Rites of Passage: The Girls

As previously noted, us girls got no Swank. So, how did we first stumble upon sex, if not in the pages of a mislaid porno mag? If memory serves, we had to go looking for it – and look we did, so desperate were we for a glimpse of what this world was like. Some random recollections:

Wifey (Age:10) – The adult novel by Judy “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” Blume, and the most popular book in Mrs. Posivy’s grade six homeroom class. Explicit, to be sure, but also profoundly depressing, as its protagonist is a married mother of two who has a wrenching mid-life crisis, and, predictably, a series of dour extra-marital affairs. All I remember is one awful passage: “Wifey” starts to bleed during a particularly rough sexual encounter with her husband, and although she derives absolutely no pleasure from the act, she positively revels in the guilt her husband feels afterwards. Ugh, no thanks.

China Girl (Age:12) – The year was 1983, the album was Let’s Dance, and the song was inescapable. There were two versions of the video: one for music television, which was heavily edited, and one for nightclub play, which was not. Both featured the politically confused spectacle of David Bowie’s obsession with the “China Girl” of the song’s title, but one featured a little something extra: an homage to the love scene between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity, complete with setting sun, rolling surf, and Bowie’s fully naked ass. Ahh, that’s better.

The Hunger (Age: 13) – Bowie again, this time in a vampiric ménage a trois with Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon. In my view, this film should be required viewing for every sexually curious thirteen-year old girl, for obvious reasons. The film also featured Bauhaus performing “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” a scene that inspired both my appreciation of the band’s music and my rampant lust for its lead singer, Peter Murphy. File that one under “guilty pleasures.”

Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles (Age:14) – Again with the vampires. Lots of neck-biting, strong hints of male bisexuality, and a subtle thread of female voyeurism. Not exactly hardcore, but when the only alternative is Chris Makepeace grinning like an idiot in the pages of Playgirl, you’ll take it.

Betty Blue (Age:15) – Jean-Jacques Beineix’s wildly-acclaimed film, based on the novel 37°2 le matin, about a relationship between a frustrated writer and his certifiably crazy admirer. Notably, this was one of the first erotic European films to get past the newly rechristened Ontario Film Review Board (formerly, the Ontario Censor Board) intact, as well as an entire generation’s first encounter with filmed sexual intercourse. Of course, after Betty gets herself off, she is for some reason compelled to gouge out her own eyeball, which rather dampens the mood. Still, the sex scenes were good, and the music was infinitely more tolerable than the dreck that accompanies most porn videos.

OK, so it ain’t Swank, but it was the best that was on offer at the time.

Apple

She walks through the hallway in a straight line. Her office is at the end of the hall; she turns the key and pushes the weighted door open. The last light of the day comes in through the window. The room is small, but she is glad of the large window.

She sets her briefcase down on the desk and checks her voicemail. Her partner has a late meeting: should she get take-out on the way home? She decides to stay and grade a few papers; she returns her partner’s call and leaves a message.

The papers are for an undergraduate course she is teaching in Renaissance art. She reads five of them and makes comments in blue ink. The last paper analyses the construction of the female body in Florentine portraiture; she smiles and gives the student an ‘A’.

Stretching, she stands and looks out the window. She is tall and noticeably thin; there is no excess in her. She deciphers the bodies of women but does not recognize them.

She will give two lectures tomorrow that she has already prepared. This leaves her time to finish her report for the Faculty Committee. She sits on three committees to demonstrate service to the university, and has submitted two articles for publication this semester. She reminds herself that her tenure application is three years away.

She wonders when her partner will arrive at their apartment, and if she will already be asleep when she does. She drifts for a moment, imagining the space between her breasts and kissing her there. She decides that she will make a cup of tea when she gets home.

She collects her briefcase and coat and takes an apple from the side pocket. She closes the door behind her and walks through the hallway, biting through the apple’s skin as she turns toward the elevator. It is 7:45 PM.

Whither anguish?

According to today’s Gazette, women’s brains are distinctively altered by the experience of breaking up with a romantic partner. No, seriously.

http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=2820d5b5-4b84-46a0-b569-3840b3cca476

For those who can’t be bothered, Jeffery Lorberbaum, the co-author of the study, concludes:

“In this report we speculate that the brain regions involved in emotion, motivation and attention are impaired with severe grief. If we can first understand the brain basis of grief then we eventually might be able to help those disabled by grief and understand how depression is triggered.”

Ah, where to begin?

With the fact that being “disabled” by grief is apparently defined as experiencing sadness when thinking about the former partner sixteen weeks after the end of the relationship? (An eternity, really.)

Or with the fact that the scientists neglected to inflict the study upon any biological males? (Perhaps they were all watching Nascar at the time?)

Or with the suggestion that the entirety of human experience is “brain-based,” and therefore ripe for pharmaceutical correction? (Sales of Viagra have plateaued, after all.)

It’s really starting to feel like the twentieth century never happened, isn’t it?

Eureka!

I’ve got it – male prostitutes! But of course!

Picture it: “Martha, darling, it’s Vila. I’m feeling like a blond tonight – is Jonathan available? No? Oh, but David’s on call? Mmm, no, too sporty… What about Paul? He’s really quite lovely – is he an aspiring filmmaker? Or Tom perhaps – he’s so deliciously boyish. But are you quite sure he isn’t gay? Oh, he’s bi – perfect! Are you still running your two-for-one special? Fabulous, darling, then I’ll take two… and throw in a pack of Du Maurier while you’re at it.”

So why is it that (heterosexual) male prostitution never took off? Restrictive social mores? Lack of disposable income? A dearth of imagination? I would think that in a truly egalitarian society, women would possess the inalienable right to buy sex just as men do. Wouldn’t they?