Sexy Vs Sexual

When I thirteen years old or so, I used to go to slumber parties to which we were obliged to bring, not only our own pillow, but some sort of "sexy" bit of reading material, mainly for the purpose of grossing each other out. Unfortunately for me, at my house, the closest things to "sexy" reading matter were my father's Journals of American Medicine wherein maybe, if I was lucky, I could find a photo of some poor guy's sad sack penis with a bad case of the blues. (Which meant, at least in those magazines, that the thing was actually blue.) These were met not with titillation but with wonder, and would change the party dynamics such that, instead of talking about sex, we'd be discussing seriously tangential topics like, "What would you do if you didn't have any eyebrows?"

Times have changed, media has changed, and although thirteen year old girls' slumber parties march on, these days you can bet they're not having a hard time finding reading matter. These days you can't read a magazine in public without worrying if someone reading over your shoulder isn't wondering why you're interested in something called quadra-sexuality, or hygiene for pierced genitalia, as you innocently turn the pages on the way to analysis of the past President's blow-jobs. And these are the news magazines.

Sex is so ubiquitous in today's media that, instead of being the first thing anyone reads in the dailies, which is the way it used to be when I first started reading the papers, the sex stuff is what you turn to after the stock quotes. It's lost its appeal. You get the feeling that there are two kinds of humans in the news: Sexy models and actors who really don't need to have sex because they already have personal trainers; and slightly overweight, average-looking Joes (and Jills) who turn into raving sex fiends if someone puts a hand on their leg.

This saturation of the media by sexually related articles has achieved for intimate human relations the same results as salting a great steak. We know it's basically good, but the flavor is wrecked. You'd never think that American-style overkill could empty the world's oceans of fish, but it can; and you'd never think reading about sex could make sex boring, but it has.

This style and the topic of sex and sexual indiscretions are what book and magazine editors call "sexy". "Sexy" in this case means full of the details and hot-button phrases that denote sex but which have nothing to do with lovemaking. In fact, their purpose seems to be to remind us of what we're missing if we're not "sexy" by the standards of gaunt, twenty-eight year old fashion editors.

Sex has of course always sold, but it first became a general media darling when advertisers on Madison Avenue began to distill the most obvious elements from the phenomena of attraction. Stylists found that virtually any object, animate or inanimate, would be more likely to be purchased if it was "sexy". This meant: cool, mysterious, detached; without age, obligation, employment or underwear. One button left open on a model's top allowed a glimpse of a lacy bra, turning an unremarkable white blouse into an erotic garment of forbidden allure. Soon, in the American tradition of more is better, one button became two buttons, and then no buttons, until we now see advertisements in which women, nude from the waist up, gaze longingly at a shirt draped over the back of a chair halfway across the room.

Men are depicted the way Madison Avenue thinks men should look, so sweating men are considered "sexy". Sweat implies strength, action, membership to an expensive health club or more likely, ownership of a misting bottle. If you believe the ads you see, there exists no product for men that won't cause them to break out into uncontrollable perspiration, whether that product is French Roast coffee or their Toyota 4-Runner.

So what is this doing to us? These are the images that consumers observe and imitate. What we see in newspapers and magazines and in films and television are the major influences for style and, more importantly, behavior. What we're heading toward (some would argue, where we are already), is a culture of preening, posing, very good-looking, totally unapproachable people. People for whom having sex is no big deal, but for whom being intimate with someone is a total mystery.

What media really needs, in, if not one of its darkest hours, then at least its slimiest, are manners. Journalistic manners. Like we used to have at the dinner table: chew with your mouth shut and let's try to keep the conversation somewhat intelligent -- only for reading matter. Book authors are free to write what they know and certainly what sells these days; who can blame them. But editors of magazines and other periodicals might want to consider a stylistic change. Like: Leave a bit more to the imagination. Keep one's sensationalistic voice down a bit. And for God's sake, put some clothes on!

