One Scoop of Vanilla
Q:
I would care to comment on your remark in the Jan. 12 column regarding "gents" who "consider things as mundane as oral sex the epitome of kink." Now I know something about kink. My ex-wife used to sit on the edge of our bed with a nine-inch dildo inside her, wearing handcuffs, nipple clamps and a pair of panties on her head. She would have me apply lipstick on occasion, and give her the odd sip of wine and puff on a ciggy. Then she would moan, "I'm having so much fun!!"
I would sit there wondering about my place in all of this. She's a fairly well-known author of erotica, with a very vivid imagination. I've read a lot of her stuff, and I'm not disgusted or offended, just mystified. What is the point? I don't get it. I feel like Lenny Bruce, who allegedly began laughing when the dominatrix walked into the room.
Is it wrong to like sucking and fucking? Even though I could never be described as "normal" in some ways, in the bedroom I just like vanilla, please.
-Wayne
A:
As a big fan of the oft-maligned missionary position, I hear ya. Of course there's nothing wrong with enjoying your sex sans shackles and electrical currents. I have to worry about accessorizing every time I go to a party. Do I really want to be fretting about windexing my latex Catholic schoolgirl outfit every time I wanna get laid? I think not.
My buddy Ike just finished a story on sadistic sexual practices, so I asked him what he thought about the plain old, unadorned in-and-out.
"I learned how sexually conservative I was after I interviewed a dominatrix," he laughed, during a recent phone conversation. "I think I could go as far as golden showers, but anything after that is disgusting." Every boy has his line, I suppose.
Remember when Lucy and Ricky weren't allowed to sleep in the same bed or even use the word "pregnant" on the air? These days, you can watch prime-time cable shows depicting sexual proclivities that would've straightened Mrs. Ricardo's short hairs. In our rush to be accepting of any and all perversions (with the possible exceptions of pedophilia, scat and animal hijinks), it can sometimes seem like relatively kink-free hets are perhaps the most deviant of them all.
Never mind what goes on at H.B.O. I often feel like somebody's granny watching the fairly pedestrian Real Sex because I've never been to an orgy, pierced any part of my genitalia or fisted another girl while a room full of people dressed in rubber cheered me on. Hell, I don't even like butt sex.
Which is not to say I don't like a bit of deviation from the norm. (I'll spare you the details.) The important thing is to find someone whose level of kink is commensurate with yours, which is why I find it a bit mind-boggling that a sexually sensible guy like you found yourself married to such a wild woman. Had you two actually had sex before marriage? Or did her proclivities only come out within the safe confines of your marital bed? It's like the time I dated the homosexual sociopath. (Don't worry, I'll spare you those details as well.) Two people who don't even belong at the same cocktail party together for some reason find themselves romantically involved. Why?
I think back on the myriad relationships I've been part of where the sex was nothing short of abominable, and I just want to punch myself in the head for wasting so much valuable time. Thwack. Ouch. I guess I tried to justify it to myself by hoping things would get better if I only tried harder. Yeah, right. The fact is, you can no more turn a gay man straight (and sane) than you can force yourself to turn an act that bores you into something that gives you wood. Nor should you even try.
The scenario you described doesn't sound like much fun to me either-where's the part where you stick it in her?-but I can guarantee that someone out there is frantically choking his chicken and wondering how he can score such a gal. And while your ex probably found you interminably dull, I'm positive you're probably setting some other chick's pants on fire with your non-autoerotic-asphyxiating ways.