happy women in stable relationships do not maintain a bullpen. That implies every other woman who is not in a stable relationship keeps a bullpen, no?

Trust and Respect

It's all so bleeding obvious really, and yet we keep making the same crappy mistakes. At least I seem to.

I asked Maryanne how a woman will know she's with the wrong guy. Her reply - and I'm paraphrasing - is that you need to test for trust and respect.

Trust is straightforward. An honest gut-check will provide you the answer.

Respect is more nuanced. Respect goes to motivation and intent, tricky animals to flush out in ones-self, let alone in someone else. Respect is easier to judge in retrospect, if you'll forgive the word play, most clearly seen in the rear-view mirror. And that takes time.

My assumption is that this works for men as well as women. If it doesn't we're in more trouble than I'd figured. And I should make it clear that even if shared trust and comprehensive respect exist within a relationship, it does not mean that match is perfect. There's always the unknown X-Factor that make these things work.

Ah, the X-Factor, that fugitive from logic and reason.

Maryanne and Hindsight

With luck, my interview with Maryanne Comaroto will proceed at 6:00 pm Eastern US time tonight.

Yay.

Edit: That was fun. If you want to listen via your medium of choice, go here. Thanks Maryanne, you're the best!

Smart women

Serendipity plays a bigger part in our lives than we might imagine. It has been a while coming, but serendipity brings me to this point: women are stronger than men. It's the truth, and I have yet to see it so beautifully put.

It's the flight syndrome, she continued. We've always been told that the male creature is so much stronger than the female. That it is men who seek conflict and struggle. Yet women are so much stronger. When it comes to clashes of emotion, to conflicts of the heart, men run like dogs. It's true. Just look around, at some men. Look at their eyes. A woman's eyes are naturally open and frank, emotive and fragile. Men live their lives a few inches behind their eyes, hiding behind them, keeping themselves out of any real danger. They look at the world as if through a mask.*

Right or wrong?

It's what I hinted at here.


*Quoted from The Third Translation, by Matt Durant. p 74, with thanks, this is a wonderful work of fiction.

A day in the life of a pussy

A very serious message. Probably NSFW, although I'm not sure exactly why.

Food Plus Sex

I accidentally slipped a strawberry into Carol's pussy. That was my first time, some years ago now - my berry-busting if you will. Accidentally is not the right word because, just between you and me, it was not truly a slip-up. More of a pre-planned spur of the moment event.

There was chocolate sauce present too, in one of those squeezable bottles that make it easy to overindulge. Portion control is hit and miss with those things. We'd been fooling around with the chocolate, engaging in what we considered sexually sophisticated foreplay. I would spurt chocolate over her breasts, then lick it off, taking great pleasure in teasing about with her nipples. Carol was quite tasty enough without the sticky sweet stuff, but she seemed to enjoy it.

The downside of food in sex is the mess. Egyptian cotton sheets absorb really well. If you're enthusiastic with your congress and edibles are in the mix, the wet spot can be the whole bed. Makes for a squelchy kind of icky afterglow.

Perhaps your experiences are better.

Edit: Because TFABS can read my mind, here's the defining moment.

Hindsight

Newsflash: Today's chat with Maryanne is being delayed one week. Sadly, she's battling a nasty creature from outer space. No, I mean she's fighting off a nasty cold.

Get well soon, Maryanne, we'll chat next Monday.


Tomorrow, Monday, October 12, I am interviewing Maryanne Comaroto. Here's her website.

We're planning to chat about her most recent book, 'Hindsight - What you need to know before drop your drawers.' This I am looking forward to, because Maryanne's a Relationships Superstar. She's bound to teach me a thingertwo.

Here's the BlogTalkRadio website should you want to be there live with us, or there are numerous ways to listen to the show at a time of your convenience.

We'll be commencing at 5:00 pm Eastern USA, 2:00 pm Pacific USA.

Edited correcting 'draws' to 'drawers'. Sheesh.
Edited again for various manglings of English.

Talk to me, big boy.

Internet dating in its current form excites me not at all. As I have written before, it's a gigunda People Mall reliant upon guys liking what they see (pictures, not words) and women liking....well, I have no clue how women interpret dating site profiles.

There are the eHarmony-type sites which purport to use scientific questioning to match personality types. Success, they claim, lies in the clever untangling of your personality at a "deeper level" thereby overcoming the shallow visual attraction. Fair enough.

Then there are the video dating sites. These provide fodder for YouTube, as poor unfortunates chronically unused to being on camera attempt to brand themselves as fabulous mates with a few seconds of ill-advised self-revelation. Bad.