My Online Dating Profile

What am I like? Well, let me ask myself. What are you like -- oh, sorry, I didn't know I was on the phone - sorry, I'll wait.
OK, now, let me ask you if I may: What are you like? Are you like, some kind of a stalker who won't take no for an answer? Or perhaps a person who uses an online dating service to post pictures that are 6 years old in an attempt to lure some poor schmuck to the rocks like the Sirens in that movie "Jason and the Argonauts"? Or was that Jason and the Golden Fleece? Anyway, the one that got the Oscar for best supporting Cyclops.
Or, continuing this line of questioning: are you generally a nice person who hasn't had sex since 2002 and is just a little anxious? Perhaps a combination of all three? But not a stalker really, at least that's what my friends say (except for maybe David but he's not a friend anymore, not since he sent that mass email about what he called my "problem" which was really not my problem but his which most everybody wrote me back to tell me).
Most of my friends would say I was fairly "normal", just like you probably, and I like all the same things that "normal" people like, for example: long walks on the beach with a metal detector; jumping into public fountains in a wet suit and snorkel collecting spare change; going to shows and shouting out the lyrics to all the songs along with the cast; hitting the rowing machine at the gym while singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", or, alternatively, “Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore”, and also making friends with guys who are bench pressing 200 lbs. right when they’re sucking in their guts for that big lift.

As you can tell from the pictures, I am in pretty good shape for someone who's 54, even though I'm not 54 and I am 43, and my friends are also 43 and I was born in 1963 or 65 (I can never remember). I like to do all the things outside my apartment that other "normal" people do, like shopping for food and toilet paper, and sometimes going to Starbucks and "having it my way" by spending twelve minutes constructing a drink out of all the adjectives they have on the overhead signs. Sometimes I like to go to Starbucks and just sit and listen to people at the other tables, and sometimes I interject my opinions in their conversations just to be friendly. Sometimes I'll join them at their table, just so I don't have to yell. Every once in a while you get a meanie who doesn't want to listen and looks at you like you're some kind of a nut, but I just usually handle that by knocking their mocha latte onto their laptop. Typically, when I come back (I like to visit Starbucks several times a day) they're gone and never return, which is OK with me! As you can tell, I am very social and a lot of fun!
So you might be thinking: why do I have all this time to go to the gym and to Starbucks, but why would you think that unless you yourself were unemployed? If you are one of those judgmental suspicious types, maybe we just aren't meant to be. You might want to ask yourself, why do I always make these negative assumptions about people? Maybe that's why you're still single and have to resort to an Internet dating service, did you ever think of that? Don't you have any friends who could fix you up? Anyway, since you're wondering and even thought I don't really care what you think, I do have a job and it is fairly high-paying which allows me to be in actual semi-retirement (even at the age of 45!). But more on that later.
A typical day for me is to wake up (I don't need an alarm, usually the people pounding on my door to turn down the volume on my TV is enough to rouse me), get dressed (by myself, silly!) taking care to turn my socks and underwear inside out, then I take my medicine, and head out for breakfast. I used to go to a local diner but I found that the Episcopal Church offers such a great breakfast special which even comes with a free orange, that you'd be an idiot and a snob to pass it up. And I hate snobs! Right after breakfast I head over to Starbucks where I like to work at my job, which involves typing on my computer and looking at the screen and occasionally looking up to see who else has come in.
I have all the hobbies that "normal" people do, including working out, reading, leaning out my window and yelling "Watch out below!" and waiting to see what everyone does, and dancing. I am a great dancer and will get up and perform at the drop of a hat, or a strategically placed dollar, and I don't necessarily have to have a partner. Sometimes I just get up on the table and let loose, but not at Thanksgiving and never on the kids' table, so don't worry!
And you, what are you like? Well, you are single or you can get out of the house regularly between the hours of 2 and 5:30pm. You like to have sex but you don't always have to have the lights on, and you aren't adamant that your partner takes off all their clothes or even gets in bed with you. You are fit and healthy and willing to be tied up and left for hours on your own without complaining or wondering what the point is (sometimes I like to go shopping and you never know when the urge will hit me!). You also have your own apartment that you own and that there's no way you could get evicted no matter how many cats you had or how loud you had your TV volume turned up or if you liked to check the recycling bins for cans and bottles late at night when it really shouldn't bother people.
So I hope there's someone out there for me; I haven't had that much luck on this particular site, even though I have had a few "repeat" customers (Melvin622 if you are reading this, you can forget about me coming back out to the oil rig!), I am a real believer in that old adage, "There's someone for everyone," or is it, "As long as you don't take the bracelet off, you're not breaking parole"? I look forward to hearing from you!

