If Someone Says "You Complete Me," RUN! (12 page)

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here has always been a difference between having sex just for the sake of sex versus having sex in a relationship. We all know that.

And then, of course, there is lust.

Most people don’t pay attention to chemistry and the way it affects us. They are looking for something else. They are looking for somebody else. Often the people you have chemistry with are people you are trying to get away from because they don’t fit your idea of what a relationship is supposed to be or your idea of the right person for you. When you find that chemistry, your body knows it. Your system kicks into gear, the blood starts to flow. You start to get flushed. Suddenly your tits are sitting up a little higher. That’s chemistry. That’s all the things
chemistry does. It says we are connected somehow, and it isn’t a rational thing.

We might be connected only for the evening. You wake up the next day and there’s no chemistry left. Get out. Good-bye.

I myself am a hit-and-run artist. Hit-and-runs are great because you’re not committed, but you get yourself taken care of. Guys have been doing it for years, going to brothels and all that. Most women don’t think that way and can’t even accept that.

What’s funny to me about all this is that if you had sex with a guy back in the day when I was growing up, you were instantly thought of as being a ho. Instantly. God help you if you got pregnant. Forty years later, we are still in the same place.

Women have the same needs as men. They just do. So why do we pretend they don’t?

You can go out and have fun with somebody, spend time with him, and you can have fun with that same person for the next five or six months, all without writing your names in a little heart on your notebook or saying, “I’m going to be Mrs. So and So.”

You’re allowed to have fun and enjoy people for the time that is appropriate or that works for both of you, without having every relationship become a potential marriage proposal. Yet most of the books out there are still telling women that they shouldn’t be having sex until
date number three, and that if they want the man to be interested in them, they need to play hard to get. Why is this? Why are we constantly telling women that they have to “snag” a man and hold out on him with the whole goal being a marriage proposal?

This all just ignores chemistry.

Also, people should not be looking outside their own ideas of whom they should be looking for and whom they should be attracted to. Everybody thinks they should want someone who will be visually pleasing to other people. Women find themselves thinking, “Oh, I can’t go off with him, because he isn’t what other people want for me.” So they miss a lot of stuff. But what’s wrong with a little sense of adventure? You never know what you might learn about yourself.

So, yes, there is lust. You have chemistry in lust, and with lust, you can have sex with everybody. You can have chemistry with anybody. “Fire hydrant, I have lust for you. I’m going to have sex with you.” It might just be “Hmmm, I feel a little horny today. I think I’m going to go out to the bar.” Or “Oh, I met this guy, he’s really nice. I’m just going to hit this right quick in the bathroom.” Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Nobody the wiser. You’re smart enough to take a condom with you. Keep it to yourself, so no one calls you a ho. What if you call yourself a ho? Well, you’re being self-indulgent.

Most women have been taught, or have been given
this overwhelming feeling, that sex without a relationship is a bad thing. I’m not a believer in that. I don’t want a relationship, yet occasionally I want a little sex. I have enough friends, so that if I make a call, one of them will come over and say, boom, boom, good to see you. You know, that’s important. You have to give yourself that ability to say, “I’m not looking for a relationship. I’m looking to get laid.”

Women don’t do this nearly enough, and we’re not trained to do it. You know, for eons men have brought their sons to brothels and said, “This is how you do this, my son.” But that’s never been done with women. The conversation has never even been had.

So I want to start the conversation. Let’s ask the question what’s wrong with it? Is it a moral issue? If it’s a moral issue for you, then you won’t do it. Is it a religious issue? Have you been raised to think that sex is bad, that nice girls don’t do it, that it goes against God’s plan? Why would the pleasure of sex exist if there were something unnatural or something wrong with it?

If you just want to get laid and you’re not looking to marry this guy, what’s wrong with that? I’ll tell you what, it’s a double standard. A huge double standard. It’s okay for guys to do this but it’s not okay for women? Why is that? It hard to understand why this way of thinking still exists and is so deeply ingrained in us.

