Women and Men
Men: Ya can’t live with them, ya can’t feed ’em to the dog
by Liz Starbuck
illustration by Jef Taylor
Look who’s been called into service. Yes, it’s me, your local foul-mouthed, high-speed-whinin’, keyboard-tappin’ sex bitch. And what’s the occasion? Valentine’s Day, of course, or as we call it in the business, VD Day. Well, the guy I was seeing just blew me off – and I don’t mean that in a good way – so I’m plumb out of illusions, sorry. He wasn’t so great: He made me throw up. Literally. Or maybe it was the medication. But anyway, this fella was hung like an African-American in Mississippi (did I put that correctly?), and he was kinda cute too. Except when he was doing one of those Guy Things.
I admit it, I’m romantically challenged. When it comes to my work, I am constantly pushing the envelope of love, but when it comes to my personal life, it’s more like the FedEx Overnight Letter of love. My inability to maintain relationships may stem from an underlying desperation to Not Be Married, I dunno. But my dysfunctions are no excuse for any of those damned Guy Things. Here’s one example of many possible charming Guy behavioral deficits:
I admitted to this guy – hereafter referred to as this guy – that I had a crush on my doctor. It was a lovely little chaste crush, didn’t hurt anybody, I had no intention of actually doing anything about it, although, as I told this guy, I had invited doctor out to coffee. I just wanted to talk to him one time without him spiritually looking at his watch. That was as far as I intended to take it. Another time I commented to this guy that as miserable as my “condition” made me, at least I actually liked going to the doctor, and this guy said, “Of course you do, you want to fuck him.”
AUGH. BAD BAD BAD, UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN! Toss out the scum, get out the Lysol, hose down the places he has stood! That’s Guy Think! My thoughts were (previously) pure! He was ruining everything! I’d said I had a crush, not that I was actually “interested” in doctor, not that I intended to foul the threshold of his idyllic little nice-doctor marriage nor wreak Hippocratic havoc by eliciting scandalous violations of heretofore presumably proper-doctor protocol. I had elaborate fantasies, yes! I admit it!, but not of steamy pornographic scenes featuring me strapped down and stirrupped to an operating table and sexy doctor attending to me with heart-racing, squirt-inducing pokings and proddings, but of lovely, O! truly delightful, witty and erudite conversation and some mild flirtation a coffee shop. As much as I enjoyed the remarkable attentions of this guy’s formidable schlong, I was not pleased to find it aspiring to conquer his brain! Gosh, the reason I was going out with this guy, and I assume, why he made me throw up, was because he was supposed to be a nice guy. Not just another think-with-his-dick guy like all the others. Well, that’s a lot to ask, I know. (It ain’t like you haven’t heard this before, is it?) But it does continue to astound me nonetheless. Guys can be just downright embarrassing, you know? Sometimes you want to apologize to your friends for their behavior, and sometimes you even want to apologize to them for their behavior. You are ashamed to be seen with them, even if the only person who is seeing you with them is them. I thought to myself: in all those movies where the prostitute falls in love with the john because all he wants to do is talk to her – he really just wants to get inside her head – do real-life guys just not understand those movies? Is it so utterly inconceivable that a woman, even, well, particularly a woman who does sex work, wants to relate on a different level, a love of sex notwithstanding? Must they sully my metaphysical (guys: met•a•phys•i•cal (-fiz’i k;l) adj. [ML. metaphysicalis] … 3. based on abstract reasoning 4. beyond the physical or material; incorporeal, supernatural or transcendental) romantic nirvana with their Guy-Think Penthouse Forum fantasies? I shoulda, I shoulda, I shoulda said, “Listen here, you superior-shlong-wielding, orgasmatronic, stay-hard-cuz-yer-only-19 fuck-bunny, you, watch your sleazy mouth – this is doctor we’re talking about here! I can spend delightful hours reflecting on whether an extra five minutes granted in doctor’s office for remotely personal banter means that Aphrodite is smiling down upon Cambridge City Hospital, or wondering if the fact that doctor admitted his age signals a willingness to allow me, nay, bestow upon me, insight into his charmed, hygienic, no-STDs-here nice-doctor life. Does it have to end in an extended, multi-orgasmic, gravity-defying fuck? That’s just too darned easy. And besides, isn’t the next thing on the agenda after that mind-numbing erotic extravaganza a string of cancelled appointments (and no more drugs for me)?”
Ah, but it would all have fallen upon deaf ears. Because that’s another thing about guys, they really don’t hear all that well. And besides, he woulda been outta there even before I got a chance to say, “Yes! Oh god, yes, right there!”
No, the nausea’s all gone; thanks for asking. I don’t think it was the medication. Really, I’m feeling much better, thank you so much. But how are YOU? Let’s talk about you for a while. Oh – no, no milk, thanks, I take mine black. Like my men. Haha, just kidding.
