Rape and Parenthood

One of the top priorities on my parenthood to-do list, in addition to paying the rent next month, is to raise my daughter so that things like this don't happen to her. Forget all the horse/barn door advice; I'm going with Franklin's recommendation, and signing her up for kung fu classes as soon as she's walking steadily. Not only will some physical confidence stand her in good stead, but apparently, guys really dig kung fu chicks.

Because I don't want to raise my daughter to be afraid of men. I want to raise her with a little bit of common sense. And that includes giving her a few basic facts about life--for instance, "Guys are going to want to f*ck you."

Lord knows, my life would have been easier if someone had been willing to lay things out like that. I was raised by parents who believed that ignorance = innocence = virtue, and that they could protect me from all the bad things in life by sending me to the right schools. They implicitly believed that if you follow all the rules, you'll be okay, even if you have no idea why you're following them.

There are a number of flaws in this logic. One of them is that it's a terrible idea to teach people to be unquestioningly obedient to authority; that's how you get Guantanamo, the Holocaust and corporate America. Another is that however much you try to shelter someone, they're bound to meet people eventually who don't know the same rules.

So it was that I was sent out into the world by my clueless parents with this view of sex: Men would ask me out on dates. Any man who asked me on a date would 1) not be dating any other women, and 2) would want to be my boyfriend. After we'd been dating for several months, this boyfriend would try to talk me into having sex with him.

And I had my pretty, confident, non-judgmental little speech all ready for him.

Twenty-odd years of mayhem and miscommunication later, I don't know exactly what I'm going to tell my daughter when she's old enough to parse my sentences, but in some way it will include the information, "Guys are going to want to f*ck you. Some of them will be decent guys, and some of them will be predators. Many of them will assume you want to f*ck them, too, regardless of what you say about it.

"So it's a good idea to get to know guys pretty well before you go off into dark, secluded corners with any of them. Don't assume that a man believes everything you say, or that he's even listening; a dude in the grip of raging hormones is just watching your lips move while he maps the fastest route to your panties. Predatory men will get you drunk, tell lies, and use any kind of social or physical pressure they can think of in order to get laid. They'll also use all kinds of rationalizations to avoid the consequences of their actions, physical and emotional.

"That doesn't mean that all guys are jerks. It does mean that you have to keep your wits about you. And when you decide to go into a dark, secluded corner on purpose, with a decent guy, please take a condom with you."

Pandemic Misogyny: A Sick Fantasy

Gracious! What with the furor on Sexism over at Edward's, Deborah's response to it, and now this treatise on pornography from Jamie, it seems to be Gender Issues Week in Pretty Lady's neck of the woods. She is terribly sorry to see that some gentlemen appear to be jumping on the bandwagon of Victim Hyperbole:

Not one to pull his punches, Jensen dives right in with the story of how he gave a three hour workshop on pornography to 40 women at a “center that serves battered women and rape survivors” and how much it hurt them to hear of the hate behind the images. His conclusion: “Even these women, who have found ways to cope with the injuries from male violence in other places, struggle with that pornographic reality. It is one thing to deal with acts, even extremely violent acts. It is another to know the thoughts, ideas, and fantasies that lie behind those acts.”

Am I misreading here, or is Jensen saying that porn not only leads to violence against women, it’s worse than violence against women? Women, how do you feel about that? Fellas, do you think your fantasies are worse than rape? I must admit, I used to really beat myself up over my fantasies, but I never thought I was worse than a rapist.

Now, what leapt right out at Pretty Lady was--what kind of misogynistic sadist gives a three-hour workshop on violent pornography to a group of battered women? It strikes her as a distinctly unhelpful activity to engage in. A person whose boundaries have been severely violated needs to feel more safe and protected, not less so. Rubbing a person's nose in this alleged violent hatred of her person is not the way to accomplish this.

The fact is, Pretty Lady thinks that this whole business about 'men hating women' is vastly overblown. There are, she grants you, a few men hither and yon who project the damage within their personal psyches onto anything female in their general vicinity, but they are grossly outnumbered by the perfectly decent ones who think that most women are rather nice.

Moreover, society in general persists in conflating modes of arousal with actual emotion, no matter how often experience indicates that the two are largely unrelated, particularly in the male psyche. As pointless as it is to attempt to legislate emotion, it is even more pointles to attempt to control the part of the human psyche which hasn't yet achieved the level of sophistication required to produce emotions. Fantasy, which is sharply delineated as such, strikes her as an eminently responsible way of managing the lizard-brain in all of us.

Impeach George W. Bush

WASHINGTON - President Bush, in a constitutional showdown with Congress, claimed executive privilege Thursday and rejected demands for White House documents and testimony about the firing of U.S. attorneys.

His decision was denounced as "Nixonian stonewalling" by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bush rejected subpoenas for documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor. The White House made clear neither one would testify next month, as directed by the subpoenas.

Can this be any clearer? We have a President who fully believes that he is Above the Law.

We have a President, dear friends, who has spied illegally on U.S. citizens. He has authorized indefinite imprisonment without charges. He has authorized, nay, encouraged torture of those imprisoned, in violation of the Geneva Conventions. He has embroiled us in an unwinnable and monstrously expensive war under false pretences. He has attempted to foist legislation upon us which makes a mockery of the very notion of 'citizenship.' He is a liar, a jackass and a fool.

Pretty Lady believes that it is morally incumbent upon every citizen of this once-great country to impeach this man. She is absolutely serious about this. If we do not impeach this stupid, scurrilous, hubristic, narcissistic, self-righteous, incompetent excuse for a human being, we do not deserve to call ourselves 'citizens' any longer. We are merely the easily manipulated cardboard idiots which our fatuous ass of a President and his cronies assume us to be, and we deserve the desecration of our civil rights which will inevitably follow.

Enlightenment! -or- August Explains the Male Mind to a Benighted Pretty Lady

August elaborates upon the Missing Logical Link:

You mentioned a proposition.
You mentioned saying something extraordinary.

Now there has to be an assumption somewhere between the two, and I figure that assumption is in a male brain.

That particular male has likely perceived the extraordinary as the competitive, and is hoping such competitiveness will translate into some friendly competition in the bedroom.
...

As for myself, my assumptions in similar situations are simple: loyalty and competition work in opposition to each other. I simply disengage. I have learned enough lessons the hard way.

Ah. So that's it.

Let us set aside all the sardonic commentary--indeed the floods of rhetorical self-indulgence, illustrated with many florid anecdotes, that sprang to Pretty Lady's fevered brain after she was finally able to wrap her hopelessly feminine mind around the above logical sequence. Let us consider this as read. Let us, merely, ask this theoretical male a theoretical question.

Are you familiar with the concept of a team? As in those sports thingies? Group of persons working together toward a Common Goal, such as to win the Super Bowl, or something else equally random and trivial?

Pretty Lady pauses, for the man to bring this undoubtedly familiar concept to mind, and hold it there.

Now. Think hard. Suppose you were a coach, auditioning players for a team. Would you require these potential players to prove their competence, by handling the ball or puck or stick or whatever, with finesse, logic and aplomb? Or would you require them to prove their loyalty, by fumbling around and dropping it all over the place, so as not to infringe upon the other players' inherent superiority?

Hmm?

Now, I ask you, theoretical man, to stretch a paradigm. Imagine, that in the mind of Woman, relationships are roughly equivalent to teams. This putative Woman regards a relationship as an entity in which two individuals work together to achieve a set of Common Goals, such as building a home, raising children, establishing a system of mutual nurturance, companionship and spiritual, emotional and intellectual growth.

