Talented Berlin director Markus Stein, of Balkan Traffic fame (my review is here) brings us Untermänner: Schwul in der DDR (Among Men: Gay in East Germany). This film is already getting a fair bit of attention in Germany (for example, see this review).
Run, don't walk, to your local Berlinale ticket office (at the Postdamer Platz Arkaden, Kino International or Haus der Berlinerfestspiel), to buy a ticket (offered up to three days in advance of each screening). The options are Monday the 13th @ 5 PM, Tuesday the 14th @ 12 noon and Friday the 17th @ 5 PM.
I am absolutely thrilled to report that at this, my sixth Berlinale, I will be the invited guest of said director, in his Tuesday screening. This is roughly as thrilling to me as when noted New York Times best-selling author Christopher Ryan commented on my blog back in August!
[Look for my film review to be added here next week.]
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Thin Ice
Last Thursday night, The Gallego invited me to his laser/synthesizer show near Potsdamer Platz in a beautiful old building with a great view overlooking a large reflecting pool. Looking out, I couldn't help notice someone playing on the ice, running and sliding, and I thought of my ice skates which are still in California, probably rusting away. I slipped out after the show during the schmoozing-with-fans routine and went to check out the ice. It was maybe a foot and a half deep and frozen completely solid, so off I went, skidding and sliding across, following the ice skate marks. What I somehow didn't notice in the cold darkness of -8 degrees Celsius was that something had changed, and suddenly I tumbled into knee-deep water. I had enough momentum that I had to put my hands down to avoid falling and ended up soaked up to my upper thighs and past my elbows.
The cold didn't hit immediately, bundled up as I was with three layers of clothes. But every American read To Build a Fire in high school, and we know that there is only one option in such cases: to keep moving, quickly, definitively. So I hustled back onto solid ice and off to the Potsdamer Platz S-Bahn, passing three second-generation teenaged boys (clearly of immigrant extraction for the liveliness with which they were laughing their heads off and calling out to me). But I had no time to interact; after the relative warmth of the S-Bahn, I would have to deal with a tram that runs only every ten minutes. As (bad) luck would have it, that tram was just pulling away as I exited the S-Bahn station, so I struck out on foot, covering 3 stations until the next one arrived.
Life, in my case, has been something like that reflecting pool -- solid ice for the first quarter century, then an ever-increasing series of cold, hard dumps into reality. Said reality has been difficult of late: my oldest friend from California murdered just a few months ago in Mexico... me turning out to be not so special to that special someone... and, unbelievably, my oldest friend in Berlin kidnapped by pirates in Somalia a couple of weeks ago.
I made it back to the Lively German's place where I was house-sitting, coat frozen into a solid sheet of ice up to my waist, boots squishing out water that hadn't frozen, solely due to the warmth robbed from my body. It was into the shower with me, feet too numb to feel the warm water for a good five minutes, thighs beet red with cold, sensation slowly returning, and with sensation, thoughts. I put my thoughts down here, on electronic paper, because they are so sad, and sad people just don't seem to move fast enough, before the ice finally closes over their heads.
The cold didn't hit immediately, bundled up as I was with three layers of clothes. But every American read To Build a Fire in high school, and we know that there is only one option in such cases: to keep moving, quickly, definitively. So I hustled back onto solid ice and off to the Potsdamer Platz S-Bahn, passing three second-generation teenaged boys (clearly of immigrant extraction for the liveliness with which they were laughing their heads off and calling out to me). But I had no time to interact; after the relative warmth of the S-Bahn, I would have to deal with a tram that runs only every ten minutes. As (bad) luck would have it, that tram was just pulling away as I exited the S-Bahn station, so I struck out on foot, covering 3 stations until the next one arrived.
Life, in my case, has been something like that reflecting pool -- solid ice for the first quarter century, then an ever-increasing series of cold, hard dumps into reality. Said reality has been difficult of late: my oldest friend from California murdered just a few months ago in Mexico... me turning out to be not so special to that special someone... and, unbelievably, my oldest friend in Berlin kidnapped by pirates in Somalia a couple of weeks ago.
I made it back to the Lively German's place where I was house-sitting, coat frozen into a solid sheet of ice up to my waist, boots squishing out water that hadn't frozen, solely due to the warmth robbed from my body. It was into the shower with me, feet too numb to feel the warm water for a good five minutes, thighs beet red with cold, sensation slowly returning, and with sensation, thoughts. I put my thoughts down here, on electronic paper, because they are so sad, and sad people just don't seem to move fast enough, before the ice finally closes over their heads.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Sex Tip #7
Now then, you men, you've heard it a million times, right? "Ladies first..." I know this is really hard to remember when you're there, all systems go, ready to fire a twenty-one-gun salute. So let me just remind you to think about it before you get anywhere close to that stage, ideally when you're feeling the first, shall we say, stirrings. Make it a little mantra that you repeat in your mind, "ladies first, ladies first". We womyn are said to be rather intuitive -- we can sense that ladies-first energy washing over us, and, trust me, it can have quite a salutary effect, making the whole experience rather memorable for all concerned. Try exercising a little bit of control, in the hopes that you will be justly rewarded. Please allow me to explain in greater detail...
My parents, in the liberal environment of the Sexual Revolution in the U.S. in the 1970s, had a very large library, with whose contents I was intimately familiar. At some point, my sister and I found a copy of Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex But Were Afraid to Ask, possibly strategically planted for our adolescent education. We devoured it, of course. The thing I most remember is the story of a whole group of sex researchers, all men, putting in what could be qualified as a long day at the office, with a single female subject. With more than just their clipboards at the ready, if I correctly recall, they lost count somewhere between 12 and 20. Exhausted, they decided to conclude that she, although blissfully happy, could be no means be said to have reached her limit.
I'll go a bit further by saying that although I'm only one woman, let's just say I've been in the position to make some observations of my own. As you may know as well as or better than I, there is definitely a wide range of possibilities. But I think you'll find she's interested in reaching the top end of the range! A woman can certainly do what she can (her age and experience help tremendously), but your care and attention, your passion and energy, can also greatly increase the chance of that happening. And believe me, that's when the fun begins; it's as if she has been jump-started. Time falls away and with a seemingly endless supply of endorphins pumping through her bloodstream, all you need to do is hitch a ride as she takes you to the moon....
Hmmm. Is it any wonder males are so afraid of our power, womyn? Now, now, you men, don't despair, there's a whole world out there waiting for you too, if you only you would open your minds. So I'll conclude by recommending that Extended Sexual Orgasm not only take up permanent residence on your bedside table, but that you assiduously study it from cover to cover. You'll like it, I promise.
My parents, in the liberal environment of the Sexual Revolution in the U.S. in the 1970s, had a very large library, with whose contents I was intimately familiar. At some point, my sister and I found a copy of Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex But Were Afraid to Ask, possibly strategically planted for our adolescent education. We devoured it, of course. The thing I most remember is the story of a whole group of sex researchers, all men, putting in what could be qualified as a long day at the office, with a single female subject. With more than just their clipboards at the ready, if I correctly recall, they lost count somewhere between 12 and 20. Exhausted, they decided to conclude that she, although blissfully happy, could be no means be said to have reached her limit.
I'll go a bit further by saying that although I'm only one woman, let's just say I've been in the position to make some observations of my own. As you may know as well as or better than I, there is definitely a wide range of possibilities. But I think you'll find she's interested in reaching the top end of the range! A woman can certainly do what she can (her age and experience help tremendously), but your care and attention, your passion and energy, can also greatly increase the chance of that happening. And believe me, that's when the fun begins; it's as if she has been jump-started. Time falls away and with a seemingly endless supply of endorphins pumping through her bloodstream, all you need to do is hitch a ride as she takes you to the moon....
Hmmm. Is it any wonder males are so afraid of our power, womyn? Now, now, you men, don't despair, there's a whole world out there waiting for you too, if you only you would open your minds. So I'll conclude by recommending that Extended Sexual Orgasm not only take up permanent residence on your bedside table, but that you assiduously study it from cover to cover. You'll like it, I promise.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Hysterical
It's always nice to be able to blog my two favorite topics in tandem (film and sex), so I'm happy to report I recently saw one of the top films of 2011: Hysteria. It's an account of the London doctor who, tiring of servicing so many Victorian matrons by hand (and I do mean hand), invented the first electrical vibrator. I saw the film at the Kino Central in Berlin, in a packed house of about three-quarters women. Of my five years on and off in Berlin, I can solemnly swear this is the very first time I've sat in the middle of German women literally screaming with laughter. I honestly can't remember the last time I enjoyed a movie-going experience as much!
Well, then, psychoanalysis in the 19th and early 20th centuries had a ball with women, didn't it? If they weren't being accused of frigidity, it would seem, they were being diagnosed with hysteria. Even now, in the 21st century, how often have you heard someone use the term "frigid" to describe a woman? Now how about "nymphomaniac"? For heaven's sake, ours is one of the few species where females are designed to desire as much or more sex than males. In stark contrast, let's review the image of the man snoring in a heap where he's fallen after finishing his business as meanwhile the woman fantasizes about crooking her finger to summon the next one...
Let me recount a second story as a counterpoint. A week or so ago I met up with a new prospect and went through the usual routine of dispensing with the preliminaries (tell me about yourself, where you're from, what you're doing in Berlin, etc.) in order to get down to the important topic at hand. I'm watching for a certain spark in a man's eyes, an indication that he "gets" that a smart-as-hell, experienced, no-nonsense woman can be sexy. My faithful readers (some of whom have experienced this first-hand) can certainly imagine that a woman like me doesn't exactly mince words on the first date. It's guaranteed that I will bring up my favorite topic if I like the man at all. This one seemed to be flying wingtip-to-wingtip with me and so I consented to continue the conversation over a second drink with him at a cool little French café in a Kreuzberg Keller. I asked him about that moment I'd observed in his eyes a short time before, the one I've come to think of as the Pornographic Images Moment, which my frankness almost invariably tends to invoke. From what I've previously deduced (see here), such images are a rather constant part of life for men [mental note to self: more detailed questioning about this is needed]. So I told him, "I could see at one point that you felt like reaching across the table, grabbing me and ripping my clothes off right there in the middle of the restaurant. What stopped you?" He smiled ruefully and said, "Training, constant training."
Later I was chatting with the man I think of as Chocolate Guy, responsible for by far the most creative Craigslist M4W personals action this previous year in Berlin. He'd describe it more as some sort of reverse Pavlovian conditioning: in his words, "the bell rings and everyone pretends it never happened." Finally, here's what a new acquaintance had to say: "Islam has something going for it with those burkas, you know, to cover up those curves."
It's depressing, isn't it? We can't blame our societal ills on another species that mercilessly whittles away at our natural habitat or shuts us up in metal cages in the interests of science. No, the concrete jungles which we inhabit, with their endless rules designed to beat us down into sedate, asexual, obedient little creatures, are entirely of our own making.
Well this wild animal, for one, doesn't take kindly to captivity. And so she's launching a new campaign, to find out what this pathetic species of ours is doing to escape from the zoo. How we post-modern humans are rediscovering our true natures. And where the unapologetically sexual are hanging out in Berlin. So, readers in the know, come on now, help me out, post a comment on how/what/where/when you get out of the zoo -- and remember, it's completely anonymous.
Well, then, psychoanalysis in the 19th and early 20th centuries had a ball with women, didn't it? If they weren't being accused of frigidity, it would seem, they were being diagnosed with hysteria. Even now, in the 21st century, how often have you heard someone use the term "frigid" to describe a woman? Now how about "nymphomaniac"? For heaven's sake, ours is one of the few species where females are designed to desire as much or more sex than males. In stark contrast, let's review the image of the man snoring in a heap where he's fallen after finishing his business as meanwhile the woman fantasizes about crooking her finger to summon the next one...
