Speaking of sex, before I move on to something entirely unrelated, I have had a lot of it. That is not meant to be a boastful statement, in fact this is one of those things I am not entirely proud of, I’m simply trying to lay out the facts so that you can determine how I should be weighed and measured.
You may find it surprising, to look at me now, but I was apparently a handsome and appealing young man once upon a time…I know, that seems pretty alien to you, and I feel the same way, but all evidence seems to support that being a factual assessment. More surprising than my erstwhile sex appeal and good looks is the fact that I haven’t always been as socially awkward and terrified of human interaction as I am today. Sure, I have always had some deeply ingrained insecurities and a poor self-image, I have often thought of myself as having less of a personality and more of a collection of assorted neuroses…but I was better able to compensate, or overcompensate for those things when I was younger, sometimes even with a degree of charm and charisma.
These factors played a large part where my promiscuity is concerned, the good ones as well as the bad. The positive attributes, that I sometimes wonder how I might have ever exhibited, made me attractive to members of the opposite sex (albeit those with questionable taste, if you ask me), and the negative perception I had of myself led me to be inclined to use intimacy as a method by which I was able to obtain some sense of value and worth. Yes, I am aware that I have just transcended my physical form and become a troubled adolescent girl right before your eyes…those of you who know of my constant battle with body dysmorphia may argue that I reached that state of transformation quite a long time ago. Checkmate, motherfucker!
Having embraced a fairly hedonistic philosophy in my youth, I can’t pretend that I actually regret my sexual history. It would be disingenuous of me to force out some tears and beg you for understanding. I enjoyed sex, and I enjoyed providing pleasure to others who similarly enjoyed it. There is nothing to be ashamed of in two people, or sometimes three, finding pleasure and comfort in the joining of mind and body.
I try to wax poetic there, but I assure you that I mean it quite sincerely as well. Sex has always been best for me when I feel that the participants are losing themselves in the experience, when the rest of the world fades away like something ephemeral. Admittedly, that has been a rare enough thing…that is, sadly, not how it always works out. A lot of the time sex is a drunken, rutting experience punctuated by grunts and slurred expletives, the sort of thing that would make Ron Jeremy cringe.
My admitted enjoyment of sex isn’t the greatest contributor to the number of partners I’ve had…though it would be a better story if that were the case. My biggest problem has always been that I have a damnably difficult time saying, “No,” to anyone of the female persuasion…and that has included a handful of women I wasn’t even particularly attracted to.
When I say that I wasn’t attracted to them I don’t exclusively mean physically, though the women in question didn’t appeal to me that way either. I am able to find things that attract me to most women; whether we’re talking about physical characteristics, a certain degree of intellect or artistic ability, personality traits that thoroughly captivate me, or even some more nebulous quality like the sound of her voice or the way she carries herself. I need you to know that I am able to find attractive aspects in most women without much difficulty because that is important to understand when I tell you that I have slept with women I was not remotely attracted to, solely because they displayed an interest in me and refusing them was something I couldn’t bring myself to do…also, there is a distinct possibility that I might have been a sex addict.
Thankfully that unsavory element of my psychology has become marginalized over the years, though I always do wonder if it isn’t just lurking there in the darkest corners of my being, waiting for an opportunity to emerge again. I think that I am ok though. But I would say that, wouldn’t I, if I were an addict?
Most of the time there was a mutual attraction, and I am grateful to my good fortune that this is the case. I don’t have numbers that I can toss out here for you, and I might have a difficult time doing so even if I were inclined to do that. I think it is safe to say that we’re still talking about double digits rather than triple…and I am not going to examine that any further because I don’t want to, and because memory isn’t what it used to be which leads to a margin for error in my calculation that I would prefer to avoid acknowledging. The specific numbers don’t matter, it’s sufficient to say that I honestly feel that it has been too many; not that I regret the experiences, I just believe that there could have been far fewer and that I might be a less deplorable human being for it. To my credit, for whatever it might be worth when it comes to salvaging my dignity, the number of one night stands can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There has to be something that can be said for quality combined with quantity, as long as we disregard the times I have been unfaithful, because there have been quite a few over the last two decades since I started actually having sex. Those indiscretions are fewer than you might think, but more than there should have been…because even a single instance was more than was acceptable.
Back to the topic of quality though, that weighed pretty damn heavily towards my becoming intimate with so many women. It was one thing I was good at, though I’m sure that I have my detractors…everyone’s a fucking critic. Within actual relationships the sex was never really a problem. I may have been emotionally distant, difficult to communicate with, intensely critical at times, and sometimes actively hostile or aggressive when not wallowing in depression…but the sex was healthy. There were times when I felt that I communicated better with my respective partners that way than with words or any other potential medium. The problem being that they weren’t satisfied with that in lieu of more traditional forms of conversation. Damn it though, I was just trying to play to my strengths, working with what I had. If only we spoke the same languages I night not be perceived as such a terrible pain in the ass to have been involved with by so many women.
As much as I would like to edit some numbers from my history, I have to say that each individual encounter was a unique experience. There are those who claim that sex is sex and that a hole is a hole…those men are fucking idiots. Each woman felt different from any other, she had a different scent, taste, and texture…a different rhythm and motion. Each kiss carried nuances that another’s kiss did not. Each body felt worlds apart from those before or after. I may be a piece of shit in your eyes for being a whore with flimsy rationalizations to justify my behavior, but I assure you that I never accepted payment for intercourse. I can sincerely state that, though there were definitely partners that rank as being essentially incomparable to me, each partner was able to bring something wholly different and special to the situation…even those I would honestly not have slept with if I could rewrite the past.
Ultimately I recognize that I am not a good person by any stretch of the imagination…but I know that already, so who the fuck are you to judge me? I can rest comfortably, knowing that I never used anyone for sex or took advantage of anyone. My morality may be questionable but I have always had a strict code wherein I would not sleep with someone who was intoxicated unless we had already established a sexual relationship together. That may not be much, but it is a damn sight better than a lot of people can say.
It’s a stretch to call me a gentleman, but I like to think that I might fall somewhere closer to that end of the spectrum in some loose, poorly defined sense of things…as long as we disregard a lot of what I’ve said here. I strongly recommend that we consider doing precisely that.