Now, imagine that this hapless Woman, with this goal in mind, proceeds to audition for a place on this Relationship Team by proving her competence. Her method includes displaying perspicacity, humor, kindness, flexibility, wit, resourcefulness, and a basic ability to hold up her end of the stick, in both practical and aesthetic contexts.

And the Man promptly responds by thinking, "Who does this Woman think she is, being all clever and competent like that? I'll take that bitch down a peg. She's begging for it." So he treats this potential team member as a Woman--that is, as an exotic sort of prostitute--grinds her into the dirt, abandons her, and goes off in search of a ball-dropper to put under contract.

Are you, theoretical Man, perhaps getting a hint of the sort of frustrations and miscommunications that can arise, due to this mutual conflict of assumed paradigms, yet?

While you are chewing on this idea, Pretty Lady will pose some alternatives to the notion that an intelligent woman, making a humorous, perceptive, or witty remark, is attempting to emasculate a man by Competing with him. The possibility exists that her motive in making such a remark might be:

1) To express what's on her mind, in the hopes of kindling an answering spark of resonance in his.

2) To defuse a tense situation with humor.

3) To introduce an alternate perspective for mutual consideration.

4) To pre-empt being patronized, which can be mildly annoying, when a gentleman assumes that no sweet little blue-eyed blonde lady could possibly be able to process ideas or information beyond the first-grade level.

(Incidentally, a lady who engages in such patronage pre-emption may also be endeavoring to spare the man the humiliation that inevitably occurs, when she is finally forced to confess to having a Ph.D. in engineering.)

5) To engage his attention in a flirtatious way, for the purposes of mutual enjoyment.

6) To let her Freak Flag fly high, in the hopes of attracting someone who likes that sort of thing.

7) Just to express the sheer joy of being alive.

Now, it is certainly possible that the lady is a ball-busting bitch who wishes to see all men castrated and ground down under her dominating and vindictive heel. Such bitches are occasionally born. However, it is Pretty Lady's private suspicion that such bitches are also made, after a well-meaning lady has been given the competitive-whore treatment a couple of dozen times.

In closing, Pretty Lady would like to re-iterate the statement that loyalty has nothing, nothing, nothing whatsoever to do with competence. Loyalty is an aspect of character, which in all humans is divorced from other characteristics such as wit, intelligence, creativity and the like. You may not assess a woman's character in the course of a brief conversation, however witty or bovine this conversation may be. You can only assess it by interacting with her over a period of time, and observing her actions.

Of course, if you drive her away by vulgarly insulting her with a lewd proposition, the first time she dares to say something clever, your storehouse of Erroneous Assumptions will remain wholly intact. And you will, incidentally, end up with a very dull wife.

The Competitive Female

Pretty Lady must apologize for having become Hot Under her Collar for a moment. Ordinarily she likes to maintain a Balanced Perspective, in order to open her soul to the infinite truth and forgiveness of the Holy Spirit. This, she has found, is the way to remain happy, healthy and keep her complexion in tiptop condition. The cosmetic benefits of allowing the Holy Spirit to rule one's mental landscape cannot be underestimated.

But occasionally someone presses a Sore Button in Pretty Lady's serene psyche, and she goes ballistic. Such a one, unfortunately, was this:

Are you being extraordinary, or are you being competitive?
Men want to marry women who display the characteristic of loyalty.

Pretty Lady must say it again. Hmph.

It has been Pretty Lady's sad experience that men, in general, are largely oblivious to the flagrant signs of unhealthy, vile, underhanded, backstabbing Competitiveness in Females. Men are simple souls. Show them a winning smile, a winsome pout, and utter a few bland clichés about Home and Family, and they believe a woman to be everything she touts herself as, and more. This same winning, winsome woman may utter Malicious Lies, Cutting Remarks, and Wholesale Betrayals of Confidence freely before this same man, and he will not even notice. He will merely think she is perspicacious and clever; he may even honor her malice with the label of 'loyalty.' Loyalty toward himself, of course; obviously she is merely protecting him from the designing hussies who surround him on every side.

It never appears to occur to him that a mind which sees malice under every rock may be seeking what it wishes to find; moreover, that it sees the thing it is steeped in.

Pretty Lady, when very young, was taught this maxim by her mother: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." With a few regrettable and notorious lapses, she has endeavored to live up to this precept during her entire adult life. More than this, she tries mightily to look for the best in people, and to understand where the worst might be coming from. This habit of hers has led her to make some egregious errors in the selection of her intimate friends. Preoccupied with her industrious treasure-seeking, she has been dismissive of, or honestly blind to, aggressive destructiveness of character in others.

That is, until the full force of her self-deception hits her right between the eyes; then she is wont to reconsider.

Far from being Competitive herself, Pretty Lady has always believed that vulgar scrabbling between females for the attention of a man ought to be avoided at all costs. If a man is so distractible that he cannot be bothered to remember that he originally asked Pretty Lady on a date, when another woman invites herself along and clings to him like glue, chattering engagingly, Pretty Lady will not remind him. She politely and ironically excuses herself and catches up on her sleep. When a man decides to be a big cocky jerk and invite her to lunch as the tall half of a set, she does not attempt to command his attention with seductive gestures; she thanks the two of them, grapes and all, and heads to the studio. Pretty Lady has neither the time nor the inclination for such egoistic games. Either a man perceives her obvious singularity of character, or he does not.

Pretty Lady takes the concept of Loyalty very seriously indeed. If her friend is interested in, dating, or married to a man, he is Off Limits in Pretty Lady's universe, until five years after the divorce. In fact, if a man is previously attached at all, even to her worst enemy, he is equally Off Limits, even if his wife is flinging him at Pretty Lady's head.

Thus, although she generally maintains a tight-lipped reticence on the subject, Pretty Lady's deeper opinion on women who regard the intimate relationships of their close friends as fishing grounds for their own purposes, is that these women are poison. No matter how many times they disingenuously declare, "It just sort of happened, and I feel terrible about it."

Harmonic Resonance

Gracious. It seems that whenever Pretty Lady uses words such as 'sordid' in a post title, no matter how whimsically intended, some of her friends are inclined to take her seriously, and do their best to live up to the low expectations established therein. Pretty Lady now commands these dear friends of hers to Cease and Desist with insulting one another, and equally with taking offense when tongue-in-cheek insults are offered.

(Although, good heavens, if Pretty Lady found herself married to a man who expressed a categorical unwillingness to purchase a cardboard box full of Necessary Supplies on her behalf when she was Down With The Flu, for example, her first act upon rising from her bloodstained sickbed would be to file for divorce. Ahem.)

However, all these topics, today, are Moot. We shall Move On. We shall Move On to Entertaining Stories about Seduction; goody, goody!

For our dear friend Crom has embarked upon a Series wherein he proposes to unmask the Five Major Scams used upon unsuspecting ladies by men with dishonorable intentions. And Pretty Lady, for one, is All Agog.

You have to have enough on the ball to get the new girl to someplace where you are kissing, petting etc. and there is enough privacy to actually do the deed. This could be her house, your flat, a friend's bedroom - wherever you could actually have sex with little fear of interruption. If you cannot get here, stop reading and work on your conversational skills.

At some point during this epic makeout session it is likely that the girl will put the brakes on the action, because she does not want you to think she is a slut and will fall into bed with every silver-tongued raconteur that spins a witty yarn. It is your job to detect the beginnings of this subtle refusal, and right when she is about to say "Hold on, stop. Let's talk about this for a second" instead YOU stop, and pull away, but not too far.