Let me recount a second story as a counterpoint. A week or so ago I met up with a new prospect and went through the usual routine of dispensing with the preliminaries (tell me about yourself, where you're from, what you're doing in Berlin, etc.) in order to get down to the important topic at hand. I'm watching for a certain spark in a man's eyes, an indication that he "gets" that a smart-as-hell, experienced, no-nonsense woman can be sexy. My faithful readers (some of whom have experienced this first-hand) can certainly imagine that a woman like me doesn't exactly mince words on the first date. It's guaranteed that I will bring up my favorite topic if I like the man at all. This one seemed to be flying wingtip-to-wingtip with me and so I consented to continue the conversation over a second drink with him at a cool little French café in a Kreuzberg Keller. I asked him about that moment I'd observed in his eyes a short time before, the one I've come to think of as the Pornographic Images Moment, which my frankness almost invariably tends to invoke. From what I've previously deduced (see here), such images are a rather constant part of life for men [mental note to self: more detailed questioning about this is needed]. So I told him, "I could see at one point that you felt like reaching across the table, grabbing me and ripping my clothes off right there in the middle of the restaurant. What stopped you?" He smiled ruefully and said, "Training, constant training."
Later I was chatting with the man I think of as Chocolate Guy, responsible for by far the most creative Craigslist M4W personals action this previous year in Berlin. He'd describe it more as some sort of reverse Pavlovian conditioning: in his words, "the bell rings and everyone pretends it never happened." Finally, here's what a new acquaintance had to say: "Islam has something going for it with those burkas, you know, to cover up those curves."
It's depressing, isn't it? We can't blame our societal ills on another species that mercilessly whittles away at our natural habitat or shuts us up in metal cages in the interests of science. No, the concrete jungles which we inhabit, with their endless rules designed to beat us down into sedate, asexual, obedient little creatures, are entirely of our own making.
Well this wild animal, for one, doesn't take kindly to captivity. And so she's launching a new campaign, to find out what this pathetic species of ours is doing to escape from the zoo. How we post-modern humans are rediscovering our true natures. And where the unapologetically sexual are hanging out in Berlin. So, readers in the know, come on now, help me out, post a comment on how/what/where/when you get out of the zoo -- and remember, it's completely anonymous.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Trivial Pursuit
A catchy headline yesterday informed me that a Glamour survey provides us with more "wisdom" in the Battle to Understand the Opposite Sex. Here are the two questions that most amused me.
Keep in mind that this is what we call close-ended questioning: the respondent can only choose from the options given. So for the first question, for example, this option was sadly missing: to go on national television to explain that men don't really mean to be pigs, it's just the testosterone. Joking aside, the fact that half the men have recognized the mystical importance of the feminine orgasm is, in my mind, a very good sign.
If you could borrow a woman's body for a day, you would most want to:
Play with your boobs all day long: 15%
Find out what a female orgasm feels like: 48%
Eat and drink for free at ladies' nights: 12%
Hang out in a women's bathroom and get every secret possible: 7%
Hang out in a women's locker room and just watch—duh!: 18%
The magazine also observed that "some things never change!" Despite ample evidence that tall men are the ones that get the girls, two-thirds of men would rather give it all away for a longer penis. Notably missing, as usual, is the issue of girth...
Which would you rather be: 5'2" tall with a seven-inch penis or 6'2" with a three-inch penis?
1995: 62% said 5'2" with a seven-inch penis.
2012: 67% said 5'2" with a seven-inch penis.
Never my go-to source for anything at all, women's magazines serve only as embarrassing evidence of how actively we trivialize ourselves. Sigh.
Keep in mind that this is what we call close-ended questioning: the respondent can only choose from the options given. So for the first question, for example, this option was sadly missing: to go on national television to explain that men don't really mean to be pigs, it's just the testosterone. Joking aside, the fact that half the men have recognized the mystical importance of the feminine orgasm is, in my mind, a very good sign.
If you could borrow a woman's body for a day, you would most want to:
Play with your boobs all day long: 15%
Find out what a female orgasm feels like: 48%
Eat and drink for free at ladies' nights: 12%
Hang out in a women's bathroom and get every secret possible: 7%
Hang out in a women's locker room and just watch—duh!: 18%
The magazine also observed that "some things never change!" Despite ample evidence that tall men are the ones that get the girls, two-thirds of men would rather give it all away for a longer penis. Notably missing, as usual, is the issue of girth...
Which would you rather be: 5'2" tall with a seven-inch penis or 6'2" with a three-inch penis?
1995: 62% said 5'2" with a seven-inch penis.
2012: 67% said 5'2" with a seven-inch penis.
Never my go-to source for anything at all, women's magazines serve only as embarrassing evidence of how actively we trivialize ourselves. Sigh.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Ship - Wrecked
Relationship, friendship, partnership... So many of the -ships can be so fraught with so many expectations and implicit (or explicit) demands, wouldn't you agree? Simple acquaintanceship is the first level for any sort of bond, and I've always been fond of playing with the idea of the point at which it becomes something more. But acquaintanceship itself is more than anything a product of modern human life and the anonymity that comes with overpopulation. When we, as early humans, were functioning at the tribal level, we would have been intimately tied to our fellow tribal members from birth.
Something a lover said recently prompted me to think about how ridiculously broad the term friendship can be. I turned to my trusty Internet search engine to see what more orderly thinkers than I might have come up with. Let's consider, then, contemporary Internet wisdom on friendship. It would seem that we are to visualize a three-point scale: something akin to casual friend followed by steady or good friend and topped by dear or best friend. I suppose a similar scale could be applied to lovers. The casual lover, the steady lover, the dear love. Shall we call these, then, sexualships? I have casual sexualships with various men, but good, steady sexualships become rather more tricky, don't they?
Sigh. What a hierarchy of -ships we've created; there seems to be no end to our scales and rules. But despite it, we're always searching for more terms. "Significant other", "longtime companion", "compañero". And then the sadly sexist terms of bygone years: "better half" or, the worst of all, "ball and chain". After all this, I think I want to forget about the term relationship entirely!
Partnership is the only -ship that is flexible and broad enough to interest me. Its root is the Latin partitio (portion), by which we are to understand a shared endeavor. It applies as well to how ancient humans functioned in tribes as it does to a business endeavor or to my relationship with the mother of my goddaughter. And what is a partner to me? That person's gender matters not, nor whether we are sleeping together, and certainly not whether one of us has said those three silly words that seem to cause so much grief in our modern world. [I'm referring to "I love you."] My dear ones are my partners. Their woes are my woes. Their joys are my joys. Their homes are my home. And my home and woes and joys are just as much, always and eternally, theirs, no matter how much time and space may separate us.
In contrast, those of you poor souls whose mothers never taught you how to share will soon enough be asked to disembark from the Good Ship Katchita. Because this skipper's seen more than enough *ship*wrecks in her career sailing the high seas.
Something a lover said recently prompted me to think about how ridiculously broad the term friendship can be. I turned to my trusty Internet search engine to see what more orderly thinkers than I might have come up with. Let's consider, then, contemporary Internet wisdom on friendship. It would seem that we are to visualize a three-point scale: something akin to casual friend followed by steady or good friend and topped by dear or best friend. I suppose a similar scale could be applied to lovers. The casual lover, the steady lover, the dear love. Shall we call these, then, sexualships? I have casual sexualships with various men, but good, steady sexualships become rather more tricky, don't they?
Sigh. What a hierarchy of -ships we've created; there seems to be no end to our scales and rules. But despite it, we're always searching for more terms. "Significant other", "longtime companion", "compañero". And then the sadly sexist terms of bygone years: "better half" or, the worst of all, "ball and chain". After all this, I think I want to forget about the term relationship entirely!
Partnership is the only -ship that is flexible and broad enough to interest me. Its root is the Latin partitio (portion), by which we are to understand a shared endeavor. It applies as well to how ancient humans functioned in tribes as it does to a business endeavor or to my relationship with the mother of my goddaughter. And what is a partner to me? That person's gender matters not, nor whether we are sleeping together, and certainly not whether one of us has said those three silly words that seem to cause so much grief in our modern world. [I'm referring to "I love you."] My dear ones are my partners. Their woes are my woes. Their joys are my joys. Their homes are my home. And my home and woes and joys are just as much, always and eternally, theirs, no matter how much time and space may separate us.
In contrast, those of you poor souls whose mothers never taught you how to share will soon enough be asked to disembark from the Good Ship Katchita. Because this skipper's seen more than enough *ship*wrecks in her career sailing the high seas.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Sex Tip #6
Having been chastised by the same fan for the second time in a year regarding my appallingly low productivity, I really have to get back to Sexless Berlin. With the New Year, I resolve to start with tying up some loose ends. First is my promise two years ago (here) to provide screening tools for the overly well-endowed, whose attributes are sadly, in our society, constantly cloaked. I discovered a couple of years ago that, for the ballsy (pun intended) woman, this is extremely easy.
It turns out that men see their special friends as the center of the universe, and it's the easiest thing in the world to get them started on the subject. A woman need only ask, "Could I, ahem, ask you a delicate/sensitive/personal question? What can you tell me about your endowment?" They will light up with joy, as you will likely be the first person to have ever asked them this enchanting question. And womyn, remember, they are all comparing themselves to porn stars so any description you are given will almost assuredly be a significant underestimation. That's why it's especially important to steer completely clear of any man who, despite porn-related skewing, still, God save us, considers himself large.
Now that we've covered verbal descriptions, I simply have to take up men's peculiar love affair with cock shots. They are just itching to send them out and seem not to have the least idea when, or if, that is appropriate. As an extreme, I've even recently had a man send unsolicited videos (could it be the latest trend?)! I have, of course, investigated this peculiar behavior by asking various lovers about it. Their answer makes sense; they would like their center of the universe, their special endowment, to be admired, ideally as much as they themselves admire it.
Now then, you men, let me tell you, heterosexual women who love sex also love what penile-bearing creatures are packing, in all their varied shapes and sizes. So a cock-shot is not the worst thing in the world to pop out at us when opening an Email. But as men so often subject us to sexual energy which at times can be quite off-putting, timing is all-important. Surely your mothers taught you that asking is the polite thing to do? As with everything to do with sex, ask Ask ASK. [This brings me to another loose end which I'll have to take up later -- the issue of when it's alright to not ask.]
When exchanging Emails with a new prospect, then, ask her if she would like pictures. Be flirty about it -- tell her you are have some pictures to share with her, some of which are "special", but only if she says the word. She may not want them at all, because don't forget, pictures take away that agreeable anticipation that comes with finally unwrapping that special package. Some of us prefer the build-up to premature tell-all exposés. To head off a blizzard of pornographic images in my inbox, then, I sometimes instead opt to ask men to write me about their special friend. It's fun to throw it wide open by saying, "telling me all about it [him?] and what it [he?] means to you". The replies I get can range from shy [so cute!] to bold and sexy.
Now then, womyn readers, if you've established that the member in question is rather on the unwieldy side, it's up to you to decide whether you wish to follow my all-important advice on the well-endowed (carefully review point two/rule two again here). But whatever you do, when you find one of those big ones out there who thinks he's just average (per comparisons with the porn star du jour), do the rest of us a favor. PLEASE DON'T edify him. The smaller they think they are, grrrrls, the better they tend to treat us. Take it from me: I could plot it on a curve.