Virus Alert

Virus Alert
by Deb Victoroff

In the past, whenever good friends moved away, they always promised to "write", or at least write back, and of course, never did. Never, that is, until e-mail. Now my friends not only keep in touch - they aggressively fondle me with every tiny bit of info-email that floats by, no matter how trivial. These pals of mine who once wrote me gorgeous essays on the most serious and intimate topics, and who expounded poetically on issues of ethics and politics, now send me petitions, pyramid letters and bad puns. Pages of them, every day, sometimes twice a day. I'm getting more junk mail now from close friends than I ever did from strangers.

And in among these non-letter missives, there often appears the inevitable notification, a combination between gossip and an alien sighting: The Virus Alert.

The first time it happened, I was thrown into a thrilling panic: a Computer Virus! Did I have it? Was I going to be part of the collective electronic consciousness that would be infected? Would I see all my friends down at the Free Computer Virus Clinic, lining up for cyber-synthesized penicillin?

The first virus warning I ever got was for "Melissa" which I took as an anthropomorphic indication that she was the jilted cyber girlfriend of the "2001" computer Hal. The Melissa virus sounded intimidating not just because I got the feeling it was younger than me and had a better job, but because vague reporting of its destructive trail allowed my imagination to run wild: that after it ate your hard drive, it would go to your refrigerator and eat all your leftovers, all your flowering plants and any small pets that had the bad luck to wander into its path.

I waited breathlessly for it to show its (type) face. I expected it to arrive attached to salutations like:
<> or perhaps: <>, but it never appeared in my mailbox and I felt slighted.

Over time however, other viruses have come my way, most of them with benign-sounding, friendly names, as if they were being emitted from some pink, Barbie-doll iBook. There was "Kali" and I assume her auto: "The Love Bug"; an invitation: "Let's Watch TV!", plush toys called "Bugbear" and even: "New pictures of family!" and "A Card For You!" (at least someone still sends cards…).

Now I've become virus-paranoid. I don't open any email if the subject heading is unfamiliar, or even if it is familiar, but just too damn cheery. But that hasn't stopped one infection from slipping past my most vigilant efforts.

I call it the "You've Got Mail" infection because it doesn't require that you open mail from an anonymous source but actually embeds itself in letters from friends, just when they're getting to the good part: just when your pal is telling you that she ran into your ex with his new girlfriend and what he said, and then what she said, when all of a sudden, BAM! You're infected. "You've got mail, Hee Hee!" it might say, which you don't notice at first because of course you want to know what that blonde idiot in the too short skirt had to say. But that's when it gets you.

You'll notice that suddenly, your cuticles look ragged. Just below your armpits you'll suddenly find extra flesh flapping as freely as a museum banner. You'll notice that your thighs have morphed into flabby cushions and, if you're a woman, your legs, which you swear you shaved this morning, will have stubble again. Men will notice that what they affectionately referred to as "the spare tire" around their waist, is now the wheel from a Monster Truck rally.

And that's just the physical stuff.

Your mind will wander. You'll begin to wonder what your place in the universe is and why everybody got out of the stock market without telling you. You won't be able to get your mind off the guy at the bank who put you on hold and never picked up again.

But the most terrifying thing about this virus is: it's impossible to tell whether you're actually infected, or whether you've just started to look like this since you got your own blog and that, unlike everyone else's blog, yours had something to say.

What to do if you suspect you suspect you're a victim? Well, you can bet there's an anxiety-producing website on line that'll offer the cure. Only take you about 9 hours to find, and then about an hour to figure out how to use it. But what do you care? You're already sitting down.