Chapter Five (part 7)

(continuing the "all nighter" conversation between Cassie and her lovers P. and S.)

"It all makes me dizzy," I admitted.

"It should. Deconstruction's motto is 'the center cannot hold.'"

"Do they pay Yeats royalties for stealing that line from him?" Leave to S. to be irreverent. P. laughed.

"Deferring," I laughed, too. "I'm deferring my life right now, it's on hold."

"On the whole, you've lost me, Old Man" S. admitted with a yawn. Out of nowhere, I started giggling despite myself— the hour was getting so late, and besides, I can't be serious about heavy subjects too long.

"Hold on," S. objected with real heat this time, "Deconstruction sounds like this year's model, another flashy, trendy tool, nothing more. We've gone through a whole laundry list of 'isms' in class. There's Structuralism, Freudianism, New Criticism, who cares?" I felt pride in S. He wasn't intimidated by our "professor" like I am.

"Right," I chimed in, hoping for strength in numbers, "isn't this another stupid search for another stupid Holy Grail to open up poems and novels to hidden meanings the writer never intended? I may be a naïve reader, but anyone with common sense can see The Picture of Dorian Gray is really about a gay man in the closet and the harm keeping that secret does to him. I want to know the answer to the questions books offer, like whether Pip gets the girl at the end of Great Expectations? That last line— " I grabbed the copy I'd been reading after work and opened it to the last page— "'I saw the shadow of no parting from Estella.' It's so tantalizing, it leaves me with goose bumps each time I read or think about it."

"Ever the Romantic," S. sneered playfully, throwing me off-balance, "wasn't it Ambrose Bierce who said if you scratch a Romantic, you'll find a cynic who hasn't been disappointed yet?"

"OK, I'm a Romantic," I blushed, backpedaling, "but a cynic in many things, too. But what about an author like Colette?"

"What about her?" P. countered with a knowing smile.

"Well, I may be a naïve reader, but I know her writing isn't compelling because it's beautiful, it's compelling because of the insights we gain from reading her."

"Why do you read Colette?" P. asked me with a wink. It's a private joke between us I wasn't ready to share with S. I wanted to throttle "the professor" at that moment.

"I read her because she writes about young women like me— who want to know more about themselves— or life." I sounded pompous and gassy, I could see I was getting in way too deep. "I want insight from her books, not philosophy." S. winked at me when I finished because P. was rubbing his eyes, though he wasn't fast enough and P. saw most of it anyway.

"Then you'll find Deconstruction helpful because it isn't a tool, it's a way of looking at the world. We define ourselves by our texts: the laws, newspapers, books, poems, letters— or in your case, Cassie, by a bisexual exile from the Parisian theater writing books young women identify with. Instead of worrying about who Colette was, or whether her books are autobiographical, Deconstruction cuts out all the intervening bullshit."

"Sounds like a literary seduction," S. snorted, "a sort of intellectual penetration, yes? I've read Foucault, you know, with his bizarre theories about sex and literature!" He was less interested in the ideas than in the intellectual cat-and-mouse game, slyly grinning at his erotic allusion.

(to be continued)

Odd Fans & Non-Fans

One of the funnier blogs out there has little or nothing to do with sex. It's The Dead Guy: the cartoon. It's a conventional cartoon strip like "Peanuts" or the very marvelous "Jump Start," and worth reading regularly.

I always find it fascinating coming across folks who are living the Beyond You & Me story. One of them is Stiletto Diaries, the story of a 20-something woman in Canada and her two male lovers. There's plenty of drama, and frankly, I'm worried about Stiletto Girl, because she's very young and her husband doesn't appear to be too happy about her love affair with a younger man. But I wish them better luck than Cassie had, since they're both about the same age (23 vs. 24).

In terms of younger lovers, you ladies should check out Mike at I'm Not Touching You (see above photo). Alternately funny, gross, inventive, crass and horny, he's a typical young guy with sex on the brain who also writes well.

And speaking of writing, there's Adrie Santos: the Accidental Sex Writer. She got the name because her smut is selling better than her regular writing (I can relate to that). She posts about a variety of interesting topics, both related to the printed word and to life in general, including her stint as a sex toy reviewer.

Passing the 100,000 visitor milestone...

I think that sorta says it all (please look to the right and the hit counter that says how many people have stopped in here since March, 2005).

Chapter Five (part 6)

(continuing the "all nighter" conversation between Cassie and her lovers P. and S.)

"If I tell you it's OK to borrow my vacuum cleaner," P. rambled on, "my words are expressing a gesture of social politeness at odds with the natural, selfish desire to withhold what's mine from another person."

"And if I asked to borrow your wife, old man, it's much plainer why you might say no." S. laughed at his own cleverness.

"You'd be wasting your time loaning him a vacuum cleaner," I quipped, "try hiring a maid." S. made an overly-elaborate wincing motion, then rolled over and buried his face in my lap.

"Loaning me a wife would accomplish two goals at once, including having a cleaner room," he mumbled through the cloth of my skirt. His voice vibrated against my thighs, tickling, distracting me momentarily from "deep thoughts."

"You're a male chauvinist, Retter!" I scolded after bringing my attention back to the conversation. "Besides, the ideal ménage à trois for a woman is one man to do the dishes and another to clean the house."

They both laughed, though I'm sure it was in competition to seem the most solicitous. Ah, testosterone. Still, I relished the competition between them with my attention as the prize.