It turns out that men see their special friends as the center of the universe, and it's the easiest thing in the world to get them started on the subject. A woman need only ask, "Could I, ahem, ask you a delicate/sensitive/personal question? What can you tell me about your endowment?" They will light up with joy, as you will likely be the first person to have ever asked them this enchanting question. And womyn, remember, they are all comparing themselves to porn stars so any description you are given will almost assuredly be a significant underestimation. That's why it's especially important to steer completely clear of any man who, despite porn-related skewing, still, God save us, considers himself large.
Now that we've covered verbal descriptions, I simply have to take up men's peculiar love affair with cock shots. They are just itching to send them out and seem not to have the least idea when, or if, that is appropriate. As an extreme, I've even recently had a man send unsolicited videos (could it be the latest trend?)! I have, of course, investigated this peculiar behavior by asking various lovers about it. Their answer makes sense; they would like their center of the universe, their special endowment, to be admired, ideally as much as they themselves admire it.
Now then, you men, let me tell you, heterosexual women who love sex also love what penile-bearing creatures are packing, in all their varied shapes and sizes. So a cock-shot is not the worst thing in the world to pop out at us when opening an Email. But as men so often subject us to sexual energy which at times can be quite off-putting, timing is all-important. Surely your mothers taught you that asking is the polite thing to do? As with everything to do with sex, ask Ask ASK. [This brings me to another loose end which I'll have to take up later -- the issue of when it's alright to not ask.]
When exchanging Emails with a new prospect, then, ask her if she would like pictures. Be flirty about it -- tell her you are have some pictures to share with her, some of which are "special", but only if she says the word. She may not want them at all, because don't forget, pictures take away that agreeable anticipation that comes with finally unwrapping that special package. Some of us prefer the build-up to premature tell-all exposés. To head off a blizzard of pornographic images in my inbox, then, I sometimes instead opt to ask men to write me about their special friend. It's fun to throw it wide open by saying, "telling me all about it [him?] and what it [he?] means to you". The replies I get can range from shy [so cute!] to bold and sexy.
Now then, womyn readers, if you've established that the member in question is rather on the unwieldy side, it's up to you to decide whether you wish to follow my all-important advice on the well-endowed (carefully review point two/rule two again here). But whatever you do, when you find one of those big ones out there who thinks he's just average (per comparisons with the porn star du jour), do the rest of us a favor. PLEASE DON'T edify him. The smaller they think they are, grrrrls, the better they tend to treat us. Take it from me: I could plot it on a curve.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Who ARE You People Anyway?
Blogspot now collects all sorts of interesting statistics for its bloggers. On Christmas Eve, Sexless Berlin reached exactly ten thousand hits since the count began.
That's an average of some 500 to 600 hits per month! Germany and Spain each account for 24%; the U.S. for only 15%. The top post by far is Live Sex at Berghain with 17%; the next, Wooing by SMS and Penis Envy, don't even come close, at 5% each. What do we think this might be? Penis Envy is probably a pretty common search term, but Wooing by SMS? It can only be that I refer to my bra size as being the same as Demi Moore's, am I right?
Over the past year or two, feeling that it's time for a change after so many years, I've contemplated closing this blog entirely and starting a new one. But the thought of losing all my readership is a serious deterrent. I've also thought of making Sexless Berlin more explicit, which gets me into all sorts of possible issues regarding adult content.
So I've decided to open it up to you, my readers. There are many more of you than I ever imagined. Why do you read Sexless Berlin? Is it to find good restaurants here? For the in-the-streets (and the ticket lines) coverage of the Berlinale? For the wry analysis of where we've gone wrong as men and women? For the sarcastic Sex Tips?
What would you like to see on Sexless Berlin in the next year or two? Would you like it to continue as the eclectic but sexually inexplicit mix that it is? Or would you like something completely new where I am more open about the meaning and mechanics of human sex? The thought running through my head at this time is a chronicle of my own journey, taking Sex at Dawn to a logical second step. Sex at High Noon, if you will.
I invite you all to comment; if you haven't ever filled in a comment form on Blogspot, now's the time. You can do so completely anonymously. I have no ability to see anything about where you have commented from, nor your Email address or ISP. But if you're so inclined, it would be nice to know if you're reading from Istanbul or St. Peterburg (yes I have readers in Turkey and Russia) as well as what your interest might be: Berlin culture, film, or sex, Sex, SEX!
Over the past year or two, feeling that it's time for a change after so many years, I've contemplated closing this blog entirely and starting a new one. But the thought of losing all my readership is a serious deterrent. I've also thought of making Sexless Berlin more explicit, which gets me into all sorts of possible issues regarding adult content.
So I've decided to open it up to you, my readers. There are many more of you than I ever imagined. Why do you read Sexless Berlin? Is it to find good restaurants here? For the in-the-streets (and the ticket lines) coverage of the Berlinale? For the wry analysis of where we've gone wrong as men and women? For the sarcastic Sex Tips?
What would you like to see on Sexless Berlin in the next year or two? Would you like it to continue as the eclectic but sexually inexplicit mix that it is? Or would you like something completely new where I am more open about the meaning and mechanics of human sex? The thought running through my head at this time is a chronicle of my own journey, taking Sex at Dawn to a logical second step. Sex at High Noon, if you will.
I invite you all to comment; if you haven't ever filled in a comment form on Blogspot, now's the time. You can do so completely anonymously. I have no ability to see anything about where you have commented from, nor your Email address or ISP. But if you're so inclined, it would be nice to know if you're reading from Istanbul or St. Peterburg (yes I have readers in Turkey and Russia) as well as what your interest might be: Berlin culture, film, or sex, Sex, SEX!
Monday, December 5, 2011
Besetzerin meines Körpers
The Lively German and I were conversing the other day when I, as occasionally happens, produced something notable in German. Although he questioned my meaning, I wasn't sure it was an error. The large amount of schnapps we had consumed had, as usual, loosened up my mind quite a bit. I don't remember the exact context but I do remember using Besetzerin (from besetzen, to occupy) as opposed to Besizterin (from besitzen, to own), in reference to my own body.
English has of course neither the ability to play with gender (in German I'm using the female form of the word), nor such an intriguing single-letter difference. This is what etymonline.com, my favorite etymology dictionary, has to say: *Occupy, Latin occupare "take over, seize, possess, occupy," from ob "over" + intensive form of capere "to grasp, seize". *Own, Old English agen "one's own," lit. "possessed by," from Proto-Germanic, aigana- "possessed, owned". Interestingly, in my schizophrenic mother tongue [shall we be Latin-based or shall we be Germanic?], the words don't even come from the same roots.
The following day, it struck me that most people probably feel much more a part of, or even wedded to, their bodies than I. My family is phenotypically quite odd; many of my relatives are physically unattractive people, but then on occasion there is one who seems to have stolen the entire allotment of good-looking genes for an entire generation. I'm one of them. I've written before about the uneasy relationship I have with this body of mine (see here). With every year that passes, as I experience only a fraction of the aging that I by all rights should be going through, I feel less and less comfortable with it. Perhaps this explains why I feel like I occupy this body instead of owning it.
Although I've been the longest and most present occupier (the one who holds the keys), many others have roamed its labyrinths. I try to be selective about the visitors, but tend toward egalitarian and hospitable impulses. And so the visitors span nearly all social classes and numerous nationalities. Even I have the feeling that I haven't seen the whole of it; I roam endlessly as if in a dream, poking around among bricked-up dead-end passageways, wringing my hands over the rooms where the keys have long ago gone missing.
English has of course neither the ability to play with gender (in German I'm using the female form of the word), nor such an intriguing single-letter difference. This is what etymonline.com, my favorite etymology dictionary, has to say: *Occupy, Latin occupare "take over, seize, possess, occupy," from ob "over" + intensive form of capere "to grasp, seize". *Own, Old English agen "one's own," lit. "possessed by," from Proto-Germanic, aigana- "possessed, owned". Interestingly, in my schizophrenic mother tongue [shall we be Latin-based or shall we be Germanic?], the words don't even come from the same roots.
The following day, it struck me that most people probably feel much more a part of, or even wedded to, their bodies than I. My family is phenotypically quite odd; many of my relatives are physically unattractive people, but then on occasion there is one who seems to have stolen the entire allotment of good-looking genes for an entire generation. I'm one of them. I've written before about the uneasy relationship I have with this body of mine (see here). With every year that passes, as I experience only a fraction of the aging that I by all rights should be going through, I feel less and less comfortable with it. Perhaps this explains why I feel like I occupy this body instead of owning it.
Although I've been the longest and most present occupier (the one who holds the keys), many others have roamed its labyrinths. I try to be selective about the visitors, but tend toward egalitarian and hospitable impulses. And so the visitors span nearly all social classes and numerous nationalities. Even I have the feeling that I haven't seen the whole of it; I roam endlessly as if in a dream, poking around among bricked-up dead-end passageways, wringing my hands over the rooms where the keys have long ago gone missing.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Human Nature
My father, having neither the talent of a theoretical physicist, nor the inclination to contribute to a field that brought us the atom bomb, ended up a college physics teacher and film reviewer. He started with physics teaching films, and I have happy pre-adolescent memories of putting up the screen as my father threaded the 35 mm film projector in our living room. As I approached puberty, he shifted focus to films on war and peace, producing two definitive guides during the Reagan years. I started blogging about four years ago, at the same age as when he produced the first guide; his second came at my current age. It was a time fraught with nuclear terror: the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' famous doomsday clock marking the imminent danger of world annihilation.
How the world has changed in the single generation between him and me! Our doomsday of the decade is global warming, a challenge we may find much less easy to disarm. The disaster of the post-agricultural human animal shadows our every move: strife and destruction define our hugely overpopulated societies. The post-agricultural population boom and its attendant loss of tribe and ever-dwindling sense of personal accountability and responsibility, well, it's enough to drive me to despair. How did we come so quickly to this end, after only a few paltry thousand years of development?
Humans, being simplistic creatures, look for simplistic explanations. But the topic I've chosen for today, our capacity for evil, is anything but simple. We can all agree on the evilness of the usual genocidal maniacs that are always trotted out, mostly likely due to the sheer numbers of people they disposed of. But it's not quite that simple, is it, because my ex, with his usual perception, quotes Stalin: "one man's murder is a tragedy but one hundred thousand is a statistic." Many say Stalin killed even more than Hitler but thoughts of Stalin just don't seem to make the blood of the average detached observer boil. Political exiles slowly starving in a place most of us find impossible to picture, the Russian Gulag, well, it's just not as visceral as the images we all carry with us, of truckloads of skin and bones during the Holocaust, or the piles of skulls from Idi Amin's Uganda.
The images of victims of various genocides, napalm, carpet bombings and the A-bomb form for me an endless collage of adolescent memory. But the most crystal clear of all is my image of a teenaged Katchita sitting in a darkened living room with her beloved father, a mature man of 40-plus, tears running down his face, as he screens the episode of The Ascent of Man where Bronowski, a Polish-German-American Jew who lost many of his relatives at Auschwitz, visits the camp. Nicely dressed in a dark suit and dress shoes, he slowly wades into one of the ponds at Auschwitz where his relatives were gassed. As he reflects on the abuse of power, he crouches down, thrusts his hands into the water and brings up the muck from the bottom, rich humic matter fed by all those ashes from all those ovens. In the 30-some years since, I have never seen a grown man come so close to being reduced to sobbing.