My idea is different. I want to avoid the visual, as it's too powerful for guys to overcome. Many folks are hopeless at articulating a self-sketch in words, and that too needs junking. So what about an audio-profile in which a trained interviewer spends five or ten minutes asking questions of the date-seeker? The recording would then be available for download, along with a short, professionally written blurb, and a way to contact the candidate should you be interested.

The advantage is that a friendly interview in audio form is intimate. The right interviewer can draw out even the most recalcitrant person, and we're all much better at talking than we are at writing. For those seeking a mate or a date, hearing a voice and an outline of their ideas on a few topics gives you a decent idea of who they are - way better than that photo of them at the Trevi Fountain seven years ago.

All I need now is a name. And a (moneyed) backer.

Edit: November 3. Here's my chat with Miss Have the T-Shirt about this idea.

What is a woman thinking?

The interior of my mind (I'd like to think) is similar to that of an English gentleman's club. There are books and whisky; fine conversations and ancient agreements; nuance and humour. A smell of leather wafts around, the passing down of wisdom from one generation to another the currency of the house.

It's all bollox of course, a pure fantasy fuelled by (Sean Connery as) James Bond, failed British Empire schooling and a particular kind of snobbery one admires from afar, but can never really be a part of.

Never end a sentence with a preposition, by the way.

What interests me is what it's like inside the female brain. Those kitchy funnies depicting lady-brains as being all about shopping and emotion leave me cold, if only because the real thing is so much more likeable than that. A big mistake I have made in the past is to see women as a kind of enemy...or more like an untrustworthy ally, like, say Siegfried and Roy's tigers.

The female brain is an utter mystery to most guys I think, but it need not be so. One thing I discovered a while ago is that unlike mine, your brain is full of voices competing for attention. Goodness, it must be a cacophony in there. Guys need only understand that in order to be heard, they should be the loudest, most persistent voice. That's all. And I don't mean shouting without taking a breath. Just be there with a consistent, loving message, and you'll be heard.

Women in bars.

Somehow the liquor industry convinced us that bars are the primo places to find a mate. It makes sense I guess, given the ready access to mind-altering substances and resulting convivial atmosphere. Reducing inhibition is probably the best justification for drinking - in moderation please people. Sure, sure, we like the taste, but if the alcohol wasn't present, I doubt booze would be as popular. There's a reason non-alcoholic wine and beer sales are like a flea on the butt of Mr Ethanol Elephant.

Concerned mothers the world over tell their daughters they'll never find a good man at the bar. They're referring to the legal bar I imagine, since any sensible mother would break down in floods of tears knowing her Princess was dating the likes of a John Edwards. Contrastingly, drinking-type bars are the habitue of sexy and upright paragons of the community. Like me.

But not me lately. After years of unsatisfactory searching for the future Mrs Wombat in drinking establishments all over, the obvious has arrived and whacked me over the head. We don't need bars to find women; women are everywhere. I'm fully aware of how dopey this sounds. Really, truly stupid. There's no defence I can provide (where's a lawyer when I need one?) other than to say that some behaviours from one's early years can stick beyond their usefulness.

For a young man in Australia the progression is: out with mates -> drinking -> horny -> nothing to lose -> fear of failure overcome -> approach women -> hope for successful outcome.

Experience eliminates the need for the first two parts, meaning the whole world is my oyster. Why did it take so long?

Being Single Part 1, Being Single Part 2, Being Single Part 3.

Will I be single forever?

Imagination is the single person's closest friend. I don't know about you, but wandering through my brain's fantasy hallways keeps me occupied through traffic jams, business meetings, bathroom cleaning, beach walks and appalling lines at the post office.

I don't picture doing any of those specific activities with anyone else, thrilling as I'm sure the right lady would find the daily cat box emptying. It's more the contemplation of whether that woman in the 'Ethnic Foods' aisle at the supermarket would make any difference to my life. Or how come the teller chick at the bank (who looks to be approx. 19) already has a family and an address that's not a Postal Mart box? And am I a different species of male simply unable to communicate with the sex with the interesting body parts?

Imagining is fun - the Powerball this week is $153 million - but acts in the same way as the proverbial grain of sand in the oyster. No, not the one that you bite down on and break your crown - the one than gains layer after layer of something or other, and forms a pearl. Hour after hour of imagining creates a hard shell insulating me from the real world. I'm sure that's the answer. I'm living in a la-la land in my mind, neglecting to ask that woman in the ethnic aisle whether she knows where the hot sambals live.

That's the answer. Spit out the oyster's pearl of imagination and slurp down the salty meat. That's real life. I think.

Being Single Part 1, Being Single Part 2, Being Single Part 4.