“I Was Already Three Deep in Terms of White Russians”

Somebody asked recently if I had “given up” writing this blog.  No, not really.  I took a little break from it, but I was always planning to return in the time of my country’s greatest need.  I’m like the King Arthur of sophomoric dick jokes.  But it’s not always easy to find new things to say about drunken acts of physical love.  I’ve been wondering if maybe I should expand my range a little, by commenting on Recent Developments in Feminism.  I have a lot of opinions.  Here, I’ll give it a shot.  Here are some Recent Developments in Feminism that happened while I was away.

1. Fling candy bar. The feminist blogosphere reported on this sparkly, low-calorie candy bar with pink packaging, being marketed with the tag line “pleasure yourself.”  People are mad because it’s being sold as the candy bar for women, and the whole thing is so sexist.  Hey, wait a minute, though!  Isn’t all candy for women?  Am I right, ladies?  (Because we love chocolate.)  The real challenge would be to keep women away from it!  You’d have to go to extreme lengths.  The advertising slogan would have to be something like “The candy bar that rapes your mouth with flavor!”.

My own suggestion, if marketers want to create a candy bar that women won’t buy, is to put a picture of a spider on the packaging.  “Spider candy bar:  There’s a spider in the bathtub!”  It would be a marketing disaster.

The anti-Fling.

2. The pull-out method. Science has discovered that the withdrawal method of birth control is more effective than it was previously though to be.  That’s what I’m talkin’ about!  Finally, some good news! I was all, “when are they going to release a scientific study about something I like?”

3. Happiness gap. On a less cheerful note, scientists (different ones) discovered by reviewing data that today’s women report being less happy than women did 40 years ago.  Somebody named Douthat in the New York Times (who didn’t actually read the article) blames this development on the women’s movement.  But then he tries to pretend he’s all feminist by making the following suggestion:  “There’s no necessary reason why feminists and cultural conservatives can’t join forces — in the same way that they made common cause during the pornography wars of the 1980s—” by stigmatizing men who act “sexually irresponsible.”  Noooo!  Don’t fall for it, ladies; it’s a trap!  The very worst thing we could do right now is start shaming male sluts for their promiscuous behavior!   It’s May!  It’s getting all steamy and torrid out!  We need more male sluts around, not fewer!  The more, the better, because who else is gonna do the job?  Instead of being so judgmental, the Times should be encouraging men to explore their sexuality.

“Maureen” probably agrees with me.  She’s a single mother of two who suffers from a little problem:  “Their dad has every excuse in the world to cancel taking them every other Saturday night like he’s supposed to. So…because I’m a conscientious mom (and a broke one that can’t afford an overnight babysitter), I don’t bring guys home. So I don’t get laid nearly as often as I should.”  That’s terrible. Not to be discouraged, Maureen went looking for companionship on Plentyoffish, a dating website whose name is intended to convey the idea “many fish in the sea,” yet which appears, whenever I look at it, to say “Plenty Offish,” and thus to hold out the possibility of meeting people who are “plenty” standoffish or unapproachable.  Anyhow, it worked well for her.    She soon met “Jude,” a “totally hot” man  about her age who said he was looking for friends.  She lives in Boston, he lives in Rhode Island.

Jude’s profile included “a quote I really liked, something like ‘it’s not who you have known the longest; it’s about who has stayed and never left.’ I think that was what led me to send him an email, saying I liked his quotes and he had a nice profile.  When talking to him on the phone I found him really straightforward, funny and smart. He’s studying for the CPA exam, working as a recruiter… seems to have his life on track pretty much.” They remained phone friends for a couple of weeks.

She adds that he seemed “like a great guy that fools around a bit on the side.” Hey, wait a minute!  What “side”?  The “side” of what?  Well, during their time on the phone, he had “told me all about his live-in girlfriend and their 4 month old, and how the one time they fought recently she wouldn’t let him see his daughter. So… he’s sticking it out for a while and partying on the side.”  How scandalous!  But there’s no harm in being friends.  So she agreed to go hang out with him some night when the kids weren’t around.