My friend Bob probably suffered about as much as one can, but, I hope, no longer than a few short hours. His children are still suffering, and their suffering is substantial and probably will be prolonged. And Bob's friends are suffering though our suffering is certainly not at the same level nor will it be as prolonged as his children's. I can ask myself, do I feel as sick at heart about what was done to Bob as I do about what was done by Pol Pot? It's a tough question, because the face of my friend is there with me when I start awake in the middle of the night but the rest are images from a past that largely predates me. During the second Iraq war, however, I remember the same night terrors, the waking, knowing my government was murdering innocent civilians and there was nothing I could do about it. It was Al-Jeezera that gave us the images of the wounded and dying children that humanized the evil we were committing. In contrast, such images were absent from Rwanda, the first genocide of my adult life, probably the most rapid and occult in history.
If evil is, definitionally, the intentional infliction of prolonged and intense human suffering, then I believe our concept of evil is primarily about the images rather than the numbers. It's about fates that we can viscerally imagine at the personal level, that we feel in our entrails. Torture. Violent rape. Cruel abuse of the weak and defenseless. Humiliation and powerlessness coupled with stark fear. Perhaps evil has more than anything to do with the imagination of the survivors and their need to tell the tale. It is, quite simply, something so vivid and so visceral that they, and those who hear them, can never be free of it.
How the world has changed in the single generation between him and me! Our doomsday of the decade is global warming, a challenge we may find much less easy to disarm. The disaster of the post-agricultural human animal shadows our every move: strife and destruction define our hugely overpopulated societies. The post-agricultural population boom and its attendant loss of tribe and ever-dwindling sense of personal accountability and responsibility, well, it's enough to drive me to despair. How did we come so quickly to this end, after only a few paltry thousand years of development?
Humans, being simplistic creatures, look for simplistic explanations. But the topic I've chosen for today, our capacity for evil, is anything but simple. We can all agree on the evilness of the usual genocidal maniacs that are always trotted out, mostly likely due to the sheer numbers of people they disposed of. But it's not quite that simple, is it, because my ex, with his usual perception, quotes Stalin: "one man's murder is a tragedy but one hundred thousand is a statistic." Many say Stalin killed even more than Hitler but thoughts of Stalin just don't seem to make the blood of the average detached observer boil. Political exiles slowly starving in a place most of us find impossible to picture, the Russian Gulag, well, it's just not as visceral as the images we all carry with us, of truckloads of skin and bones during the Holocaust, or the piles of skulls from Idi Amin's Uganda.
The images of victims of various genocides, napalm, carpet bombings and the A-bomb form for me an endless collage of adolescent memory. But the most crystal clear of all is my image of a teenaged Katchita sitting in a darkened living room with her beloved father, a mature man of 40-plus, tears running down his face, as he screens the episode of The Ascent of Man where Bronowski, a Polish-German-American Jew who lost many of his relatives at Auschwitz, visits the camp. Nicely dressed in a dark suit and dress shoes, he slowly wades into one of the ponds at Auschwitz where his relatives were gassed. As he reflects on the abuse of power, he crouches down, thrusts his hands into the water and brings up the muck from the bottom, rich humic matter fed by all those ashes from all those ovens. In the 30-some years since, I have never seen a grown man come so close to being reduced to sobbing.
My friend Bob probably suffered about as much as one can, but, I hope, no longer than a few short hours. His children are still suffering, and their suffering is substantial and probably will be prolonged. And Bob's friends are suffering though our suffering is certainly not at the same level nor will it be as prolonged as his children's. I can ask myself, do I feel as sick at heart about what was done to Bob as I do about what was done by Pol Pot? It's a tough question, because the face of my friend is there with me when I start awake in the middle of the night but the rest are images from a past that largely predates me. During the second Iraq war, however, I remember the same night terrors, the waking, knowing my government was murdering innocent civilians and there was nothing I could do about it. It was Al-Jeezera that gave us the images of the wounded and dying children that humanized the evil we were committing. In contrast, such images were absent from Rwanda, the first genocide of my adult life, probably the most rapid and occult in history.
If evil is, definitionally, the intentional infliction of prolonged and intense human suffering, then I believe our concept of evil is primarily about the images rather than the numbers. It's about fates that we can viscerally imagine at the personal level, that we feel in our entrails. Torture. Violent rape. Cruel abuse of the weak and defenseless. Humiliation and powerlessness coupled with stark fear. Perhaps evil has more than anything to do with the imagination of the survivors and their need to tell the tale. It is, quite simply, something so vivid and so visceral that they, and those who hear them, can never be free of it.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Día de los Muertos
Today was the Day of the Dead, which is an important day in all of Latinamerica and of course Spain. People in Mexico create elaborate shrines, in Nicaragua flock to the cemeteries to beautify the graves of their departed, and in Spain, party all night long (not that that's particularly different from any other holiday in Spain, of course). I happen to be in Berlin, with its paucity of Catholic churches. But the historic Marienkirche in Alexanderplatz, which somehow survived both World War II and the DDR, has real votive candles for the public to light and that's where I ended up today.
I lit a candle for Bob who was brutally murdered in Ensenada two weeks ago; I think he would have appreciated the gesture. The tourists, in contrast, didn't seem to understand what the nice-looking middle-aged woman was doing kneeling in one of the pews off to the side, crying into her hands on a Tuesday afternoon. I attributed it to their lack of culture, don't you know.
Since losing Bob, it's been difficult to think about much more than the question of evil. It's a debate in which I've long engaged: trying to pin down the thin line between true evil (so intangible and difficult to define) and personal weakness (that I often think, in its tired banality, causes as much harm to others). There's no doubt that what was done to Bob was truly evil, but it was evil on a pedestrian scale, without meaning or significance. In Germany of course one always and forever thinks about the quintessential evil of Hitler, and then the German people and their collaboration. A book that strongly affected me, again recommended by my ex, is Hans Fallada's Jeder Stirbt Fur Sich Allein (Every Man Dies Alone). There is always some way to resist evil, however small.
Tonight I remember two imperfect men who resisted as best they could, consistently, clear-headedly and actively. My father who died at home twenty years ago, with my mother and me at his side. And Bob whose cruel death will never supplant the example he set for the rest of us. Rest in peace, queridos míos.
I lit a candle for Bob who was brutally murdered in Ensenada two weeks ago; I think he would have appreciated the gesture. The tourists, in contrast, didn't seem to understand what the nice-looking middle-aged woman was doing kneeling in one of the pews off to the side, crying into her hands on a Tuesday afternoon. I attributed it to their lack of culture, don't you know.
Since losing Bob, it's been difficult to think about much more than the question of evil. It's a debate in which I've long engaged: trying to pin down the thin line between true evil (so intangible and difficult to define) and personal weakness (that I often think, in its tired banality, causes as much harm to others). There's no doubt that what was done to Bob was truly evil, but it was evil on a pedestrian scale, without meaning or significance. In Germany of course one always and forever thinks about the quintessential evil of Hitler, and then the German people and their collaboration. A book that strongly affected me, again recommended by my ex, is Hans Fallada's Jeder Stirbt Fur Sich Allein (Every Man Dies Alone). There is always some way to resist evil, however small.
Tonight I remember two imperfect men who resisted as best they could, consistently, clear-headedly and actively. My father who died at home twenty years ago, with my mother and me at his side. And Bob whose cruel death will never supplant the example he set for the rest of us. Rest in peace, queridos míos.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
The Waiting Game
I've already described how I use this blog as a screening tool; any man that I meet who speaks English (and most that I meet on-line do) immediately receives this link. It allows me to weed out the ones who are afraid of my sort of alpha female. What it and every other screening tool cannot, of course, do, is screen for those who are sorely mistaken about themselves. Meaning I still get men who swear they are attracted to strong, smart women but then can't ever seem to follow through. The older I get, the more I up my estimate of the percentage of humans out there who are, indeed, sorely mistaken about themselves. But as I so optimistically concluded this spring, it's really not their fault. [After all, they haven't read Sex at Dawn (during my recent trip back to the U.S., I simply had to pick up another couple of copies to pass around).]
It's my job, then, to screen out the seriously deluded (see here for some more important tips). And I have to say, energy level is almost an infallible indicator. Think back, if you will, on all the times someone seemed to show interest in you and then things just didn't work out. That let's-meet-for-coffee date somehow never materialized or the person sort of dropped out of sight via Email or you had a date or two then never quite got back together. It's not necessarily that you were mistaken about an initial spark, it's just that one side or the other didn't provide sufficient oxygen or fuel for that spark to catch flame.
I get that a lot with Latino and Mediterranean men, particularly in Europe, which is the opposite of how things were in Latinamerica (super-charged energy firing constantly at me). In Spain, well, I'll never be bajita y morenita, which is really the only way a woman can be; women who are tall and fair like me might just as well be extraterrestrials. We're good for one date ("hey, guys, you'll never believe what I met, face-to-face"), but then it's just really best for the natives that our spaceships fly on to the next star system. On the other hand, we have Germany, where Latin men face such a glut of women dying to be with them that they, poor dears, have no incentive whatsoever to behave decently. And sadly, they just don't.
It's now time to introduce a brief walk-on in my blog's cast of characters. We'll call him Wheelchair Guy as I found him on Berlin's CL looking for just that, a wheelchair-bound woman. As this was one of the weirdest kinks I'd found yet (and I do like to collect kinks), I just had to write him. Turns out he's well attuned to the value of the older woman, as are so many of the younger men I seem to run into these days. But it would seem that he hasn't grasped that we're not exactly inclined to play the waiting game...
After energetically writing me long well-thought-out Emails for several weeks back in May, presumably as a prelude to meeting up in June in Berlin, Wheelchair Guy dropped out of sight for four months, including not answering two Email inquiries from me as to whether he'd lost interest. He just got back to Berlin after all this time, or so he says, but still can't seem to organize himself to see me. He's just so, well, you know, BUSYYYYYY. Uggghhh. There is no doubt in my mind that I'm much happier blogging the case of Wheelchair Guy here in the comfort of the Lair where I don't have to interact with anyone at all.
I asked my ex, who is always a font of odd bits of knowledge and can be counted on to spout a helpful statistic when a woman most needs it, what is up with this game of making people wait? It always seems like such a power trip to me (and sadly I think women may engage in it even more than men). His response: you have to consider that one quarter of women have been sexually abused or mistreated; reticence and indecision is perfectly understandable. Fine, but what's so many men's excuse? To which he replied, "they're not that into you", about which, of course, he's perfectly right.
I prefer to express it in terms of energy; when the energy's there, everything just flows. The first date quickly becomes a second and possibly a third and the energy's so good that you just do what, as the Spanish say, happens naturally between a man and a woman. The only problem here is that (sigh) good energy at my advanced age is so, so hard to find. I have to admit that it just occurred to this odd mind of mine to wonder where one might rent a wheelchair in Berlin. But of course I'm just not that desperate.
It's my job, then, to screen out the seriously deluded (see here for some more important tips). And I have to say, energy level is almost an infallible indicator. Think back, if you will, on all the times someone seemed to show interest in you and then things just didn't work out. That let's-meet-for-coffee date somehow never materialized or the person sort of dropped out of sight via Email or you had a date or two then never quite got back together. It's not necessarily that you were mistaken about an initial spark, it's just that one side or the other didn't provide sufficient oxygen or fuel for that spark to catch flame.
I get that a lot with Latino and Mediterranean men, particularly in Europe, which is the opposite of how things were in Latinamerica (super-charged energy firing constantly at me). In Spain, well, I'll never be bajita y morenita, which is really the only way a woman can be; women who are tall and fair like me might just as well be extraterrestrials. We're good for one date ("hey, guys, you'll never believe what I met, face-to-face"), but then it's just really best for the natives that our spaceships fly on to the next star system. On the other hand, we have Germany, where Latin men face such a glut of women dying to be with them that they, poor dears, have no incentive whatsoever to behave decently. And sadly, they just don't.