You should appear embarrassed, and somewhat flustered when you tell the girl that she is a cool person, and that you definitely like her but you don't want to take things here that fast and that you really want to get to know her better before you take this next step of getting physical. It is critical that this be done convincingly.

If she believes you, she will now believe that you respect her, and are interested in her rather just getting laid. With a minor amount of encouraging, she will do the rest of the work to get you into the sack as she now actually likes and wants you. You can put your hands behind your head and enjoy the ride.

Why he started with Scam Number Two is anybody's guess. But while we are on the topic, Pretty Lady has a General Question for all and sundry, on her own personal behalf, and that is--

Why does it appear that men, by and large, seem to think that they can get away with more lame, half-assed, two-timing, bizarre, and wholly dishonorable behavior when the woman in question is rather more extraordinary than average? Or is this simply an illusory thing, and the fact that Pretty Lady has been subjected to a large amount of such behavior is merely par for the course?

For it veritably seems that just as soon as Pretty Lady displays any sign of Whimsical Creativity, Intellectual Cognizance, or Worldly Sophistication, that is the same moment she is bombarded with articulate proposals for an extended menage-a-trois, 'discreet' affairs, peremptory insistence on 'open relationships,' failure to pick up the check, whining, leaning, passive-aggression, two-timing, and pretending to be a crazy person in public.

Whereas none of the doe-eyed innocents of her acquaintance ever seem to get this sort of thing. They are never IM'd by a stranger with the words, "Spit or swallow?" Never once do they receive a sudden, explicit proposition from a 45-year-old Caucasian man and his 23-year-old bisexual Asian sweetheart. They appear ignorant of the mechanics of BDSM, never having had them explained and demanded at intricate length by a Very Old Friend who has established trust over a period of eight or nine years. Their old married friends remain old friends, and are not off in the corner sulking because Pretty Lady turned down their offer of a threesome.

It has gotten so that Pretty Lady is wondering where on her face the words "Professional Third Wheel" are tattooed, and how in the world she can get them lasered off.

Because it would seem, to her ignorant mind, that an extraordinary person ought to inspire extraordinary things in others, and not merely catalyze a fallout of crass and contemptible behavior. To her mind, if a man finds a woman challenging, he ought to rise to meet that challenge, and not compensate by screwing around on the side. Much less should he assume that Pretty Lady, having so much to offer the world, requires less in the way of attention, commitment and maintenance than the average Good Woman. Competent, caring, informed and self-actualized though she is, she still considers herself just as human as the rest of us, and just as deserving of decent treatment from others.

Pretty Lady Draws the Line

Icky-poo. Pretty Lady just attended one of her signature literary readings, on a spur-of-the-moment invitation, and now she feels like she has been slimed.

Pretty Lady sometimes feels as though she has spent her entire adult life defending against charges of being a Victorian Prude. At times, she has even pre-empted this label, by humorously applying it to herself. In many circles, Pretty Lady has been known as, more or less, the token naïf; her freshman-year college friends, for example, ceremoniously presented her with a portrait of Alice in Wonderland, as her signature totem.

As she grew older, naturally her store of experience and sophistication expanded itself. At the same time, her inherent qualities of Mercy, Understanding and Unwillingness to Judge flowered like lilies in the sun. In her time, Pretty Lady has been the close confidante of strippers, sex-workers, wannabe sex-workers, frisky homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, sex addicts, polyamorous swingers, professional dominatrixes and highly unprofessional bondage freaks. She has welcomed all of these wild and wonderful persons with an open heart and an earnest desire to understand, if not necessarily share, their points of view.

Furthermore, Pretty Lady considers that prostitution is not an inherently dishonorable profession. It serves an undeniable need, and it is certainly not an easy living. Many persons, moreover, find themselve in economic circumstances which exigently force the issue. Pretty Lady cannot find it in her heart to judge or condemn these individuals in any way.

HOWEVER. Let it be known henceforth:

• When a person is a member of the middle-class, with a good education, living in a first world country:

• When a person has talent, brains, humor and creativity:

• When a person has an editor who suggests that performing twisted sexual acts with random strangers, then writing about the experience afterward, might be a good way to raise one's literary profile:

• When a person takes one's editor up on this proposition, for the sole purposes of acquiring extra income and literary notoriety:

Then, that person is truly cheap. Cheap and trashy.

Thus spake the Lady.

How to be Endlessly Erotic

Thank you, darlings, for being so endlessly patient while Pretty Lady revelled silently in the atmosphere of Home. She feels Restored, after sitting for hours upon her favorite dam in the Trinity, occasionally dunking her feet, and watching the autumn leaves course through the sparkling torrent. She has inhaled the particular wild, dusty aromas of dead grass, random cactus and tangled oak leaves; she has contemplated the pink skies and thorny underbrush of her homeland; she has sat long and long with uncompromising western winds rippling through her hair, watching the distance shift from hazy rose to gray-blue to midnight indigo. She has allowed her aura to decompress, expand, and mingle with the laconic expanses and infinite skies of a land which she has never thought to miss or regret, but which flows within her blood as unthinkingly as oxygen. Hmmmmmm.

So, then, Pretty Lady has high hopes that this recharging of batteries will enable her to tackle forcefully the topic of How to Attain a State of Perpetual Mind-Body Orgasm, which we venal human creatures are so endlessly pursuing, either covertly or right out in the shameless open. She knows that her competition in this arena is fierce; moreover, she suspects that she will lose a great deal of her prospective audience right off the bat, when she bluntly declares that Pornography is Not It. Additionally, running one's dating life as though one were auditioning for a porn film won't do it either. Indeed, these things are some of the most potent blocks to living a life of rampant, joyous sensuality; Pretty Lady hopes that her proposed screed will assist, in some small way, toward thrusting the kinky magazines and exotic photographs back into the fleabag alleyways where they belong.

Pretty Lady is ever optimistic.

Now, before you get all exercised and turn away from Pretty Lady's naive rhapsodies in sophisticated disgust, let it be known that Pretty Lady has, in actual fact, seen Debbie Does Dallas. Or at least, she's seen part of it. It proved impossible to view the entire thing before Pretty Lady and her then-lover succumbed to the power of overt suggestion and lost interest in the flickering screen, in favor of the pursuit of more concrete endeavors. Later on, her lover remarked, "It looked like they were having fun." Even now, Pretty Lady has only to think of the phrase, "Roberta, we have a favor to ask of you," in order to get all flustered. Pretty Lady has always been an inexpensive date.

However, when this same adventurous lover took the step of acquiring some more recently-manufactured, sophisticated films via brown-paper mail-order, results were not nearly so scintillating. The stars of these latter artistic productions did not look as though they were having fun; they looked as though they were auditioning for some sort of banal, generic Fame, which made the camera a more significant object by far than either their lascivious actions or their partners. It reminded Pretty Lady of a video she once viewed, of Karen Finley performing: 'oh! It's time to get naked now. It's time to pour the chocolate frosting. It's time to stick the finger up the...' and so on. It was more a semantic gesture than an act imbued with erotic significance.

After viewing that film, Pretty Lady and her boyfriend wrapped themselves in flannel bathrobes, made some Ovaltine, played checkers and fell asleep. Which was fine, in its own pedestrian way.