The day finally came when she had a Saturday night free.   Brutus had friends coming in from Connecticut, and they all agreed to meet at the Rattlesnake Bar in Boston.  “Not having been out in a while and feeling a little awkward on my first night out in a while, I opted for a short, black miniskirt from H&M, four-inch heels (kinda funky looking with 2 small buckles on the front), a silk black camisole (Kenneth Cole) and black cardigan with 3/4 sleeves (I think it was from Anne Taylor).”

Black silk camisole

Ann Taylor cardigan

Black stiletto #1

Black stiletto #2

Just for the heck of it, stiletto boot

“Practiced my smoky eye look so I wouldn’t look like a raccoon and I was good to go.  So. I get there and Jude is late… texts me and tells me one of his friends is already there. Turns out he’s sitting next to me at the bar. We chat, he’s cool but zero attraction factor. Jude soon arrives with some friends, and others arrive right behind him.  It is me and six men: a white guy from Cypress, the white guy from the bar (from somewhere in New England but I don’t remember where), two black guys from the Caribbean, two black American guys… and me, the pasty Irish chick. But I was lookin’ kinda cute.”

Jude “was taller than I expected, dressed really well, was really outgoing and had cool-looking dreads that went halfway down his back (very well kept and pulled back).”  But sparks didn’t really fly:  “It’s funny but when I met him I was already three deep in terms of White Russians and the thought crossed my mind that he was hotter than I thought he would be but I was kind of distracted by being surrounded by all these young men, none of whom I actually ‘knew.'”

Specifically, her attention had been engaged by one of his friends, “T.”, whom she thought was “fine as hell.”  This was “a black American guy from CT, 6’3 with 4 inch braids of some sort. Very sexy eyes. Wearing jeans, Timberlands, t-shirt and jean jacket with some kind of design on the back. And a baseball hat.”  She ended up chatting with him, because Jude was a few seats away, and was busy playing host to his old college friends.   The whole gang had settled in at a table over drinks and appetizers.  T. revealed that he is a “music producer,” and she “showed great restraint in my inebriated state by not rolling my eyes.”

It wasn’t clear if T. returned her interest, because he was too busy checking out the other women in the room.  He “made a point of getting a good look at the ass of one as she sauntered by on her way to the ladies room,” and “even left the table at one point to speak to two women at another table, so “the fact that he is obviously a player was hard to ignore.”  He excused this by opining “that men are animals and as such can’t be held totally responsible for this type of behavior. I replied that a lot of men claim to be animals but have no follow-through when it’s time to prove it.” Well played, madam, well played.

They decided to leave the Rattlesnake and go to the Whiskey Bar. The guys were all drunk and she had to carry one of them up the hill.  Recollections start to grow indistinct at this point, but they had some more drinks, and then “everyone decides to go to a diner in Somerville. One guy’s car got towed so they all piled into an SUV, and I followed with the cute guy.” Hey, wait a minute! Should you be driving?  Technically, there could be some traces of alcohol left in your system from the three White Russians, two Southern Comfort and cokes, and then two more more White Russian you just finished drinking five minutes ago!  I don’t know if you’ve heard about this, but experts say that drinking alcoholic beverages can impair your judgment and reflexes!   Sure enough, it did, “which is how, later on, I managed to drive right over a curb in Somerville, scaring my sleeping passenger half to death.”

T. had fallen into a drunken stupor.  It was 3 a.m. They drove “what seems like endlessly.”  When they got to the diner, it was closed. They decided to head to Greg’s place (one of the guys, whom Maureen describes as “short”).  “Everyone has something to eat and conveniently all of the guys except the cutie go to one bedroom that has a bed and couch (and floor) and me and (yes, as you can probably tell by now I am not sure of his name…T? for Trey maybe?) cutie in another room on a futon.”

“Where we cuddled up and got naked fast (it was, after all, nearly 5 a.m. by now). He goes in the other room to get a condom from a friend (none turned up in his quick search of the bedroom we were in) and he gets some kind of generic condom that was apparently so old as to be nearly useless.”  They went at it for a while, “but condom difficulties (and drunken exhaustion) had us taking a break. We both fell asleep.”  It was morning two hours later, so they got up and exchanged numbers.

T. said he’d call her next time he was in Boston, and we all know what that means.  “Whatever, that’s fine. I later asked Jude (casually, of course) how old T. was… he said around 24. Wow. I’m 36… glad I didn’t ask him that night when the thought crossed my mind. I just became an accidental cougar. But at least I got laid.”