It's now time to introduce a brief walk-on in my blog's cast of characters. We'll call him Wheelchair Guy as I found him on Berlin's CL looking for just that, a wheelchair-bound woman. As this was one of the weirdest kinks I'd found yet (and I do like to collect kinks), I just had to write him. Turns out he's well attuned to the value of the older woman, as are so many of the younger men I seem to run into these days. But it would seem that he hasn't grasped that we're not exactly inclined to play the waiting game...
After energetically writing me long well-thought-out Emails for several weeks back in May, presumably as a prelude to meeting up in June in Berlin, Wheelchair Guy dropped out of sight for four months, including not answering two Email inquiries from me as to whether he'd lost interest. He just got back to Berlin after all this time, or so he says, but still can't seem to organize himself to see me. He's just so, well, you know, BUSYYYYYY. Uggghhh. There is no doubt in my mind that I'm much happier blogging the case of Wheelchair Guy here in the comfort of the Lair where I don't have to interact with anyone at all.
I asked my ex, who is always a font of odd bits of knowledge and can be counted on to spout a helpful statistic when a woman most needs it, what is up with this game of making people wait? It always seems like such a power trip to me (and sadly I think women may engage in it even more than men). His response: you have to consider that one quarter of women have been sexually abused or mistreated; reticence and indecision is perfectly understandable. Fine, but what's so many men's excuse? To which he replied, "they're not that into you", about which, of course, he's perfectly right.
I prefer to express it in terms of energy; when the energy's there, everything just flows. The first date quickly becomes a second and possibly a third and the energy's so good that you just do what, as the Spanish say, happens naturally between a man and a woman. The only problem here is that (sigh) good energy at my advanced age is so, so hard to find. I have to admit that it just occurred to this odd mind of mine to wonder where one might rent a wheelchair in Berlin. But of course I'm just not that desperate.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The Heartland
This month saw a reprise of the Travel Hell 2010, on a lightning-quick trip back to the U.S. due to family illness, which I combined with a slight detour to Oklahoma. Leaving Germany I was scheduled on two Lufthansa flights, which managed not one but two equipment failures, meaning I got to wait an extra four hours in Düsseldorf. Not an auspicious start, but a cakewalk compared to my return, where it turned out Lufthansa had managed a take-over (as in hostile) of my original ticket with United, apparently turning it into a one-way, meaning they canceled my return. Which of course I didn't discover until the night before I was due to fly back. I had to wait 8 extra hours in Denver after I finally got everything straightened out (which entailed some additional 3 hours on the phone plus an extra half-hour in the airport getting sent around to various partner airlines who refused me boarding). Do you suppose Lufthansa did anything? Like offer me business class? Or even a lousy meal? Why no.
These big airline partnerships such as Star Alliance or SkyTeam are a great way to evade all accountability toward clients -- it's always the other airline's fault. So what did I do during those 8 hours I spent waiting for my flight? I called my credit card to initiate a dispute of the original ticket charge, which cost me a cool $1400. They call it non-delivery of service. After setting out to the airport at 7 AM Denver time, I finally got home in Berlin at the equivalent of 8 AM the next day. This on a routing that should have taken only 14 hours (DEN to BER). Unadulterated travel hell.
Well now, then there's the matter of what I was doing in Oklahoma. A special someone asked me twice if I wanted to go; he later claimed it was a dare. But as a prelude to visiting my family in Colorado I decided to stop by to see him (and raise him one)... Oklahoma City was interesting in a one-of-the-worst-hell-holes-I've-ever-been sort of way. No stranger to the South, having studied in North Carolina, I have to wonder if anyone does racist redneck better than Okies. There seems to be a special added Wild-West component; one gets the impression lynchin' would be far too much effort when there's always a rifle within easy reach... Meeting the family, however, simply did not match up to meeting my ex's (picture methadone-nodding evangelical nudists, well, it defies description but his sister's blackened necrotic veins are something I'll never forget). The big pow-wow of the main part of the clan in a tiny town just short of the panhandle involved vehicles peeling into the parking lot of the local diner from all directions virtually simultaneously; word had gotten out right quick about who was back in town. If it hadn't been for the jet-lag dragging my eyelids down, with the clock ticking past 7 then 7:30 PM as I was regaled with the news that Billy Joe was playing down at the local fairgrounds and the Avon catalog had some great sales on lip gloss, well, I think I'd have given myself an A+. As it was I have to say it was at least an A-. I'd gone prepared to spread layers of nice like thick Crisco frosting, and it appears that I was said to be the most normal of all the women he'd taken "home". He and I both know that I'm probably the most abnormal, but of course I decided early on in life not to reveal outward signs to mere mortals.
In a stunning double-header, I picked up 2 new states to match my obsessive, travel-by-list mother (who maintains that Mallorca is a separate country she's visited in Europe). While at her house I crossed it off the post-it tally on her world map; she literally had a fit. The spike in her blood pressure practically did her in right then and there as I told her that I believe I'm qualified to say, as a RESIDENT OF THE VERY COUNTRY she's trying to divide in two, that MALLORCA simply does not count! Anyway, she had tallied 49 U.S. states for herself and counted 47 for me; Oklahoma was one and since I found myself 14 miles from the Kansas border, I convinced that special someone to drive me up to knock out another one. I think I'm only missing Arkansas now...and I certainly hope it stays that way.
These big airline partnerships such as Star Alliance or SkyTeam are a great way to evade all accountability toward clients -- it's always the other airline's fault. So what did I do during those 8 hours I spent waiting for my flight? I called my credit card to initiate a dispute of the original ticket charge, which cost me a cool $1400. They call it non-delivery of service. After setting out to the airport at 7 AM Denver time, I finally got home in Berlin at the equivalent of 8 AM the next day. This on a routing that should have taken only 14 hours (DEN to BER). Unadulterated travel hell.
Well now, then there's the matter of what I was doing in Oklahoma. A special someone asked me twice if I wanted to go; he later claimed it was a dare. But as a prelude to visiting my family in Colorado I decided to stop by to see him (and raise him one)... Oklahoma City was interesting in a one-of-the-worst-hell-holes-I've-ever-been sort of way. No stranger to the South, having studied in North Carolina, I have to wonder if anyone does racist redneck better than Okies. There seems to be a special added Wild-West component; one gets the impression lynchin' would be far too much effort when there's always a rifle within easy reach... Meeting the family, however, simply did not match up to meeting my ex's (picture methadone-nodding evangelical nudists, well, it defies description but his sister's blackened necrotic veins are something I'll never forget). The big pow-wow of the main part of the clan in a tiny town just short of the panhandle involved vehicles peeling into the parking lot of the local diner from all directions virtually simultaneously; word had gotten out right quick about who was back in town. If it hadn't been for the jet-lag dragging my eyelids down, with the clock ticking past 7 then 7:30 PM as I was regaled with the news that Billy Joe was playing down at the local fairgrounds and the Avon catalog had some great sales on lip gloss, well, I think I'd have given myself an A+. As it was I have to say it was at least an A-. I'd gone prepared to spread layers of nice like thick Crisco frosting, and it appears that I was said to be the most normal of all the women he'd taken "home". He and I both know that I'm probably the most abnormal, but of course I decided early on in life not to reveal outward signs to mere mortals.
In a stunning double-header, I picked up 2 new states to match my obsessive, travel-by-list mother (who maintains that Mallorca is a separate country she's visited in Europe). While at her house I crossed it off the post-it tally on her world map; she literally had a fit. The spike in her blood pressure practically did her in right then and there as I told her that I believe I'm qualified to say, as a RESIDENT OF THE VERY COUNTRY she's trying to divide in two, that MALLORCA simply does not count! Anyway, she had tallied 49 U.S. states for herself and counted 47 for me; Oklahoma was one and since I found myself 14 miles from the Kansas border, I convinced that special someone to drive me up to knock out another one. I think I'm only missing Arkansas now...and I certainly hope it stays that way.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
The Moviegoer (Reprise)
Here in Berlin I'm house-sitting for the Pirate during part of his extended visit back "home". In browsing his bookshelf in detail, I found Querelle, which set off an entire cascade of nostalgia. I remember seeing that film as I first went off on my own (to live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina) at the tender age of 17. It was a hot-bed of resistance to the racist conservatism of the state that, election-after-election, returned the racist rabid anti-communist Jesse Holmes to the U.S. Senate. Chapel Hill was filled with punks, communists, queers and activists of all colors. Never much of a joiner, but rather an enthusiastic and energetic participant, I bounced eclectically between campaigns and crusades, whose breadth and diversity helped me define the kind-and-gentle anarchy that came to characterize my socio-political outlook. I spent as much of the rest of my time in the U.S. that I could in such enclaves: Ithaca, New York, West Los Angeles, Berkeley/Oakland, avoiding the vast American mid-section like a plague.
But let me get back to waxing nostalgic about film. Chapel Hill had an art film theater, called the Carolina Theater, that I haunted that first summer when I knew next to no one there. Coming from a shit town in northern Pennsylvania with a single-screen theater whose most memorable fare was the Bad News Bears, I was, quite simply, enchanted. The Carolina seems, sadly, to have closed in 2005; this report indicates it's been replaced by that bastion of mediocre homogeneity, The Gap store. It's been nearly 30 years now, and the movies I remember from then, according to IMDB, are scattered through the period of a year, such that I couldn't have seen them in just one summer. But memory is like that, it distills and intensifies, such that in my mind, in the summer of 1983, I saw Fassbinder's Querelle, Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo and Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay in The Dresser.
Walking into The Carolina for an afternoon matinee anytime I damn well pleased was the purest expression of my new-found adult-hood, hundreds of miles away from my overbearing mother. It was freedom personified. To this day, leaving a theater and walking into the light of day with a foreign film still playing in my head, gives me a feeling nearly as delicious as that beautiful Carolina summer when I was so fresh and young and there was everything to discover.
But let me get back to waxing nostalgic about film. Chapel Hill had an art film theater, called the Carolina Theater, that I haunted that first summer when I knew next to no one there. Coming from a shit town in northern Pennsylvania with a single-screen theater whose most memorable fare was the Bad News Bears, I was, quite simply, enchanted. The Carolina seems, sadly, to have closed in 2005; this report indicates it's been replaced by that bastion of mediocre homogeneity, The Gap store. It's been nearly 30 years now, and the movies I remember from then, according to IMDB, are scattered through the period of a year, such that I couldn't have seen them in just one summer. But memory is like that, it distills and intensifies, such that in my mind, in the summer of 1983, I saw Fassbinder's Querelle, Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo and Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay in The Dresser.
Walking into The Carolina for an afternoon matinee anytime I damn well pleased was the purest expression of my new-found adult-hood, hundreds of miles away from my overbearing mother. It was freedom personified. To this day, leaving a theater and walking into the light of day with a foreign film still playing in my head, gives me a feeling nearly as delicious as that beautiful Carolina summer when I was so fresh and young and there was everything to discover.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Girlfriend Material
Are you aware, dear readers, that not only is there research aplenty showing that we women are measurably more attractive when we are ovulating (see this fascinating article) -- breasts firm and lift, waists narrow and faces glow -- but we also engage in behaviors that range from dressing more provocatively to being careless about safe sex? At this very moment, I'm contemplating a careful scientific study to measure the likelihood a woman ends up in a nightclub the two or three days she's ovulating as opposed to spending her period eating ice cream and watching Desperate Housewives reruns.