You see, darlings, Sex as Parts can only go So Far. When one amputates the Sexual from the Personal, the Emotional, the Mysterious, the Particular, the Spiritual and the Intellectual, one hasn't got much left to work with. One has, merely and literally, a Dangling End. This creates two unavoidable problems; first, one has to keep upping the erotic ante to maintain even a semblance of titillation, and one becomes increasingly stringent, in a narrow sense, and critical of one's partner's End. Which can lead to some extremely tacky conversations, not to mention a plummetting sense of self-worth, as one's own End approaches, inevitably, the ground.

The erotic is like a pinch of asafoetida, or perhaps truffle oil, if one is not so fond of Indian food. A very little goes a very long way, imbuing everything it touches with a musky depth; a great deal of it will totally annihilate the senses. Additionally, undiluted and impersonal Sex is quite literally dangerous; it leaves one physically and emotionally vulnerable, to such a degree that the only possible response to casual Sex with a relative stranger is to Shut Down. In men, this Shutting Down response is hard-wired and automatic; in women, Pretty Lady suspects, it is defensive and acquired. The more casually Sex is treated within our culture, the more we all develop Teflon temperaments.

This is why Pretty Lady maintains that it is erotically counterproductive to have sex on the first date. Even in the first month. In fact, Pretty Lady sometimes thinks that if the ultimate act were infinitely postponed, approached by incremental degrees in the manner of Zeno's Paradox, the forces of sublimated erotic tension would expand to such a degree that polluted wilds would be scoured clean, the national budget would be balanced, and Fermat's Last Theorem would be all locked up, by billions of minds in a constant state of high-wired sensitivity. But then, Pretty Lady is operating from a position of extreme femininity; it is a good thing that most boys would vociferously object to this situation, or the human race would die out in one, albeit infinitely productive, generation.

Think back, darlings, to the last time you were in love. If you ever have been. It does not matter if the object of your affections turned out to be a three-timing rat-fink bastard, as so often has been the case in Pretty Lady's experience; we are not concerned with that. We are only concerned with the effects of inchoate erotic affection upon one's immediate environment. Think back to how the world appeared; how every sunset was deep and intense and maudlin in a wholly cliché'd and embarrassing way, how one was prone to walk around the streets grinning like a fool, how one saved up the most trivial incidents of experience to bestow upon one's beloved, suddenly imbued with a radiance and specialness far beyond the gray banality of everyday life.

The world, when one is in love, is suddenly bursting with riotous poetry, profound significance, and tense, ecstatic sensuality. Is it not? So why waste one's time on anything else? Pretty Lady is here to tell you that it can always be that way.

Indeed it can, even if one has been single for so long that one cannot quite remember what actual intercourse felt like. It can be like this even if one has been married for decades; even if one's body is old and withered and never likely to appear in a porn film, even as comic relief. All it takes is a conscious decision to imbue one's everyday attention with the sort of reverence that is generally reserved for weddings, baptisms, funerals, and good erotic literature.

For example: Pretty Lady herself takes a shower nearly every day. A shower! Think of the possibilities! She begins slowly, thoughtfully, loosing her hair from its restrictive clasp, allowing it to cascade wantonly round her shoulders. Then she removes her shoes, those harsh, bulky things, and casts them to the corner. She reaches for the silver taps, arching her back like a cat stretching in the sun; she adjusts the temperature so that it is bitingly hot, just the slightest bit painful, peppery and invigorating. She exuberantly strips off her jeans, her soft, clingy cotton top, her foamy bra and her amusing little bikini bottom, exulting in de-elasticized freedom before bounding into the hammering spray.

Once there, she allows the sensuous jets to saturate her long, mermaid-like hair, falling dense and heavy over bare, silky skin. She basks in the steam and the spray for long, contented moments before reaching for the shampoo...

and we have yet to discuss the niceties of soap, razors, conditioner, towels, and the occasional sea-salt exfoliation treatment. Pretty Lady doesn't want you to get too worked up.

True eroticism, in Pretty Lady's view, is about an infinite, subtle opening up. In its most advanced stages, the mere sight of a bird coursing across the heavens, or a drop of rain tracing a whimsical path down the window, can contain an entire universe of wonder and delight. The catch is, that in order to inhabit such a subtly delightful universe, one must be Safe. One cannot be safely wide-open around rat-fink-bastards who treat the world in general, and you in particular, as so much Kleenex. In avoiding rat-fink-bastards, one must take care not to BE a rat-fink-bastard; this extends, quite logically, to the act of treating one's lovers with the sincere care and reverence of royalty, not with the casual indifference of a one-night-stand.

So if, after considered acquaintance, one cannot avoid feeling a certain contempt, loathing, boredom, indifference, or revulsion for one's companion--physical, intellectual, emotional or otherwise--skip the sex. It isn't worth it. Get a Haagen-Daas and go skipping in the rain instead.

Therapy hour

Pretty Lady has, however inadvertantly, struck a nerve with Crom:

Those gentlemen furtively clicking their sperm counts away are compensating for the fact that to try and get her in the mood is only slightly less difficult than neurosurgery or requires a layout of cash on useless jewelry that could pay for the mortgage, handily. The sad part is that many of these men really do love their wives despite the fact that what they would do daily the wife only wants once a week, maybe. Men are wired to want it more often than they do a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, hence the explosion of all the alternative forms of gratification.

The man with an eager wife is blessed indeed, for the number of women like this are rapidly approaching extinction levels.

Pretty Lady herself has, thankfully, never been married to a porn addict. Although this may seem to discount her from commenting knowledgeably upon the subject, it also invests her perspective with a certain degree of detachment; a lack of overt bias, if you will. Also, in the course of her wide travels and variegated relationships, she has been upon intimate (though not directly sexual) terms with a great number of committed couples, many of whom are in the habit of speaking candidly to her about their sex lives.

Therefore she would like to make a few observations.

1) It seems we are in a situation, here, where each gender is forcefully blaming the other gender, society, culture, feminism, anti-feminism, repression, openness, monogamy, polygamy, religion, atheism, and their parents for the crisis at hand. The only entity one is not inclined to blame, in any given situation, is oneself. This has always seemed to Pretty Lady to be a wilfully counter-productive attitude; see all archives.

2) In the course of her observations of the trials and tribulations of committed couples, Pretty Lady has come to one single empirical truth about intra-coupular dynamics; that it ALWAYS goes two ways. ALWAYS. All other details are subject to infinite variability. Thus, whenever there is a problem, it is both people's problem. That is implicit in the definition of the word 'couple.' Blaming one's spouse exclusively for an untenable situation, then, ensures that the situation will never, never, never be resolved, except in dissolution of the couple. Period.

3) The dynamics of each and every couple are different. This may seem to be so obvious as to be a tautology; however, when enthusiastic crusaders get swept up in a wave of political rhetoric, this obvious fact often seems to be abandoned on the seashore. Thus, mandating a solution that involves a sea-change in the attitude of an entire gender, particularly one that is not one's own, is not only silly, but would not resolve your own personal problem even if, by some miracle, it occurred.

So. What now?

WHEN there is a disagreement about Sex within a couple (and there are ALWAYS disagreements about sex within couples), these disagreements generally hinge upon two factors: 1) difference in sex drives and 2) difference in priorities. The stereotypical situation is that the lady has the lower sex drive, and thus the lower sex priority, but Pretty Lady is here to tell you that this is not always the case. Not by a long shot.

When embarking upon the necessary reconciliation of these differences, three factors are key. 1) Trust, 2) Commitment, and 3) Communication. Without a nearly unlimited supply of these three factors, the relationship is doomed.

