| A Husband With A Hankering |
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The other morning I got an urgent phone call from my friend, Elizabeth. This was at eight a.m., otherwise known as five a.m. California time. So the moment I heard her voice, I knew something was wrong. Elizabeth would never be up at five without an earthquake or a sinkhole to motivate her. "I think Michael's a fag." "What?" I said. "I'm sorry. I mean gay. I think Michael's gay." "Back up, Elizabeth. What are you talking about?" Elizabeth paused. She told me it would be embarrassing to explain this to me. I told her, I was the exact last person she should worry about embarrassing herself in front of. She considered this and said, "True." She then went on to explain that her and Michael's sexual relationship has been a bit flat lately. She defined lately as the past year. She said they have sex maybe once every three weeks because they are both so busy and so tired that sex just takes a back seat to sleep and flossing. "So we decided to spice it up," she said. Immediately, I envisioned Elizabeth and Michael kneeling down on the plush, white shag carpeting of their mid-century modern home in the Hollywood Hills. I saw an ebony hooker with double-length legs easing herself down on the floor, Michael poised above her with a pair of his red suspenders -emergency whip. "Get on all fours and get banged like a bitch," he is shouting to the hooker, while Elizabeth sits in the black Ames chair, Sharon Stone style, blowing smoke rings. "We rented a pornographic video," Elizabeth said. And the way she said the word pornographic instead of porn struck me as painfully innocent and I immediately felt guilty for imaging her watching her husband get it on with a streetwalker. "And so we were in bed, you know, doing it. And watching. And then all of a sudden, in the movie, not in real life, this third guy enters the bed with the man and the woman and he's like the exterminator or something. Anyway, he gets into bed and he sticks his finger up the guy's ass? And then Michael sees this and all of a sudden he starts shouting, 'oh my God,' and then he cums." It is, as I have said, eight in the morning New York time and I have not yet had my double espresso. And this is far too much information for me, pre-espresso. Elizabeth sounded on the verge of tears. "I mean, we'd been watching for like twenty minutes but as soon as the video turned gay, Michael got so aroused that he came. He's gay, isn't he?" There was panic in her voice and it was now my job to strap her to the cosmic gurney and administer the medications that would calm her. "Not at all," I said. "Elizabeth, Michael isn't gay because he got excited watching a porn flick. It doesn't work that way." "Well, how do you explain why he came?" I told her, "He came because he was fucking you, his wife. And this does tend to happen with a man fucks his wife. And he was watching porn at the same time. So there you go." "I feel like an idiot, suddenly," she said. "I think I need to go back to bed. Maybe I'm not even awake yet. I'm sorry I called. Goodnight. You're right. Goodnight." But this got me thinking. Is porn good for a relationship? Can it resuscitate a flatline sex life? Or is it dangerous? Does it just lead to trouble? To answer this question, I spoke to the experts. Two experts, actually. One shrink and one guy who owns a lot of cool CD's. While my two sources used very different words; they said the same thing. Watching porn can be a way to add excitement in a relationship, as long as both partners are willing, and as long as both partners feel secure in the relationship to begin with. But this is just common sense. I mean, if a couple isn't having any sex and watching porn is the only way the couple can get off, obviously there is a problem here. Like anything in life, too much of a good thing is a decidedly ungood thing. "If a couple has intimacy issues, porn can be a disservice to the relationship. It can prevent the couple from connecting, one-on-one. Some couples need to invest a lot of energy connecting to each other. On the other hand, for couples who are comfortable with each other, watching porn can add an exciting element of fantasy into the relationship. In addition, it can be educational." And what this means, is that you can learn things. As for my friend, Elizabeth's concern that her husband was gay because he blew his load when a man entered the picture: big deal. Who knows what he was looking at. Her tits jiggling, her hair shinning, his dick ramming. Even the straightest of straight guys gets off once in a while watching some bitch get on all fours and get banged by a stud. Human sexuality is a broad spectrum, not a study in black and white. What might get a person off -for twelve seconds on a porn video- may not get them off in real life. Or maybe it would, but they're not going to act on it. For the single guy porn can provide visual fodder for masturbation. But again, that double edged knife. "People can get addicted to internet porn. They can get 'lost' in cyberspace and fail to make connections with real, live human beings." Again, all things in moderation. What you don't want to do is turn into a pervert who spends all day jerking off with your video conference software instead of inviting some superfine lady to dinner. After I hung up with Elizabeth, I felt a little guilty. I'd told her I didn't think her husband was gay because of the porn video incident. But I'd neglected to mention that I DID think he was gay because only a gay man would live with a white shag carpeting in their mid-century modern Hollywood Hills home. |
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