Forty years ago I grew up with this double standard,
and here we are, forty years later, when women have gone through so much transformation—the invention of the Pill, the ability for women to earn their own money and have their own careers and independence, and the feminist movement—and yet somehow this hasn’t been fixed. It was supposed to be fixed, and yet it wasn’t. Somehow we’ve gone backward.

It’s the same way for gay folks. Even folks who are into ducks. We’re still hung up on sex.

Now, I’m not saying be reckless or stupid. I’m not saying to put yourself in any danger. Don’t go looking for Mr. Goodbar. And use protection. Here is the thing: Any woman or any man, anyone, who has unprotected sex in this day and age has an altogether different agenda than just getting laid.

If you’re going for a hit-and-run and you’re not protecting yourself, what is that? It borders on self-destruction. Because this is a different world today than the world I grew up in. This is a world where you can catch stuff that will kill you. I have seen too many people die of AIDS. People I loved, people very close to me. And it is miserable. If you’re having unprotected sex with somebody you’ve met, it’s because you either want to get pregnant, you want to ensnare someone. Or you are in denial and being self-destructive. It’s not a good thing.

Women have to learn to protect themselves. You cannot wait for the other person to pull out the condom.
You’ve got to pull the condom out and insist on it, and if there’s a no in there, then you can’t have a hit-and-run with that guy.

It is just common sense. No glove, no love.

People also get very upset when I suggest that sometimes you just need to go to, you know, the ladies who work—I don’t call them ladies of the night, because they don’t always work at night—women whose services you pay for. Sometimes, in a relationship, people can’t always get what they need, and if you have reputable people you can turn to in order to get what you need, I say go for it. It is a whole lot better than being frustrated and angry at the person you love.

I know more couples who have that kind of relationship, and each person understands where the partner is coming from, and they’ve been together forever. Because maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t want to spin on his head attached to the ceiling, and you do. Maybe she doesn’t really want to have fifteen people with you in the bed. Maybe you just need to go get something different. And I say if you pay for it, make your partner aware of it and explain why, so she knows it has nothing to do with her, but just with what your particular needs may be. It’s a fair way to approach it. Of course, this holds only if the service woman is clean, and you practice safe sex—that’s why I say “reputable.” Or be with someone you’ve had this kind of relationship with for a long time. If it’s dis
cussed and not just gone and done, it’s best, because there are some things you’re just not interested in doing, and some things the other person is into. That’s okay. Rather than destroy an entire relationship because something sexual doesn’t work, let’s try to work it out.

People have to come to terms with the fact that the religious idea of “coupling” is not everyone’s idea of coupling. Many religions tell us, at least they did in the old days, that if you got married, you had to stay married. You couldn’t even get a divorce. Women couldn’t ask for a divorce, which still happens today in a lot of third-world countries, where women are trapped in miserable or abusive marriages for life. So if you are stuck because of religious reasons, you have to try to work out something if you are going to stay in your marriage and be somewhat happy.

If religion guides your life, then you’d better know what’s in the good book. Don’t cast stones. Don’t live in glass houses unless you’re ready to get hit with those stones, and have your house come tumbling down on you. Don’t judge. You’re not God.

Depending on what your religion is, if you don’t want to support the ideas I am writing here, that’s all fine. I don’t mind that you feel that way. You can like the book or not like the book. I didn’t tell you to buy it, so don’t you tell anybody not to buy it. I’m giving you what you want, which is the freedom to believe how you believe.
But don’t step on me. You have your beliefs and I have mine.

The same thinking applies to your relationships. If you’re ready to start up a relationship with somebody, talk about this kind of stuff up front. You’d better know where you guys stand with each other. He may be prochoice, and she’s not. You need to know that if you’re a Christian pastor, you can’t be sneaking around because, remember, just like you tell me God can see me, he can see you more, because you supposedly have a big aura around you. Be careful. Be very careful.