Pretty Lady could write an entire saga on the subject of Trust alone; suffice it to say that trust is not something to be bestowed, either rapidly or indiscriminately. It must be earned. And one has no right to demand it of someone if one's actions are not generally trustworthy. That is to say: If you make a habit of lying to your spouse, manipulating this person, controlling them, draining their energy, acting in ways which are contrary to your spouse's best interests, or habitually abusing them in any way, even verbally or emotionally (those 'feminine' intangibles), your spouse has no reason to trust you.

And since mutual trust is the very essence of committed, mindblowing, off-the-charts, body-mind-soul sex, you have shot yourself in the foot at the starting gate.

Thus Trust, as well, generally accompanies Commitment. If you require the first but are constitutionally allergic to the second, please go to hell.

That baseline established, we move onto the third element in our Continued Great Sex Prescription Package; Communication.

Never, it seems, have so many people talked so much to achieve so little. They talk about themselves; their needs, wants, requirements, fantasies, pet moral philosophies, frustrations, and trivial daily incidents. They complain. They whine. They blog. What they do a great deal less of is listening. The times when they listen the least, when they actually seem to reach into their eardrums and hit the 'mute' button, is when a person close to them is telling them something about themselves that they do not wish to hear.

Pretty Lady is here to tell you that this is precisely the thing you NEED to hear. It will be painful. It will be humbling. It will require some thought, some honest soul-searching, and some adjustment on your part. But the results may very well be phenomenal.

And Pretty Lady must remind you, in case you have forgotten, during the course of reading this long, serious, less-than-sprightly post: It goes both ways. If you have been listening to your spouse, really truly, for a long time; if you have been taking this listening to heart, and loving this person, and adjusting for this person, and the time comes for you to communicate your needs, lovingly and responsibly, and this person absolutely refuses to listen, guess what? You do not have a spouse. You are a single person who is legally chained to a narcissist.

The best you can do for yourself, then, is to walk away. You do not have to file for divorce, instantly, when your spouse falls asleep during foreplay; what you can and must do, eventually, after you have put your best efforts into facilitating communication, is to make it clear that an unacceptable situation is unacceptable. You may take a long vacation. You may take another apartment. You may go on a meditation retreat.

If your spouse takes advantage of your vacation to jump into bed with the nearest hottie, THEN you file for divorce. But if the seriousness of your intention finally becomes clear, and your spouse actually starts to listen--well, then.

It has been known to happen.

Hooray Naomi

Lovely Naomi Wolf gets the porn issue, finally, correct:

If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it.

Other cultures know this. I am not advocating a return to the days of hiding female sexuality, but I am noting that the power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time. In many more traditional cultures, it is not prudery that leads them to discourage men from looking at pornography. It is, rather, because these cultures understand male sexuality and what it takes to keep men and women turned on to one another over time—to help men, in particular, to, as the Old Testament puts it, “rejoice with the wife of thy youth; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times.” These cultures urge men not to look at porn because they know that a powerful erotic bond between parents is a key element of a strong family.

And feminists have misunderstood many of these prohibitions.

Pretty Lady thinks erotica is Just Splendid. She has a book by Anais Nin, and once every few years, she reads a story. Or two. Then she puts it back on the shelf. It is rather like a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label in that respect.

She has never been one to condemn gentlemen for looking at pornography, visiting the occasional strip club, or even the occasional lady of the evening. Gentlemen, as they say, will do that.

But doing this sort of thing more often than one buys a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, particularly if one is living on a conservative income, makes a man boring, flaccid, and ultimately useless. He degenerates into a zombie that goes 'click. click. click.' in the evenings, instead of practicing Tantric mysteries with his eager wife, under their tent of exotic hangings. Pretty Lady knows women who used to be married to men like this; one of them drove cross-country in her porn-zombie husband's prized Mercedes, left it in a ghetto with the doors unlocked, and took a photograph once an hour until he sent her the signed divorce papers. This Could Happen to You.

Boys, this is No Sort of Life. Not for us, not for you.

What is sexy, part the second

Bob is in a fit of literalistic pique over Pretty Lady's cavalier dismissal of his query re: the indefinable appeal of Johnny M.:

So....if I literally read what you wrote...

"Understanding" only comes if your female and lesbian?

Could your response be considered as sexist and sexless at the same time?

?

Hmph. If you must.

Only straight women and gay men, dear Bob, can truly appreciate the poignant, winsome tension that is John Mayer the man, the artist, and the earnest little boy. Straight men are likely to be left coldly unaffected by the ropy, casual masculinity of John Mayer's forearms and hands as he tweedles his instrument; they will entirely miss the sudden gust of psychic pheromones as he casually tosses a glossy dark lock from his forehead. Perhaps an unusually sensitive specimen of straight man might note the odd, unpremeditated way he rolls his eyes back behind lowered lashes as he sings, as though he is channelling the voices of angels; but this same straight man is likely to be repulsed, rather than otherwise, at the manner in which his sensual lips purr against the microphone, as against the skin of a lover.

No, Bob, your average straight man will not even perceive the wryly humorous way he looks askance while performing the wordless, falsetto bridge, communicating his own innocent surprise at the goofiness of the song which has lighted upon him. He will consider that, even if the candid way he meets his audience's eyes upon occasion indicates a sincerity of spirit and an engaging friendliness of character, that this is nothing remarkable. The subtleties of power restrained, power allowing gentleness to shine through, power with the confidence to be vulnerable, lighthearted, playful and whimsical, will mean nothing to this straight man.

The straight man, in other words, thinks that all the girls and gay men are going bonkers over an inconsequential puppy. This is why we besotted straight women generally keep quiet about it. Unless, of course, we are in the privacy of home or car, where we turn up the volume, blithely twirl in circles, and sing along to 'Clarity' until sated and exhausted.

Seduced and Abandoned

Pretty Lady is devastated to report that there is a Dangerous Libertine lurking around Manhattan. Innocent, or not-so-innocent, ladies all, beware.

This fearsome cad goes only by the name of M. He is a smallish man, mesomorphic, with dark hair and a charming smile. He pretends to be interested in subletting your apartment; he will appear clean-cut, wholesome, solvent and single.

Believe nothing of what you see. This man's only designs are to purloin your honor--what is left of it.

His modus aparandi is the Direct and Bold. He will sum you up with an admiring stare. He will run obligingly to fetch a six-pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and confidentially remove his shoes while swigging it upon your couch. He will press all the correct buttons, psychologically speaking. Words like 'commitment,' 'community,' 'law degree,' and 'spirituality' will fall trippingly from his tongue. He will take advantage of any pause in conversation to press your palm confidingly.

Once this shameless operator has observed, with cynical eye, the fact that you have drained your second bottle of Sierra Nevada, and are regarding him with sanguine complacency, his assault on your virtue moves into high gear. He feigns a neck injury, and pleads for your assistance. Once you have demonstrated the power of your healing hands, he chivalrously offers to return the favor.

Run, my darlings, run for the hills. Throw this man out of your apartment, and his six-pack with him. Do not let him approach your neck. Anything but that.

Because, my friends, this man is nothing but a humbug. It is only after he has charmed, snuggled, swarmed and sweet-talked his way into the place you were determined he should not go, after your last vestige of resistance has been overcome, after you have recklessly thrown caution to the winds and succumbed to his overweening advances--only then, at 6 AM, will he casually mention the Prior Attachment.

Someone he hasn't seen in years, true, but he has his hopes. And you, with your manifold charms, can only be a second-fiddle snot-rag in comparison to that.

