-> THE SEX COLUMN
To read this article in Deutsch, Francaise, Italiano, Portuguese, Espanol, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, copy and paste the complete URL ("http://www.g21.net/tunanow21.html") and enter it in the box after you click through.
| The World's Magazine: g21.net
Event # 280: My White Dove AMERICAN DREAMS DAY ONE ESSAYS ON CULTURE G21 BARNES & NOBLE SEARCH ENGINE G21 AFRICA G21 ASIA G21 Daily Cartoon G21 Digital Internet Postcards JOIN OUR MAILING LIST. You'll be glad you did. Surveys that affect our look and feel and much more. Be part of the In-Crowd! G21 EUROPE G21 NEWS HOT LINKS LONDON CALLING! MEMOIRS OF THE INFO AGE MY GLASS HOUSE MYTHVILLE PROJECT RADIOACTIVE RDR TABLOID HART THE SEX COLUMN VICTORIA'S SECRETS VOX POPULI RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT ARCHIVES. MEMOIRS OF THE INFO AGE ARCHIVES. G21 STUFF: SHOW THE PRIDE. Why wear that T-shirt or sweats from Nike when you can sport the splendiferous G21 blue logo? Let people know you're In The Know with G21 gear. Follow that link and find it here. Thank you so much!!! LAST WEEK's EDITION MEET THE G-CREW! These are the people behind this jam-band every week. |
Younger girls or older women? ? It's a troublesome question. Some might go so far as to call it a conundrum. For, by the time a man hits eighteen, it'll emerge as an ongoing, thorny debate through the next twenty years, unless marriage claims him first (and then the debate simply becomes less public).
Not being married, I remain free to discuss such dilemmas with my unwedded friends, though -- at thirty-four -- such comrades have begun to diminish at a startling rate. It's not as though my married friends wouldn't relish such discussions, only that bachelors in their thirties are considered misfits and social pariahs by most bejeweled wives, and thus they do their best to separate their dutiful husbands from these old chums.
This past weekend I made a pilgrimage to my old college town, where I knew at least one unhitched friend still resided and could thus expect the usual debate over our recent choices of courtship. I met Billy at our old stomping ground the Caribbean Café, where we quickly dispatched several pitchers of oatmeal Stout before launching on the topic at hand.
Billy was an incurable romantic who once tipped the attendant at a McDonald's drive-thru window twenty dollars because the sight of a pretty girl demeaned by ugly consumerism broke his heart.
Not much had changed. Billy's most recent relationship was with an anthropology major named Tina, whom he'd met while hosting a wine tasting at one of the local restaurants. The girl was twenty-one and a step up for Billy, who'd pretty much stuck to dating freshman students while we were graduate assistants five years ago. Billy, though, was now a wine rep and he demanded that a girl be at least of legal drinking age.
This added a new twist to his, and most men's, delight in dating young women; for old bucks always enjoy mentoring their nubile girlfriends in sexual acts, and now Billy could add to this the pleasure of initiating them into the splendors of vintage pinot noirs and petite sirahs.
As far as I could recall, Billy's only sexual experience with an older woman was when he lost his virginity to one of his mother's friends at a party in 1980. It seems that the lady, who was a flight attendant for United, had taken in too much Pussy-Cat Punch. And after Billy gave a suave performance as Dean Martin, cigarette and martini glass in hand, she led the fifteen-year-old into the bathroom and illustrated a grounded version of the Mile High Club.
I, on the other hand, had always seemed to find myself currying the favor of older women. Only twice had I switched teams. The first break was during my two year stint as a university lecturer in the Czech Republic, where I developed the not unusual habit of dating young Slavic girls. Although I relished the experience, it was not necessarily by choice. The heavy diet of dumplings, boiled meat and gravy fat takes a melancholy toll on Eastern European women, and most cannot retain their allure for long.