Last year a lover of mine told me women could be divided into girlfriend material or something that I understood to be the opposite (shall we say, ahem, boffing material?) . . . ! I asked him exactly how he could tell and he said, "just look at how she's dressed." To a woman (or at least this woman), that sounds so patently absurd that I can almost feel a rant coming on.
But I'm going to suppress the urge and finally introduce a book, Sex at Dawn, that I first gobbled up when back in the Bay Area last October. It may very well be one of the most important books of the century, although it's dangerous to say so only 11 years into a new one. It's important to emphasis that I'm basing this judgment on the authors' ideas alone, as it's sadly written in a hyped American vernacular style that makes me shudder to think about what form translation into any other language/culture would take.
If you take my recommendation, then, please do your best to filter out all the unfortunate references to American pop culture and think about the real meat of the message. It's important, so important that I finally feel like there's a book out there that does what The Ethical Slut and Open Marriage just didn't do for me. It emphasizes that we humans actually don't really have a choice; that it's not just some of us choosing to be bounders or cads, loose or slutty. On the contrary, we as humans are designed to be unapologetically non-monogamous, promiscuously sharing everything we have, including our bodies.
When I despair of how far off-track we have gotten (girlfriend material, indeed!), I now have an intellectual space to which I can repair. I can remind myself that it's not only a good thing to want sex, but it's an important way for me to build bonds of mutual support with the people who matter to me, who represent my community. And when These Men don't understand that I am happy to give freely but that in return I expect them to behave as responsible members of this community, it helps to remind myself that I'm part of an exclusive group of intellectuals who realize that this species has apocalyptically, irredeemably lost its way. We've evolved ourselves straight into our own private hell.
Well I, for one, intend to spend the rest of my time in this hell of ours fighting to be the minx, harridan, Jezebel, temptress and vixen, as well as the paragon, madonna and goddess that millions of years of human evolution intended me to be. The paperback version of Sex at Dawn is hot off the presses with newly added material, my ex informs me. As both of my hardback copies seem to be perpetually loaned out, I'm putting in my order for the paperback, and it's staying on my bedside table, to be consulted and quoted whenever one of These Men tries to make me feel bad about my (and Mother) Nature.
Last year a lover of mine told me women could be divided into girlfriend material or something that I understood to be the opposite (shall we say, ahem, boffing material?) . . . ! I asked him exactly how he could tell and he said, "just look at how she's dressed." To a woman (or at least this woman), that sounds so patently absurd that I can almost feel a rant coming on.
But I'm going to suppress the urge and finally introduce a book, Sex at Dawn, that I first gobbled up when back in the Bay Area last October. It may very well be one of the most important books of the century, although it's dangerous to say so only 11 years into a new one. It's important to emphasis that I'm basing this judgment on the authors' ideas alone, as it's sadly written in a hyped American vernacular style that makes me shudder to think about what form translation into any other language/culture would take.
If you take my recommendation, then, please do your best to filter out all the unfortunate references to American pop culture and think about the real meat of the message. It's important, so important that I finally feel like there's a book out there that does what The Ethical Slut and Open Marriage just didn't do for me. It emphasizes that we humans actually don't really have a choice; that it's not just some of us choosing to be bounders or cads, loose or slutty. On the contrary, we as humans are designed to be unapologetically non-monogamous, promiscuously sharing everything we have, including our bodies.
When I despair of how far off-track we have gotten (girlfriend material, indeed!), I now have an intellectual space to which I can repair. I can remind myself that it's not only a good thing to want sex, but it's an important way for me to build bonds of mutual support with the people who matter to me, who represent my community. And when These Men don't understand that I am happy to give freely but that in return I expect them to behave as responsible members of this community, it helps to remind myself that I'm part of an exclusive group of intellectuals who realize that this species has apocalyptically, irredeemably lost its way. We've evolved ourselves straight into our own private hell.
Well I, for one, intend to spend the rest of my time in this hell of ours fighting to be the minx, harridan, Jezebel, temptress and vixen, as well as the paragon, madonna and goddess that millions of years of human evolution intended me to be. The paperback version of Sex at Dawn is hot off the presses with newly added material, my ex informs me. As both of my hardback copies seem to be perpetually loaned out, I'm putting in my order for the paperback, and it's staying on my bedside table, to be consulted and quoted whenever one of These Men tries to make me feel bad about my (and Mother) Nature.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Einmal ist Keinmal
My ex recently pointed out to me that I'd never read The Unbearable Lightness of Being, although of course I saw the film long ago. I picked it up at East of Eden the last time I was in Berlin. Perhaps the most famous quote is Kundera's interpretation of this German proverb, Einmal ist Keinmal. He wrote, “[w]hat happens but once, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.”
I suddenly realized that this perfectly describes my longing for the fourth dimension. In a couple of short months I'll mark the twentieth anniversary of my father's death. These have been two decades of relentless change, a tireless quest to cheat time. There are many ways to do so, of course, by changing countries, whole continents, languages or even entire identities.
Time travelers like myself mark our true ages only internally. To all outward appearances we are years younger. In the two decades I've spent doing this, I've only apparently aged one. It's exhausting, though, and at times I have the sense that I will soon come face-to-face with the washed-up, wrinkled old woman who I should, by all rights, be well on my way to becoming. For now, though, I'm ovulating, and the mirror reflects a glow of beauty from years past, that sometimes still takes me by surprise. The necrotic cynicism that is so apparent to me there inside my head, falls away for an instant and I think, hey, Katchita, sometimes you really do somehow manage to pull it off.
Berlin, dahling, I will be back in your arms in a few short days, and together we will be the forever young, the forever beautiful, of those who never stop reinventing ourselves.
I suddenly realized that this perfectly describes my longing for the fourth dimension. In a couple of short months I'll mark the twentieth anniversary of my father's death. These have been two decades of relentless change, a tireless quest to cheat time. There are many ways to do so, of course, by changing countries, whole continents, languages or even entire identities.
Time travelers like myself mark our true ages only internally. To all outward appearances we are years younger. In the two decades I've spent doing this, I've only apparently aged one. It's exhausting, though, and at times I have the sense that I will soon come face-to-face with the washed-up, wrinkled old woman who I should, by all rights, be well on my way to becoming. For now, though, I'm ovulating, and the mirror reflects a glow of beauty from years past, that sometimes still takes me by surprise. The necrotic cynicism that is so apparent to me there inside my head, falls away for an instant and I think, hey, Katchita, sometimes you really do somehow manage to pull it off.
Berlin, dahling, I will be back in your arms in a few short days, and together we will be the forever young, the forever beautiful, of those who never stop reinventing ourselves.
Monday, May 23, 2011
All Woman
My dears, I am relieved to report that I saw the most spectacular female ass in the world again in the shower two weeks later and can declare that I have returned definitively to female-dom! That means I looked at it appraisingly, thinking, not bad, definitely superior to mine, but wait, isn't that a bit of cellulite I see there...? I guarantee that the previous time I did not see anything but perfection -- I was as close as I will ever be to penile-bearing.
My conclusion? It's really a horror sometimes, to have been socialized as a woman -- think of how terribly critical we are of our bodies. But could it be, in stark contrast, that men really do see us, at least at the beginning, as perfectly compelling, seductive creatures? Wouldn't that just be fab?!? I've spoken twice since the testosterone affair to she who possesses the greatest female ass and she is really a sweetie. Even still, I would have no idea whatsoever how to approach her... and at least for the time being, I have discarded that idea completely.
At any rate, given that my hormones were back in line with reality but my brain was in its customary state of bitingly sharp wittiness, I'll share with you the greatest hits of my recent Craigslist post (in Madrid), my first, I'd say, in at least two years. I'd rather given it up, and only occasionally respond to top-notch ads in Berlin, of which, surprisingly, there were THREE this spring. Three, imagine that.
I'm quite frankly looking for someone capable of sustaining a primarily sexual relationship for more than the 20 minutes it takes a typical indigenous specimen, drunk off his ass, to complete his business during his monthly (as finances permit) one-night stand. Implicit in this is your ability to please a woman, to open yourself up sexually, to not run away after a handful of encounters when you see that I have a great deal of psychological and intellectual depth, am at least as experienced as you and am dangerously good at pleasing men who are good at pleasing me. PLEASE abstain: Spaniards, smokers, cheaters, little boys who still need their mamas, premature ejaculators, misogynists, anyone who doesn't live within Madrid Capital or anyone whose first impulse would be to send a cock-shot.
Unbelievably, I received about 10 responses before taking down the ad, only one of which was negative. And one of them has, shall we say, already (ahem) clicked. Testosterone, endorphins and ocytocin are once again coursing through my bloodstream. Life has resumed its Technicolor cast, and I'm back on course, cheating society.
My conclusion? It's really a horror sometimes, to have been socialized as a woman -- think of how terribly critical we are of our bodies. But could it be, in stark contrast, that men really do see us, at least at the beginning, as perfectly compelling, seductive creatures? Wouldn't that just be fab?!? I've spoken twice since the testosterone affair to she who possesses the greatest female ass and she is really a sweetie. Even still, I would have no idea whatsoever how to approach her... and at least for the time being, I have discarded that idea completely.
At any rate, given that my hormones were back in line with reality but my brain was in its customary state of bitingly sharp wittiness, I'll share with you the greatest hits of my recent Craigslist post (in Madrid), my first, I'd say, in at least two years. I'd rather given it up, and only occasionally respond to top-notch ads in Berlin, of which, surprisingly, there were THREE this spring. Three, imagine that.
I'm quite frankly looking for someone capable of sustaining a primarily sexual relationship for more than the 20 minutes it takes a typical indigenous specimen, drunk off his ass, to complete his business during his monthly (as finances permit) one-night stand. Implicit in this is your ability to please a woman, to open yourself up sexually, to not run away after a handful of encounters when you see that I have a great deal of psychological and intellectual depth, am at least as experienced as you and am dangerously good at pleasing men who are good at pleasing me. PLEASE abstain: Spaniards, smokers, cheaters, little boys who still need their mamas, premature ejaculators, misogynists, anyone who doesn't live within Madrid Capital or anyone whose first impulse would be to send a cock-shot.
Unbelievably, I received about 10 responses before taking down the ad, only one of which was negative. And one of them has, shall we say, already (ahem) clicked. Testosterone, endorphins and ocytocin are once again coursing through my bloodstream. Life has resumed its Technicolor cast, and I'm back on course, cheating society.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Penis Envy
There has been no doubt in my mind since my early thirties that I suffer from a serious case of Freud's most famous malaise. One of my favorite performances (most of which are given to an audience of one), is to lament that I was not born a man. Masculine audience members, nearly without fail, look at me sideways as if I've just expressed a desire to grow gills and live under the sea. And then they tell me I'm crazy, I'm far too much woman. But of course the point is I'd much rather be far too much man, and be able to operate in this world with the impunity of the penile-bearing. To always have a point of reference, a built-in compass showing me the way. Something I could give a pet name to, and fondle and check on the whole day long. It seems like heaven.
Further reflection, of course, leads me to the problem that if I were a heterosexual male, I'd have to deal with women: possibly even stooping to wheedling to try to convince them (baby, baby, please, baby, baby) -- HORRORS! That's just not something I'd want to engage in. So undoubtedly if I had my choice, I'd be a homosexual man. That has the huge ancillary advantage of not having to cede the moral advantage that comes with being a member of an oppressed group, which I would find to be the strongest down-side of a change in gender.
Please, past, present and future lovers, do not be alarmed! I'm definitely not saying I'm on the verge of a sex-change operation, although it is something I do find quite interesting (inquiring minds and all). I'm not a homosexual man trapped in the body of a woman, no. I'm a woman who's sick of all our tired old gender roles.