I repeat: approach this wolf in Zen clothing with extreme prejudice. Do not offer to invest money in his visionary schemes; he is the sort of man who will make off with your nest egg, and suddenly remember a Prior Debt that must be fulfilled. Do not be fooled by his wide-eyed musings about the mythic Girlfriend that he wishes he were cooking with. Be blind to his apparent appreciation for thunderstorms in the wilds of Coney Island. Turn a deaf ear to his acute assessment of your wit, your Grecian form, your strength of character and glorious hair.

Pretty Lady only hopes that her eternal shame will serve as a beacon to ward other susceptible ladies from the jagged shoals of this man's perfidious charm.

The Equal Opportunity Orgasm

Sigh.

Pretty Lady has tried, repeatedly, to pass the buck on this issue. But it seems, judging by the response to recent postings, that a large number of you have been ignoring her frequent, broad hints about reading Dan Savage. So it seems as though the responsibility falls upon her weary shoulders once again.

Gentlemen, I must ask you this. Is your wife or lady friend frequently out of sorts? Is she grumpy, querulous, impatient, nit-picky, and seemingly absent much of the time? Does she nag? If the answer is 'yes; all too often,' bear this in mind when I ask this next question.

Do you know what a clitoris is?

More than that, do you know how to find it, and what to do with it once you get there?

Gentlemen, these are not unrelated issues. Women, you say, are Mysterious. They go so far as to be Unfathomable at times. They are not direct; they do not say what they mean. They hint, they elide, they say that nothing is wrong. The gentlemen find this frustrating; they get annoyed. In return they call the ladies 'frigid.' They complain that women are not interested in sex; they become downcast, and sometimes seek external company.

Boys, This Is Not So. Listen closely. You may not like what I have to say; you may actively resist it at first. The female orgasm is not a mysterious impossibility; it may be elusive, but it is highly attainable. It also has nothing to do with that bastard Freud.

There is a profound difference, gentlemen, between Turning a Lady On and Getting a Lady Off. The former can be achieved in any number of ways; by playing lead guitar, by catching the winning pass, by backing her against a wall and biting the base of her throat. The latter can usually only be achieved in a single way; by direct, gentle, repetitive, soft, patient flicking sensations on her clitoris.

What drives us stark raving bonkers is when you continually accomplish the former and fall down upon the latter. There is absolutely nothing worse than when a darkly handsome, growly-voiced gentleman backs you confidently over a car hood and commences fingering your panties. He slings you over his shoulder, carries you up two flights of stairs and casts you wantonly upon the futon, unbuttoning your blouse with his teeth. He tongues your nipples and glides his hands all over your shuddering frame, caressing you knowingly in any number of impertinent places. He hammers a row of insistent kisses from your chin to your panty line, stripping away the last shred of fragile silk between himself and your tender skin. He teases, he probes, he overrides your last vestiges of common sense and claims you utterly.

Then he bangs you senseless, rolls over with a sigh of satisfaction and falls asleep.

Boys, I have heard many of you complain about the female tendency to threaten castration, when miffed over personal or political issues. This sort of scenario, I believe, is at the root of this tendency.

Sexual frustration makes women insane. It makes us want to simultaneously burst into tears, dismember a feather pillow and tear the gentleman's hair out. Since we love the gentleman, since we are Relational, we do not do so. We merely become distant, placatory, and passive-aggressive. Can you blame us?

Well, of course you can. This is why Pretty Lady has taken it upon herself to override Freud, and re-educate all the lovely gentlemen of her acquaintance.

The clitoris, dear gentleman, is a small button of exquisite sensitivity, located Front and Center. It can be located by fingering a lady gently, while intently observing her demeanor. The moment she sighs, relaxes, arches her back and rolls her eyes up in her head, you have found it.

Once there, patience is key. You have all the time in the world to lazily caress, explore, strip, probe, nibble, tongue, and roam freely over her sensate skin. A woman's entire body is an erogenous zone. She will lie quiescent and blissfully compliant as long as you are rubbing her back, stroking her hair, sucking her earlobes and twiddling her nipples. But you must come back to the clitoris, and back, and back, and back. All other is in vain, else.

When the moment has arrived to bring your lady to a decided climax, you must be serious, you must be solemn. Juvenile remarks, extraneous slurping noises, negative criticism and needlessly vulgar comments are Right Out. Just because your gonads kicked in when you were thirteen years old, does NOT mean that acting like a thirteen-year-old is sexy. A large part of a woman's erotic temperament is psychological, and you can wilt a sultry female mood quicker than an iris out of water, by reminding her of awful Ronnie Clements from the eighth grade. So cut it out.

No, you must be strong, you must be confident, you must be assertive. You must arrange the lady on her back and make languid, intent circles in the place you have cleverly discovered, while gazing deeply into her eyes. Deliberately, you plant a firm kiss on her navel, and work your way southward. You locate your target and make an experimental probe with your tongue. When she gasps, moans, wriggles convulsively and closes her eyes, continue performing the action which produced this result. Do not stop.

I cannot tell you how important it is that you do not stop.

If you have any experience with playing the bassoon, this will come excessively in handy. Flick. Trill. Tremolo. Maintain a steady, light rhythm. Do not worry about being boring. This is the one occasion when you may repeat yourself ad infinitum and the lady will never even think of complaining.

Flick. Flick. Flick. Do not stop. Do not stop until the lady has gone beyond gasping; until she has gone beyond the ability to verbalize. Do not stop until she has been thrashing from side to side in a frenzy for uncountable seconds, until her body suddenly goes rigid and perfectly still, until she heaves a gargantuan sigh of release and heavenly visitation, and great harmonic tremors go surging through her core. Do not stop even then; do not stop until she cries, brokenly, "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

Then you may slow down. You may broaden your range, you may become creative, you may become gently humorous once again. You may pet your lady.

You may, then, bang her as much as you please; from the front, side, back, against a wall, over a car hood, in any of a hundred tantric positions. She will not be placating you; she will not be concealing any smouldering resentment, she will not ever hint at castration. She may even have another orgasm or two.

But if you repeatedly, selfishly neglect to perform this simple set of actions, you will have no-one to blame but yourself when, full of remorse, you call your ex-lover drunkenly at two in the morning and beg for another chance. She will then declare, with cold indifference, "Why should I bother? YOU never did."

How to Give a Good Christian Blowjob

In the proper circumstances, Pretty Lady is All For bl0wjobs. They assist in natural family planning, they tighten the skin over one's cheekbones, they keep one's husband in a state of rosy contentment. Any good Christian wife who cavils at performing them is taking grave risks with her familial stability. Thus, Pretty Lady has decided to provide some simple bl0wjob guidelines, in the interests purely of ensuring that Good Christian Families stay contentedly together.

Now, ladies, it is paramount to treat your husband's penis with affection, tenderness and respect. Shrinking, shuddering, and refusing to touch it manually for more than a second or two are unseemly behaviors, and are likely to produce despondency in your husband. If you are having trouble overcoming residual pre-marital taboos against stroking, petting, grabbing, massaging or kissing your husband's member, try thinking of it as a small, cuddly animal, like a gerbil or a Guinea pig. One wishes to develop a relationship of casual familiarity with this loveable creature. One ideally should get into the habit of giving it a friendly little pat at every socially appropriate opportunity, just so that it doesn't feel neglected.

When one is preparing to give one's husband the sort of bl0wjob which will reduce him to a gibbering puddle of grateful pheromones, it is best to proceed in stages. Ideally, one should arrange one's timing so that there is nothing boiling over on the stove, the children are in school, and your husband has no crucial business meetings scheduled for the next hour or two. "Quickies" can be useful and enjoyable, but within a long-term relationship one has the opportunity, and indeed the onus, to develop a more extended artistic repertoire.