So talk to each other. Be open about where you stand and what you believe, so you’re not sneaking around.

Love and sex. They are different things to different people, and both of them are loaded. They can mess you up. Sex in particular can really mess up your independence. It can put a damper on your self-love—and I don’t mean masturbation; I mean love of self—because suddenly now you’re dependent on a person who wants to have sex with you telling you you’re okay. In any long-term relationship that’s going to change. It’s going to change whether you’re a man or a woman. If you’re a woman, you get to be a certain age, shit dries up. It just does. Changes happen, shit falls, shit spreads. Men, the equipment doesn’t always work. Which means people beat themselves up when their sex lives aren’t what they imagined them to be.

There are people that can be together for twenty years, and they are in sexless relationships, but they definitely have love. I see this all the time. A lot of the time, people misinterpret the sex for the love. People will say, “They are not having sex, so they can’t be in love.” But that’s not necessarily true; it’s just a different love, a deep friendship and companionship, a feeling of being family. The roots between sex and love are deep, so it depends on each individual’s needs and making sure everyone’s needs are being met one way or another.

Some guys don’t want to sleep with their partner all the time. It’s like, “No, can we just raise the kid? Can we just do this? I don’t want to have sex with you.” Or the wife loses interest in sex and tells the husband, “Go get a girlfriend. I’m not interested in sex anymore. Leave me alone.” They don’t want to get a divorce because they still love each other, they are best friends, and they are a family. They are good together in most ways. But they just don’t want to have sex with each other anymore.

For some folks, it works out really well, but that’s only when they are being honest. Since most people aren’t honest about it, there is frustration and anger and a sense of betrayal. People have affairs, and then there is a lot of hurt. But if you’re not having sex with each other, does that mean you shouldn’t be allowed to have sex at all? You’ve got to talk about it and come up with a solution that works for both of you.

Now, some people are just martyrs, but 90 percent of those people say, “It’s me, isn’t it? You don’t have any love for me anymore. You’re not attracted to me anymore.” That is the worst possible thing you can do. Your mate, if he or she is not fooling around behind your back, may be going through the Change—I’m talking about menopause or man-o-pause again, people—it has nothing to do with you. That’s physiological. That’s the stuff that really is happening. Your body is saying, “Hey, I don’t need to do this anymore because I’m not having any more kids” so things shift. But baby, that green-eyed monster is pretty awful. It’s pretty awful. She comes up out of the blue, which would make her the blue-green-eyed monster, but it’s better to treat each other like friends and not let the blue-green-eyed monster mess things up for you.

I have a friend whose wife didn’t have sex with him for three years, and it wasn’t his choice. He kept trying, and eventually he got tired of getting rejected and found a side piece. When the wife eventually found out, she went ballistic. She called him a sexual deviant. She made him go to a shrink to discuss his deviancy, and in order to save his marriage, he went along with it. He went to the shrink, he apologized to her, but at no point did he say, “Whoa, you rejected me for three years and that doesn’t work for me. What’s going on here? Let’s talk about it and figure it out together.” Unless the wife engaged in this conversation with him, it would be just a matter of
time before he either went back to the side piece or found a new one. (By the way, if she thinks he is a deviant, I can only imagine what she will think about me after she reads this book.)

The thing about sex is that, again, because nobody really talks about it, we’re taught that once people get married they are having it and it lasts forever. Well, it’s only in the last twenty years anyone has started talking about things like erectile dysfunction or menopause, or the changes that your body goes through as you get older. Yes, these things have always existed, but they weren’t openly discussed. That’s why the old folks always say that after the sex is gone, that’s when you find out where you stand with the other person. If there was nothing there but the sex, and you can’t connect without the sex, make the booty call and find that thing that fulfills you. Or that person who fulfills you.

A question I get asked a lot is “What is it about marriage that can kill sex?” My answer is sex dies for lots of reasons. There is an emotional piece and there is a physical piece.