When I rolled out this performance one more time over drinks at the Rote Harfe on my last visit to Berlin, The Director, typical of him, didn't respond in anything like the usual way. He instead asked me, "But Katchita, isn't that what you do, after all? Take what you want from both genders?" He was well into the giggly phase that comes with his second half-liter of beer, but I'd only had one ouzo and was sufficiently possessed of my senses that my jaw dropped in admiring wonder. He'd hit the nail completely on the head; it's true, I refuse to be railroaded into anything approaching a traditional female role and I'm damned if I'm going to forgo most of the power men get to enjoy. But the penis, that tangible talisman of virility, that center of the universe, well, it's just sadly, acutely, absent.
Further reflection, of course, leads me to the problem that if I were a heterosexual male, I'd have to deal with women: possibly even stooping to wheedling to try to convince them (baby, baby, please, baby, baby) -- HORRORS! That's just not something I'd want to engage in. So undoubtedly if I had my choice, I'd be a homosexual man. That has the huge ancillary advantage of not having to cede the moral advantage that comes with being a member of an oppressed group, which I would find to be the strongest down-side of a change in gender.
Please, past, present and future lovers, do not be alarmed! I'm definitely not saying I'm on the verge of a sex-change operation, although it is something I do find quite interesting (inquiring minds and all). I'm not a homosexual man trapped in the body of a woman, no. I'm a woman who's sick of all our tired old gender roles.
When I rolled out this performance one more time over drinks at the Rote Harfe on my last visit to Berlin, The Director, typical of him, didn't respond in anything like the usual way. He instead asked me, "But Katchita, isn't that what you do, after all? Take what you want from both genders?" He was well into the giggly phase that comes with his second half-liter of beer, but I'd only had one ouzo and was sufficiently possessed of my senses that my jaw dropped in admiring wonder. He'd hit the nail completely on the head; it's true, I refuse to be railroaded into anything approaching a traditional female role and I'm damned if I'm going to forgo most of the power men get to enjoy. But the penis, that tangible talisman of virility, that center of the universe, well, it's just sadly, acutely, absent.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Now What Do I Do??
So much sniggering about what happens to men in their mid-forties does become tiresome, doesn't it, my pretties? They are, after all, going through the XY equivalent of the hormonal roller-coaster that we women face on the downward slope toward 50. They need the luscious seductive curves of young fertile women (or red convertibles, as the case may be) to give their flagging testosterone levels a momentary lift. And if testosterone is indeed the hormone of desire, then who can blame them for their search for some way, any way, to pump it up? Because as I can personally testify, during the harrowing downs of my current roller-coaster ride, life can seem flat and dull in a way that I've never before experienced.
I really have no other explanation for my experience the other day (see below), than that it triggered a palpable release of testosterone. It seemed like I could feel it pulsing through my bloodstream. Could testosterone be the ultimate high? I doubt it. But no one ever accused me a being a slacker in the intrepid category. So as of this month I'll be launching my newest campaign: to find a way, somehow, to have regular sex, here in the wilds of macho-landia. Because I can't be constantly running off to "sexless" Berlin for sex, now can I? That's just not in keeping with the nature of this blog... not to mention how bad it is for the environment.
So hmmm, what will it be? Regular sessions with the Ice Prince, he who is always hard and never talks back, do tend to lose their appeal after several months straight. I suppose I could do my best to eschew heterosexuality at this advanced age (back in school we called them political lesbians), but how would the real lesbians feel about that?? Bisexuality was the "in" thing in the Bay Area in the 00's; better late than never, I suppose. To maintain some penile presence, I could become the hot-bi-babe for some bored couple afflicted with the seven-year itch.
But I think the best would be to arrange something like my friend L. has -- a same-time-next-week sort of thing where she knows next to nothing about his life nor he about hers -- purely sex, no complications. Sounds sort of like heaven, doesn't it? I had a friend once who would always lament that she wished she could duct tape their mouths shut. But really, with my new-found sympathy for men, I no longer have any need for such overly generalized misandrous musings. And I cannot allow myself to give up; if *I* exist, then somewhere out there must be a handful of equally smart iconoclastic men who would be my match, right?
In the meantime I'll hold off on hitting the testosterone pills when the world becomes too gray and unappealing to bear. I shudder to think of the disconcerting side effects they could cause...
I really have no other explanation for my experience the other day (see below), than that it triggered a palpable release of testosterone. It seemed like I could feel it pulsing through my bloodstream. Could testosterone be the ultimate high? I doubt it. But no one ever accused me a being a slacker in the intrepid category. So as of this month I'll be launching my newest campaign: to find a way, somehow, to have regular sex, here in the wilds of macho-landia. Because I can't be constantly running off to "sexless" Berlin for sex, now can I? That's just not in keeping with the nature of this blog... not to mention how bad it is for the environment.
So hmmm, what will it be? Regular sessions with the Ice Prince, he who is always hard and never talks back, do tend to lose their appeal after several months straight. I suppose I could do my best to eschew heterosexuality at this advanced age (back in school we called them political lesbians), but how would the real lesbians feel about that?? Bisexuality was the "in" thing in the Bay Area in the 00's; better late than never, I suppose. To maintain some penile presence, I could become the hot-bi-babe for some bored couple afflicted with the seven-year itch.
But I think the best would be to arrange something like my friend L. has -- a same-time-next-week sort of thing where she knows next to nothing about his life nor he about hers -- purely sex, no complications. Sounds sort of like heaven, doesn't it? I had a friend once who would always lament that she wished she could duct tape their mouths shut. But really, with my new-found sympathy for men, I no longer have any need for such overly generalized misandrous musings. And I cannot allow myself to give up; if *I* exist, then somewhere out there must be a handful of equally smart iconoclastic men who would be my match, right?
In the meantime I'll hold off on hitting the testosterone pills when the world becomes too gray and unappealing to bear. I shudder to think of the disconcerting side effects they could cause...
Saturday, May 7, 2011
I Finally Figured Out What's Wrong
Odd, unpredictable things happen to women my age, things that feel like some sort of special torture designed for those of us cursed with belonging to the "fairer" sex (as if the previous 30+ years of monthly anguish we've already had to undergo hasn't been sufficient). In a flash today, while writing to one of my newest Craigslist Berlin prospects, it all came to me. First you have to listen to this episode of This American Life (starting at about 15:20) from nearly ten years ago.
Just as the woman-to-man points out, my own experience as a woman had previously been that the narrative of sexuality is largely verbal (ranging from him whispering sweet nothings in my ear to enjoying literotica). In contrast, I've always known men's is visual, and in the interest of my extensive social research into the penile-bearing, I've sampled a wide range of porn. Why the difference? Well, it's testosterone, my darlings. I'm very fond of quoting the line from this interview where the W2M describes how testosterone injections changed everyday life into a series of vivid streaming pornographic images. It's fun to ask lovers to describe them every now and then.
For the last two or three years, I've experienced a notable increase in said images: triple-X flashes that suddenly and unpredictably seem to suffuse my entire brain. But Tuesday was special because an ordinary weekly occurrence suddenly exploded into something completely orthogonal to my normal sexual sensibility. I was showering at the pool when across the shower room I spotted the most perfect female ass I have ever seen, or so it seemed at the time, and I'm no stranger to women's locker rooms! She was taking her own sweet time applying shampoo to her long wavy dark hair and slowly and sensually sudsing it, moving her hands through it, working the suds around. It seemed suddenly like I was jolted into a time warp of sheer lust without beginning or end. I had the clearest vision of spreading those perfect half moons apart and (ahem)... [the rest of this image, being completely incompatible with the non-pornographic nature of my writing, is left to your imagination].
She turned around to rinse out the soap and I was brought up short by the lamentably all-too-common pubic landing strip she sported. But then she rotated once again and there were those perfect lobes and a wave of lust crashed through me and I thought I would just die if I couldn't drop to my knees under the water flowing over her and [remainder strictly censored]...
In a moment of clear-headed analysis, I googled testosterone and pre-menopause and found, unsurprisingly, that testosterone levels can become unpredictable or even rise in some women. Although for over three years I've ascribed my heightened sexuality to the fact that I have so much less opportunity here than I did back in the good old New World, in truth I can't say this whole thing wouldn't have happened anyway, courtesy of testosterone.
So, my dears, this week, I found out with perfect certainty what it is to be male. . . And my guess is that that changes everything.
Just as the woman-to-man points out, my own experience as a woman had previously been that the narrative of sexuality is largely verbal (ranging from him whispering sweet nothings in my ear to enjoying literotica). In contrast, I've always known men's is visual, and in the interest of my extensive social research into the penile-bearing, I've sampled a wide range of porn. Why the difference? Well, it's testosterone, my darlings. I'm very fond of quoting the line from this interview where the W2M describes how testosterone injections changed everyday life into a series of vivid streaming pornographic images. It's fun to ask lovers to describe them every now and then.
For the last two or three years, I've experienced a notable increase in said images: triple-X flashes that suddenly and unpredictably seem to suffuse my entire brain. But Tuesday was special because an ordinary weekly occurrence suddenly exploded into something completely orthogonal to my normal sexual sensibility. I was showering at the pool when across the shower room I spotted the most perfect female ass I have ever seen, or so it seemed at the time, and I'm no stranger to women's locker rooms! She was taking her own sweet time applying shampoo to her long wavy dark hair and slowly and sensually sudsing it, moving her hands through it, working the suds around. It seemed suddenly like I was jolted into a time warp of sheer lust without beginning or end. I had the clearest vision of spreading those perfect half moons apart and (ahem)... [the rest of this image, being completely incompatible with the non-pornographic nature of my writing, is left to your imagination].
She turned around to rinse out the soap and I was brought up short by the lamentably all-too-common pubic landing strip she sported. But then she rotated once again and there were those perfect lobes and a wave of lust crashed through me and I thought I would just die if I couldn't drop to my knees under the water flowing over her and [remainder strictly censored]...
In a moment of clear-headed analysis, I googled testosterone and pre-menopause and found, unsurprisingly, that testosterone levels can become unpredictable or even rise in some women. Although for over three years I've ascribed my heightened sexuality to the fact that I have so much less opportunity here than I did back in the good old New World, in truth I can't say this whole thing wouldn't have happened anyway, courtesy of testosterone.
So, my dears, this week, I found out with perfect certainty what it is to be male. . . And my guess is that that changes everything.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Top Ten for '10
There is a definite silver lining to going through one of my periods of chastity. And that is film, Film, FILM. I noticed that up till now, four months into the year, I've already seen half as many films as last year. Swearing off "dating" gives me so much more luscious time to not only visit the alternate realities that film gives me, but it also saves me oh so much frustration!
I thought for most of the year that 2010 was really bad for film, but I'm seeing that it was just a year in which good films were slow to arrive to where I needed to see them. So it's time, finally, to do a top-10 list, while noting that many of the films in my 2011 list were actually released in 2010.
Here they are, representing 8 countries and 3 continents (none from Latinamerica this year). There's no particular order, except that Submarino is hands down my number one. Dane Thomas Vinterberg is truly a master of the dark side of the human psyche. There two more (!) from Denmark, a country that produces relatively little film but of tremendously high quality on average. And there are three very tough, very dynamic films from Africa, including the first feature-length film from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Submarino
Winter's Bone
Hævnen (In a Better World)
Ehky ya Scheherazade (Tell Me a Story)
State of Violence
Viva Riva!