Thus, begin slowly, even flirtatiously. Give your husband an affectionate hug. Nibble on the place just behind his earlobe. Snuggle your pelvis against his groin, as a sort of hint. Thoughtfully, almost absently, begin to rummage around his fly, with innocent curiosity. If you husband is the man I think he is, you will shortly find yourself reclining upon the nearest horizontal surface. Get those pesky boxer shorts out of the way. Then get down to business.

It is important to understand that the penis has many moods, many phases. In the early stages of erection, the penis is a fragile creature, a sensitive little fiddlehead. One must not play too rough. One caresses it, gently but firmly, until it begins to quiver. As it blossoms into its fuller potential, one's strokes and fondling may become correspondingly more assertive. It is at this point, when a certain stalwart attention has been achieved, that the lips and tongue come into play.

Start by giving the lovely, smooth head of your husband's penis a swirly, affectionate little kiss, including tongue friction, perhaps accompanied by some light, preparatory sucking. Run your tongue around its ridge a few times, exerting a gentle but insistent pressure, lingering in the interesting places with jazzy insouciance, as though the penis were a keyboard and your tongue were John Coltrane. Lick ripplingly up and down the shaft. Continue stroking and caressing with the tips of your fingers, then with your whole hand, paying equal attention to those cute little testicles. This is, of course, a highly intuitive process; you will find yourself almost instinctively meeting pressure for pressure, as your husband's mental focus becomes increasingly concentrated upon the territory which you are so eagerly exploring.

Now it is time to get serious. Take as much of the penis into your mouth as can be comfortably allowed, using your tongue both as a buffer and an active source of creative friction. Where the physical dimensions of your mouth fall short, pick up the slack with your hand. It is PARAMOUNT to avoid dental contact at all times, unless your husband is a masochistic freak. To ensure this, create a tense suction by pulling your lips over your teeth, curling your tongue around and forward, and moving your whole head up and down like a piston, so that the primary source of pen1le stimulation is issuing from your lips, tongue and hand, not your teeth, inner cheeks or throat. Particularly not your throat. That is a fantasy and a myth.

Find your way into a comfortable position, so that you may continue doing this for awhile. Feel free to kneel against the side of the bed or couch, or prop your husband against a wall. You may even strap him symmetrically to the bed, if he is into that sort of thing. Be generous with lubrication. If your cheeks get tired, take a brief rest, continuing manual stroking. Have fun with it. A good bl0wjob is like a sonata; it has movements. Alegro, largo, alegretto.

At a certain point, a crossroads is reached. When your husband begins panting and gasping incoherently, and his penis swells to twice its previous size, you have arrived there. Stay the course. Continue stroking and sucking in a consistent rhythm, if possible even increasing your pressure. Upon the inevitable explosion, remain calm. Take stock of the situation; continue cradling your husband's quavering penis in your mouth, while keeping your tongue flexed and ready to respond. When you feel the time is right, swallow. Then you may purr and continue gently cradling the nice little penis, as it subsides into sleep once again.

Pretty Lady is certain that these instructions are merely basic and preliminary; her worldly experience is not infinite. Please feel free to chime in with additions, suggestions and caveats.

With apologies to Cynthia Heimel.

Related Posts: The Equal Opportunity Orgasm

How to Pick a Lady Up

Well. Since the Rabbitslayer seems to be in desperate straits, Pretty Lady will unbend. Generally she frowns upon giving young men advice on how most effectively to misbehave, but since they are bound to do it anyway, they might as well do it with style.

Let it be known that so far in this lifetime, it has proven impossible to pick Pretty Lady up in a single evening. Many have tried; some have gotten as far as second base. But Pretty Lady is a tough nut to crack. What follows is an overview of some general strategies that have (partially) succeeded with her, as well as some attitudes to avoid at all costs.

Pick-up Principle #1: Alcohol is required.

Let us be realistic about this. Much as Pretty Lady abhors drug abuse of any stripe, the fact remains that if a lady allows herself to be picked up while stone cold sober, she is definitely psychotic. Better a hungover Girl Next Door than a knife-wielding freak in your bedroom tomorrow morning.

The thing to do is remember the principle of Moderation In All Things. Two beers will make a lady genial and receptive; five will make her comatose. Two beers is also the proper amount for overcoming any shyness or restraint of rhetoric on the gentleman's part, without making him crude. It goes without saying that date-rape drugs are not only tacky, they will land you in jail for five to seven, and Pretty Lady will be the first to notify the authorities.

Pick-up Principle #2: Physical Activity obviates the need for Deep Conversation.

This is why dancing is such a popular social activity. If one's pick-up target is selected with a certain degree of premeditation, going for a hike or a bicycle ride can prove to be a comfortable icebreaker. Once the two of you have gotten over the initial nervousness of merely being in physical proximity, you can park the bikes at the corner bar and saunter on in for a chat.

Pick-up Principle #3: No Whining.

Pretty Lady hates to harp on anything, but the most disgusting thing she has ever repeatedly experienced is the sound of a male voice getting self-righteously indignant about the fact that he Just Wants to Get Laid. Boys, we know you want to get laid. It's part of your biology. Have the grace to take this as a given, and concentrate on convincing us why we should consider your particular case at this particular time.

Pick-up Principle #4: Be Direct (but with style).

Now comes time to tell the story of the time somebody almost succeeded. Be forewarned that this technique may very well get you slapped, with a lady of other than Pretty Lady's temperament. But only the bold take risks, and only the bold succeed.

Once upon a time, Pretty Lady was visiting Austin on the rebound. She was glum. She was feeling Jaded and slightly Over the Hill. A well-meaning screenwriter friend offered to set her up; Pretty Lady generally avoids these circumstances like the plague, but in a spirit of devil-may-care, she agreed to meet the two of them for dinner.

The other party to the attempt turned out to be a screenwriting police officer from Queens. At first glance, Pretty Lady typed him as "too young. Plus not particularly dynamic." She enjoyed his stories of rushing into the burning World Trade Center before it collapsed, however, and encouraged his notion of writing a screenplay about it.

The original friend, in an extravagant display of unnecessary tact, abandoned Pretty Lady and the police officer early in the evening, claiming motherhood as her excuse. Still feeling that there had been a mismatch, but not entirely bored, Pretty Lady accompanied the gentleman to a comfortable bar on Sixth, where the two of them engaged in some desultory conversation regarding screenwriting and police work.

During a lapse, the gentleman inquired, "Have you ever done anything you were ashamed of?"

Ah! Guilt. The subject of so many engrossing personal struggles. Pretty Lady proceeded to bore the man to tears with a subtle story of psycho-emotional humiliation, which burdened her conscience to this day.

"No, I mean, when you were in college, did you ever, like, experiment?"

"Oh! Well, I've ****************, but I'm not ashamed of that."

The gentleman narrowly escaped spitting a mouthful of beer all over himself, the bar, and the other customers. A contemplative silence followed.

After a moment, the gentleman declared, "I'm just going to say what's on my mind, right now. What's on my mind is that I'd like to take you to a hotel and do a lot of nasty stuff to you."

Pretty Lady warned you that you might get slapped. Most of the women she knows would slap you, at this point. When she was in her teens and twenties, Pretty Lady would have, too. But after years of whining twerps, passive-aggression, and conflicted, impotent gamma boys, Pretty Lady has finally come to appreciate a Real Man when she encounters one. This doesn't mean he will get away with that; just that it doesn't disqualify him.