The second time was only recently, when I took up with Sandra, a nineteen-year old, hopeful model. But that was also out of necessity. For I was losing the attention of Daniella, a forty-two year old real-estate agent who was at the peak of her sexuality and income potential. When she found me at a restaurant with the teen-age courtesan, her son's ex-girlfriend, she quickly resumed her lavish attention.
Though Billy and I had never explicitly labeled the sexual complexes that we had both been nurturing for the past decade, this night my old drinking companion cut right to the chase:
"Face it; you have an Oedipal complex, David. It's pretty sad to be thirty-four years old and still a Momma's boy.""Just because you date an older woman doesn't mean you want to shag your Mom," I replied, finishing my beer and ordering another pitcher of stout.
Billy looked at me and shook his head. "Denial."
"So tell me. What's at the source of this self-esteem problem of yours? Do you date Lolitas because you didn't make the high school football cut?"
"Lolitas? I've never dated a girl younger than eighteen, comrade. I have standards. And football's for sissies. I never tried out for the team."
"Hmm ... I think you're just scared of going to jail. All your girlfriends have looked extremely young for their age. I bet if we checked out your computer, there'd be hundreds of pics downloaded from Lolita.com."
Bobby laughed. "Well, if I'm going to sport a complex, I'd much rather have it be a Lolita."
"Reasons being?" I asked, as our waitress arrived with another pitcher of beer. She was young and achingly pretty. Bobby smiled at her as she set down the pitcher and strutted away in a skirt tiny enough for a midget ballerina.
"What other reasons do you need?" he replied, still admiring our waitress. "What kind of benefits do you get from dating all these older chicks, except for the fact that they have money and end up paying for all your dinners and drinks. Who wants to take on all that baggage? Gravity has yet to have an effect on that lass, I assure you."
"I prefer dating a girl with emotional baggage," I said as I refilled our glasses. "It keeps me from brooding about my own. And as far as gravity goes, when an older woman wants to take on a younger guy she knows that she has to keep herself trim and fit because of the competition. You've got the upper hand. But let's face it, we'll never look as buff as we were when we were that girl's age. She's always gonna have the upper hand, and she's gonna use it, too."
"You've got a confidence problem, David. That's been your problem all along. That's why you took off to Eastern Europe to teach instead of taking a real faculty position here. And that's why you keep up with these older gals who dote on you. I may not be able to dazzle that waitress with my six pack," he said, patting his stomach, "but I'll stagger her with my wit and charm."
"And then what?"
"Well, if she turns out to be the kind of woman that I want to marry, then that's what I'll do."
"Yeah, when has cupid ever plucked that bow? Never.
"It's because girls change a heckuva a lot, physically and personality-wise at that age. The great thing about dating older women is that they're fully formed. You know what you're gonna be getting five, ten years down the road if you end up falling in love with them."
"And when has that ever happened to you? You think you can dump them because Simon and Garfunkel said that Jesus will love them more than they'll ever know?"
"Maybe, but it's better than leaving an innocent young girl as jaded about relationships as us," I said and raised my glass to toast, adding with a rueful smile. "Mrs. Robinson and the women I've left were already bitter."
"You should never feel guilty for having loved someone," Bobby replied cheerily. "After all, that's why Oedipus ended up plucking his eyes out. Sure, he killed his father too, but people don't end up blinding themselves for it. All things considered, my sexual complex is much less calamitous."
"Well, Humbert Humbert did become a murderer, falling dead in prison."
"But his girl was only thirteen. That's plain wrong. Like I said, I'm a man of standards."
D.A. Blyler is the author of two books of poetry, Shared Solitude and Diary of a Seducer. He is also a freelance writer whose work has appeared in SALON, EXQUISITE CORPSE, and the Prague based magazine THINK. He's recently completed his first novel, Steffi's Club. D.A. Blyler's Web page.
+++ The PREVIOUS SEX COLUMN +++ THE NEXT SEX COLUMN +++
© 2001, GENERATOR 21.
E-mail your comments. We always like to hear from you. Send your snide remarks to rod@g21.net.