Banksy: Exit Through the Gift Shop
We Were Here
Des Hommes et Dieux (Of Gods and Men)
I thought for most of the year that 2010 was really bad for film, but I'm seeing that it was just a year in which good films were slow to arrive to where I needed to see them. So it's time, finally, to do a top-10 list, while noting that many of the films in my 2011 list were actually released in 2010.
Here they are, representing 8 countries and 3 continents (none from Latinamerica this year). There's no particular order, except that Submarino is hands down my number one. Dane Thomas Vinterberg is truly a master of the dark side of the human psyche. There two more (!) from Denmark, a country that produces relatively little film but of tremendously high quality on average. And there are three very tough, very dynamic films from Africa, including the first feature-length film from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Submarino
Winter's Bone
Hævnen (In a Better World)
Ehky ya Scheherazade (Tell Me a Story)
State of Violence
Viva Riva!
Banksy: Exit Through the Gift Shop
We Were Here
Des Hommes et Dieux (Of Gods and Men)
Thursday, April 28, 2011
From the Mouths of Babes
I have it straight from a 27-year-old, the topic being mature women:
"They are like a nice glass of whiskey, without any ice... And younger ones are like frappuccino with lots of chocolate sauce and cream and all that nonsense stuff on it."
Truer words were never spoken: there's something for everyone out there! Which is really quite nice, if you think about it.
And yes, I admit it, I've been trolling Craig's List again. Only briefly. But then it only ever takes a few deft flicks of the wrist to get me into trouble...
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Chastity
Most dictionaries of name origin agree that mine derives from the Greek katharos, meaning pure. They go on to note, however, that there is some doubt as to whether the source instead may have been aikia meaning torture. Finally, there is a possible relation to Hecate, the Greek goddess of magic. 
Saint Aikaterina of fourth-century Alexandria was one of the earliest recorded with this name; she was born a "pagan" but died a Christian martyr. Depending on my mood, I could certainly think of my life as magical and of myself as a goddess, but there are definitely times when it is, well, pure torture! Right now, it's the purity angle that I'm working the hardest.
Whenever I go through periods of celibacy induced by the extreme despair brought on by the behavior of These Men (plus spending so much of the winter in gloomy Berlin, which nicely lowers my sex drive), it works well to visit pristine mountain towns on the Camino de Santiago where I can easily picture ascetics engaging in extended bouts of self-flagellation. I devoutly cross myself with holy water while lighting candles to my dear departed, picturing them looking down on me from heaven, content with this new leaf that I've turned over. [I do, naturally, instead of the recommended euro coin, put in 10 cents because I'm damned if the Catholic Church will profit from this pilgrim! A 10-cent coin launched into the collection box with conviction and a good flick of the wrist will resonate just as well as one euro.]
I'll conclude this post by regaling my readers with a list of some of my favorite synonyms: austere, celibate, clean, continent, controlled, decent, decorous, immaculate, innocent, inviolate, modest, proper, prudish, quiet, refined, restrained, simple, spotless, stainless, subdued, unaffected, unblemished, uncontaminated, undefiled, unstained, unsullied, unwed, vestal, virginal, virtuous, wholesome. Santa Katchita is back to wish you all an Easter full of appropriately heavenly thoughts.
Saint Aikaterina of fourth-century Alexandria was one of the earliest recorded with this name; she was born a "pagan" but died a Christian martyr. Depending on my mood, I could certainly think of my life as magical and of myself as a goddess, but there are definitely times when it is, well, pure torture! Right now, it's the purity angle that I'm working the hardest.Whenever I go through periods of celibacy induced by the extreme despair brought on by the behavior of These Men (plus spending so much of the winter in gloomy Berlin, which nicely lowers my sex drive), it works well to visit pristine mountain towns on the Camino de Santiago where I can easily picture ascetics engaging in extended bouts of self-flagellation. I devoutly cross myself with holy water while lighting candles to my dear departed, picturing them looking down on me from heaven, content with this new leaf that I've turned over. [I do, naturally, instead of the recommended euro coin, put in 10 cents because I'm damned if the Catholic Church will profit from this pilgrim! A 10-cent coin launched into the collection box with conviction and a good flick of the wrist will resonate just as well as one euro.]
I'll conclude this post by regaling my readers with a list of some of my favorite synonyms: austere, celibate, clean, continent, controlled, decent, decorous, immaculate, innocent, inviolate, modest, proper, prudish, quiet, refined, restrained, simple, spotless, stainless, subdued, unaffected, unblemished, uncontaminated, undefiled, unstained, unsullied, unwed, vestal, virginal, virtuous, wholesome. Santa Katchita is back to wish you all an Easter full of appropriately heavenly thoughts.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Best Berlinale So Far
It was a very good Berlinale year; about mid-way through, I realized I was virtually incapable of picking a bad film, so I rode the wave all the way to the end. Five-years' experience helps a great deal with translating into reality the universally glowing Berlinale film synopses (written, after all, by the very selection committees that choose the films). For example, I know that "contemplative" or "reflective" means the subtitles will put you to sleep within half an hour as you sit in a packed theater in your long underwear and thick boots (requisite for Berlin in February). "Experimental" is another tricky one; good-experimental means vanguard, edgy, just how I like film to be. But bad-experimental means an assault on the audience, of which I always give certain of Peter Greenaway's over-the-top oeuvre as my primary example.
I could have reached my goal of seeing 20 films this year, as I had a significant gap on the last Saturday afternoon. But there was nothing that inspired me, and I was looking at three films back-to-back the following day (Kinotag). So I didn't force it. Out of the 19 total I saw, there was only one film for which my screening techniques broke down; Traumfabrik Kabul just didn't live up to its subject matter -- a Kabul policewoman who made and starred in feminist action movies. Great premise but my head was nodding by the first half-hour in the stuffy back row of a packed Delphi Filmpalast.
So, what was the best of so many good films? Made in Poland got a lot of hype but I found the director's Q&A to be more interesting than the film, which he had pared from a color feature film of over two hours to a spare 90-minute black-and-white where the most interesting part was the numerous chapter titles, a la von Trier. He used a sort of talk-radio approach to the sound as the titles flashed briefly on the screen, with rabid (anti-gay, anti-immigrant, neo-Nazi, etc.) sound-bites reminiscent the worst of American talk radio. The director's comments on YouTube, Canon 5D or 7C cameras and how necessary it is to keep up with what the young people are doing with them were fascinating. Think of how the work of the Dogme movement (which of course has been one of the most important influences on post-modern film) would have looked if shot today...
I hesitate to let the secret out of the bag but the Generation 14+ section often has interesting selections, plus the tickets are also much cheaper than the usual films. If there is any sex involved, however (and few films these days leave out sex), one has to endure sniggering teenagers vibrating with sexual frustration. So go prepared to filter out the background noise. Denmark impressed me this year (but then, Danish film nearly always does), with two very good entries in Gen 14+. Skyskraber was one of the best films I saw in the entire festival -- a simply charming coming-of-age story of two misfits trapped in a rural Danish town in thrall to its sadistic mayor. In contrast, Frit Fald provided a poignant treatment of the city girl obliged to grow up far too quickly.
We Were Here was the best documentary; the only thing I didn't like about it was its uninspired title. I went into it with purposefully lowered expectations because I know one of the main participants. It's not usual that a documentary focus this well on such a complex and dynamic subject. But I was captivated by the in-depth treatment of the five individuals which the filmmaker chose to construct his careful history of this difficult time. It won a 3rd prize from the Panorama audience and I have to say on a personal note: Daniel, dahling, you are a star.
I could have reached my goal of seeing 20 films this year, as I had a significant gap on the last Saturday afternoon. But there was nothing that inspired me, and I was looking at three films back-to-back the following day (Kinotag). So I didn't force it. Out of the 19 total I saw, there was only one film for which my screening techniques broke down; Traumfabrik Kabul just didn't live up to its subject matter -- a Kabul policewoman who made and starred in feminist action movies. Great premise but my head was nodding by the first half-hour in the stuffy back row of a packed Delphi Filmpalast.
So, what was the best of so many good films? Made in Poland got a lot of hype but I found the director's Q&A to be more interesting than the film, which he had pared from a color feature film of over two hours to a spare 90-minute black-and-white where the most interesting part was the numerous chapter titles, a la von Trier. He used a sort of talk-radio approach to the sound as the titles flashed briefly on the screen, with rabid (anti-gay, anti-immigrant, neo-Nazi, etc.) sound-bites reminiscent the worst of American talk radio. The director's comments on YouTube, Canon 5D or 7C cameras and how necessary it is to keep up with what the young people are doing with them were fascinating. Think of how the work of the Dogme movement (which of course has been one of the most important influences on post-modern film) would have looked if shot today...
I hesitate to let the secret out of the bag but the Generation 14+ section often has interesting selections, plus the tickets are also much cheaper than the usual films. If there is any sex involved, however (and few films these days leave out sex), one has to endure sniggering teenagers vibrating with sexual frustration. So go prepared to filter out the background noise. Denmark impressed me this year (but then, Danish film nearly always does), with two very good entries in Gen 14+. Skyskraber was one of the best films I saw in the entire festival -- a simply charming coming-of-age story of two misfits trapped in a rural Danish town in thrall to its sadistic mayor. In contrast, Frit Fald provided a poignant treatment of the city girl obliged to grow up far too quickly.
We Were Here was the best documentary; the only thing I didn't like about it was its uninspired title. I went into it with purposefully lowered expectations because I know one of the main participants. It's not usual that a documentary focus this well on such a complex and dynamic subject. But I was captivated by the in-depth treatment of the five individuals which the filmmaker chose to construct his careful history of this difficult time. It won a 3rd prize from the Panorama audience and I have to say on a personal note: Daniel, dahling, you are a star.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Berlinale V - Midpoint Debriefing
Yes, folks, it's my fifth straight year, which makes me a real Berlinale pro. I'm at the middle-point already, have seen 9 films and think I'll finally meet my goal of a total of 20. The fact that this year practically everything is subtitled in English is helping somewhat, as my German still isn't good enough to follow German subtitles, which used to represent half of the screenings. However, this change also means the films are accessible to many more festival goers and the ticket lines reflect this; they are absolutely fierce this year.
2011 so far has been a great Berlinale year. The Devil's Double is a film that is both technically fascinating and wonderfully gripping. Viva Riva is the first Congolese feature film ever and has great energy. For those who love to look at beautiful French women, the captivating Ludivine Sagnier and Manie Malone, respectively, star in these two films, although both are sadly far too made-up. I'm predicting the first will hit commercial theaters big and the second might just make it as well, but we'll have to see.
For something a bit less flashy, I was very impressed with the Albanian film Amnistia, which is tightly, subtly plotted and carries the audience along to a powerful and surprising conclusion. Tomboy offered an interesting treatment of gender identity; director Céline Sciamma got some amazing performances out of child actors 10 years or younger. Nearly everything I've seen has been good and there are still 5 days left. Delicious!
2011 so far has been a great Berlinale year. The Devil's Double is a film that is both technically fascinating and wonderfully gripping. Viva Riva is the first Congolese feature film ever and has great energy. For those who love to look at beautiful French women, the captivating Ludivine Sagnier and Manie Malone, respectively, star in these two films, although both are sadly far too made-up. I'm predicting the first will hit commercial theaters big and the second might just make it as well, but we'll have to see.
For something a bit less flashy, I was very impressed with the Albanian film Amnistia, which is tightly, subtly plotted and carries the audience along to a powerful and surprising conclusion. Tomboy offered an interesting treatment of gender identity; director Céline Sciamma got some amazing performances out of child actors 10 years or younger. Nearly everything I've seen has been good and there are still 5 days left. Delicious!
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