"Thanks. No, but thanks," she replied.

"Ah well," he said, and finished his beer. (Note the lack of self-righteous remonstrance in his tone. He's down, but not out.)

On the stroll back to the car, the gentleman casually lifted Pretty Lady off the ground and carried her for half a block, kissing competently. "Can you see where you're going?" she thought to ask. "No," he replied, honestly and forthrightly, as usual. "Can we go to a hotel?"

"No," said Pretty Lady, forthrightly in return. We parked instead. After a couple of hours the gentleman was deposited at his place of residence, complaining wryly of a hard-on, but without a trace of querulousness in his voice. Pretty Lady more than suspects that her best bra was in his pocket, but she will give him the benefit of the doubt and say that it might have fallen out of the car at the reservoir.

Note, again, some key ingredients to this gentleman's style. He is direct, but not crude. He is confident. He knows how to read signals, and amplify them, but he also knows where to draw the line. He respects a woman's boundary when one is firmly set in place. All things considered, I'd have to give him an A-minus. That bra was expensive.

Pick-up Principle #5: Use protection.

Get the prophylactics and have them accessible, but not in a giant open basket next to the bed. Avoid any display that too obviously demonstrates your utter sluttishness of character. Having unprotected sexual interaction in this day and age is sheer madness and stupidity; Pretty Lady would almost be grateful for the advent of AIDS, if only to convince young men that irresponsibility can, indeed, be life-threatening for more than just an abandoned lady and her unborn babe.

Pick-up Principle #6: Be a gentleman.

Refrain from flinging the lady's clothing contemptuously in her face as soon as the act is complete. Do snuggle a bit; do engage in friendly chat. If you'd like to see her again, say so. If this was merely a one-night stand, make that clear at the outset. Do not lie, do not skulk, do not treat the lady like a whore. Leave her with the impression that you have discerned a certain specialness in her soul which you will remember forever, despite the fact that circumstances made it impossible for you to pursue it to completion.

Related Posts:
How to Read a Lady's Signals
Dominance and Submission

How to be Sexy

Pretty Lady has decided to give the boys a break. She was considering writing a treatise on "How to Screw Up," complete with lurid examples from her colorful past, but she has it on reliable information that this sort of thing is making the gentlemen's heads hurt. (Sorry, dear Mr. Nelson. You KNOW I consider all my champions to be superior examples of their gender, by definition.)

Instead, she has decided to offer some overwhelmingly upbeat advice which, she hopes, will additionally be simple and easy to follow. This advice applies equally to humans of all genders, anthropological classifications and orientations; in fact, many of the more obstreperous fellows around here would do well to take a few lessons from the Dandy. ;-)

Simply: Be Dave Matthews.

Not literally. More simply: Know thyself; and OWN it.

Pretty Lady is using Dave Matthews as an example, not only because his sardonic, quizzical smirk causes her higher intellect to momentarily cease functioning, but because his career is a perfect example of how to become wildly successful by accident. Dave himself has confessed that he doesn't understand how a band which specializes in fifteen-minute saxophone improvisations came to be packing stadiums in the late 1990s. Not only that, but Dave is a poster child for the Sensitive Individual who is Nevertheless, Mind-Bogglingly Charismatic.

Who was it that said that a gentleman must repress his feelings in order to be attractive to the opposite gender? This person has obviously never listened to Dave, abjectly growling out the lines:

Oh, have you no pity?
This thing I do
I do not deny it
All through this smile
Crooked as danger...
I would leave you now
If I had the strength to
I would leave you up
To your own devices
Will you not talk?
Can you take pity?
I don't ask much
But won't you speak
Please?

I must admit, the gravelly alto helps quite a bit. But the thing that makes it sexy is the way he is, figuratively, standing in the spotlight and confessing, "here I am, being hideously pathetic now. Got a problem with that?"

One knows that a man like that will move along through it presently. He will not wallow for decades, leaning on his closest companions and slowly draining them dry. Even in the depths of hopeless misery, he is both occupying the emotion and witnessing it. In a larger sense, then, he takes conscious and complete responsibility for himself, exactly as he is.

Hmph. Wandered off into esoteric rhetoric, there. I do apologize.

So, think of it like this; your task is to become so much yourself--quirky, odd, or pathetic as this may be--that you unwittingly assemble a cult following of hard-core fans. Do not think of how to please the masses. The masses have notoriously terrible taste. Notice the dumbest things about yourself, and cultivate them; nay, flaunt them. Occupy your territory.

Once you have this down, it is important to become comfortable enough within your unique star quality to be able to open up, and perceive the star quality within others. Surely everyone here is familiar with the comments of that lady who was fortunate enough to lunch with Messrs. Gladstone and Disraeli on consecutive days; when asked about her experience, she declared, "When I was with Mr. Gladstone, I was convinced that he was the most fascinating person in the world. With Mr. Disraeli, I was convinced that I was the most fascinating person in the world." The Disraeli technique is known as 'charm,' and this is what truly makes the world go round.

Related posts:
How to Ask a Lady Out
How to Ask a Gentleman Out
How to Pick a Lady Up

Issues of Dominance

How I have been daydreaming today, all about little Antonio and his bondage fetishes. So amusing, when he confessed to me darkly of his problem, after ever so many years of friendship, and started pulling suitcases full of ropes from under the bed--I thought, 'how sweet! Darling Antonio collects rope!'

Such a naive girl I was then.

It was my good fortune, I suppose, that A. was a submissive bondage fetishist. However tedious our subsequent bedroom marathons became, at least they weren't personally uncomfortable for me. My job, as I came to understand it, was to assist my lover in tying, belting, roping, buckling and chaining himself to the bed or wall in all manner of creative, but symmetrical, ways. (Symmetry, as I came to understand it, was key. Sexual creativity does not extend to unbalanced poses.) Then I had to torture him. Nothing terribly outré. Candle wax, whips, testicle pinching, et cetera. Very boring for me, particularly the endless blowjobs. I used to wonder why dear Antonio could not simply imagine himself buckled to the wall; the mind is, after all, nature's most versatile and powerful erotic organ.

I was too young then, my dears, to have understood the nature of sexual dominance versus submission. I had swallowed the political party line about sexual equality much too literally. Egalitarianism is all very well in the boardroom; in the bedroom it is death.

Viscerally, of course, I knew this already. When Antonio was grovelling and flinching as I dropped hot candle wax on his chest hair, I was conscious, not of a frisson of illicit arousal, but of vague contempt. I dropped the wax merely out of willingness and friendship, not out of a deep inner desire to do so. Ultimately this caused the demise of our relationship, and quite properly so.

Girls, when embarking upon any sort of adventure with a young man, it is vitally important to understand one thing about yourselves; are you sexually dominant, or submissive? If the former, you can look forward to a long and lucrative career of walking on the buttocks of CEOs while wearing four-inch stilettos. The type of performance that Antonio expected for free, forty hours a week, is a skill with which you can put yourself through college, if only you have the temperament.

However--if, like myself, you get your jollies reading the last chapters of Georgette Heyer novels, where the saturnine Marquis pins the impertinent heiress to the wall and kisses her senseless, you would do well to stay away from flinching bondage addicts. They will depress you. A man may wash the dishes; he may write poetry, meditate, save whales and cuddle babies, without losing one iota of his scintillating masculinity. But if, behind closed doors, he cowers when you want him to rain molten kisses upon your yielding bosom, you will eventually come to hate him.