November 23, 2004 :: Strap up, young man

For those of you who don't already know, my 30th birthday will be here in less than a week. I have mostly come to terms with the "damn, I'm supposed to be grown now and haven't accomplished all my life's goals yet" part of things, and I am eagerly anticipating my own present to myself: a weeklong trip to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic.

I started out with a grand vision of what this vacation was going to be about: 3 weeks on the beach in Bahia, wandering from beachtown to beachtown, staying in family run hotels, taking lots of photographs and sipping enough caipirinhas served by beautiful local girls to stay happy but not so many that my camera got stolen and I ended up with a knife in my chest in a back alley. Then I started tallying up what that would cost, and looking at my limited vacation days. So I scaled back... thanks to a bad hurricane season, packages to the Caribbean have been quite cheap this fall. I booked the DR for about 1/3 of what Brazil was looking to cost, and got a beachfront resort to boot.

I'm going alone. When I was planning Brazil, I was telling any and everybody who wanted to come along that they were welcome. But then my plans changed, and everybody brought along their agendas, wants & desires (as everyone is so wont to do), and it was beginning to be more of a headache than the pure relaxation I envisioned. I cut everybody.... sorry folks, I'll vacation with you next year. This one is all about ME.

So then of course people have all kinds of advice, but one thing in particular keeps popping up: "Bring lots of condoms". I must admit, I am well aware that there are lots of beautiful brown women in the DR (that's one of the criteria I was using when selecting a destination), but my vision of going on sex tours to third world countries is a bit scary. I'm wise enough to know that people who come down here aren't having whirlwind romances with local ladies, they are hiring prostitutes. Third world prostitutes with third world diseases frighten the snot out of me, even at third world prices. Not at all my cup of tea. So I tell everyone, what the hell do I need all these condoms for? I'm not hiring any prostitutes in the DR, no matter how cheap they are. They say, just bring the condoms anyway.

One friends (mslipsnhips over on the right side there, although she's pretty much blog-comatose right now) said that it's not about the prostitutes, it's about the local women who are so fed up with their men chasing any old Euro-hag who comes to the resorts that they will want to seduce me to get back at their men. Granted, her credibility in this matter is supreme, given that she just got back from Puerto Plata about a week ago, but this scenario sounds about as likely as me winning the Ron Artest Lawsuit Settlement Lottery at tonight's Pacers-Wizards game. I just don't see the local ladies involving me in some ol' get-back sex, and I certainly don't want any local men coming after me for it.

There was one other thing people kept remarking upon... the possibility of me finding a wife (given last year's birthday resolution which, for the sake of my own already tarnished reputation, I will not here elaborate upon) and bringing her back. Granted, I do not have the most idealistic opinion about marriage, but I have great respect for the institution (maybe even too great for me). I have no desire to go find some desperately poor woman who sees me and a minimally short 2 year marriage as her ticket to a green card and the golden life in America. I suppose if she takes over all the domestic duties in the house, it's like having one really expensive maid with "benefits"... but still, not my cup of tea. As of right now, all I'll be bringing back from the DR with me is pictures.

posted by Rainmayun at 5:28 PM -

November 15, 2004 :: Emotional condoms

Uptown Brown Girl and I were having a discussion the other day about how she always thought it was crazy that I could sleep with someone on the first night if I didn't really care about her, like her all that much, or see a future with her, whereas I take things extra-slowly with women I really like or whom I think have lots of upside. (Note to all you assholes who like to save my words to use against me: I said "could sleep with", not "have slept with".) Although it didn't make any sense to her when I first said it, now that she is somewhat newly single and experiencing the world in which I date, she is starting to come around.

What's the issue here? I broke it down like this: When it comes to having sex with someone, there are a variety of risks. The physical risks are well-known and well-documented: pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases. The mitigations to those risks are also well-known and well-documented: prophylactics, contraceptives, testing and education. None of these is completely foolproof, but a fool could consider himself reasonably well-protected by employing these techniques.

The much less discussed side of sex is the emotional risk. What, a man talking about emotional risk? Don't worry, I won't get all Oprah on you. But there is a risk involved in opening yourself up to someone you are really attracted to or interested in. In fact, I believe men are more vulnerable in this situation than women because women have more experience with it. How many of you know a man who only sleeps with women but doesn't ever commit to them? Dimes to doughnuts a trained (and well-paid) psychologist would reveal some past wounding by some woman he cared about, and that thenceforth he had declared to himself he'd never "get caught up again"; i.e. open up to a woman. These emotional risks and vulnerabilities only come into play when you care about the person; hence, one-night stands don't really have the potential to hurt him. If she gets up mid-stroke, curses his poor skills and departs never to see him again (or worse, spread news of his poor skills to every girl she thinks he knows), hey, fuck her, she's just a one-night stand. But let his new future wife say something... he'll be all discombobulated trying to solve the problem.

So how does one mitigate these risks? I swear, if I could invent such a thing as the title suggests, that would be my billion dollar idea and I could retire forever. There isn't such a thing, though, so we must make do with the emotional version of the "rhythm method". It's imprecise, unreliable, but it's all we have. You stretch the time scale of things out to get to know her as much as possible, allow the two of you to be comfortable in each other's presence without that pressure of trying to impress the other person, or worrying about how much little things are magnified in the early days of relationships. That way, when the time comes, presumably the two of you are already secure enough in your status that you don't have to worry so much about the risk.

Comments are encouraged on this topic!

posted by Rainmayun at 5:32 PM -