"We subvert our own selves through these hidden desires or urges," P. went on while shoving S. over onto his back. "It's the same with texts: they have hidden subversions." He put his hands on my shoulders and began rubbing out the deep knots of tension there. S. couldn't compete with him on a physical level.

"Sounds like shrink talk," I blurted out with S. joining me in a conspiratorial laughter.

"There's definitely an element of the psychoanalytical to it all." P. sorta shrugged at our small point. "In French it's called différance."

"Not more jargon!" I protested.

"Ah, vive la difference!" S. leered, first at me, then at P. to show he didn't mean it for anyone in particular.

P. parried by running his foot along my bare legs, nearly lifting the hem of my skirt. His showing off made me blush— I didn't like him letting S. know whose property I am that way, men are so fucking possessive!

"It's not the same word, old man. Différance is a Derrida made-up word combining 'deferring' and 'difference.' The meaning's pretty straightforward: no poem or novel or play, no writing at all can sustain a coherent meaning."

"What? That's absurd! What about political writing, or scientific texts? And what about propaganda? Explain that to those of us like myself who are by-products of the Second World War." S. wasn't grinning now. "When Nazis talked about gassing Jews, where is the incoherence in their meaning?"

"No matter how tight or logical words seem," P. shot back, "all texts have internal contradictions. Those contradictions cut us off from what we call a real meaning."

I thought then how much Deconstruction applied to my life: an outer façade (good girl, good wife) plastered over a maze of impulses and "meanings" at war with one another tight. "A mass of internal contradictions." Perhaps that simply describes human beings in general? I didn't think it applied to P. He's usually so constant— except perhaps for sex. He likes experimenting in the places we make love, the positions, etc. Beyond that limited sphere of his personality, however, he's so grounded. Unlike me, he knows he was born to teach, that he'll someday write important books and think great thoughts, and eventually become Sterling Professor of Comp Lit like de Man."

(to be continued)

We Didn't Win!

They said it wasn't based on popularity, but they displayed the winning votes at the end. Well, what are you gonna do? At least Beyond You & Me made it to the finalist round! Better to get that far than not at all. And thanks to all our fans for voting, and congratulations to the bewitching Magdalena for winning "Best Sex Blog"! Oh, Darling, you are both beautiful and slutty.

Polyamory

Although the term "polyamory" wasn't invented until the 1980s, the idea is old: loving more than one person at the same time. While Cassie would never have thought of herself as on the cutting edge of social change, she is actually way ahead of her time. She's an early Feminist, and her sexual adventures are not only more radical than most of the women of the 1970s, but put her squarely in the tradition of ground-breaking trendsetters.

Today men and women have a variety of choices about their love lives and sexual identity. Whereas Cassie was mocked by lesbians at Yale for being a "fence sitter," and "refusing to choose," women today can love whomever they want, and don't even need a label. There is even a cachet now to being bisexual, something that definitely wasn't there when this novel takes place.

Taking a break from Chapter Five, I wanted to provide some links to sites about polyamory, including the beautiful cloisonne pin shown above, which can be purchased from the Poly and Proud website (along with t-shirts that harken back to the 70s with slogans like "question monogamy").

The most prominent poly sites are "Poly Matchmaker," "PolyLiving" and "Polyamory Weekly" (a podcast of polyamory topics and fun stuff). "Poly Matchmaker" has lots of information about "ethical non-monogamy," and is also something of a dating tool for those who want to meet others with the same ideas. From all I could gather, polyamory is not the place to meet casual sex partners: there's a strong disdain for casual sex in some of the things I've read.

Indeed, polyamorists (or "polys" as they prefer to be called) are often confused with swingers, yet their goals are more about relationships than casual sex. So their sites and writings tend to sound like those from the early GLBT movement, including "coming out" to friends and family, and legal protection, including a desire to have group marriages. Cassie would've thought she'd died and gone to heaven if she had been able to have P. and S. under one roof.

Sex Films for the Rest of Us

I really don't like porn films.

They're boring. I don't care if the people are "objectified," and I think it should be clear by now you won't find any reservations about sex on this site. It's not that adult films are objectionable on theoretical grounds, they're just not interesting. Commercial porn is formulaic: the same set-up, the same obligatory positions, the usual "money shot" to prove the dude actually had an orgasm. Yawn. They never show a man so excited about his lover that he comes right away, it's always "iron man triathlon sex."

That's why, when porn sites write me asking to trade links, I don't even answer their emails. I'm not trying to be rude, but you don't "get" Beyond You & Me if you think it's just about sex.

Comstock Films is making movies about sex that break all the rules of gonzo porn, and I want the fans of Beyond You & Me to know about these exceptional DVDs. "Xana and Dax" (the couple pictured above), along with "Marie and Jack," are films about real people in love/lust. Not only is the sex hot, but the film is edited in a way to show the genuine sparks between the lovers. Director Tony Comstock uses attractive people who aren't models, and who have an emotional connection, not a financial incentive, to have sex on camera.

Director Comstock doesn't mind if his work is considered porn, since the sex is quite explicit, yet he's clearly making movies for a different audience than the Chatsworth, CA adult film industry. For all the "couples" porn being made, it's still mostly from a male POV. Fortunately, you can either purchase the DVDs from the Comstock site, or rent them from X-RENT DVD. Currently there are four titles: two heterosexual, one lesbian and one gay. I watched "Marie & Jack" and "Xana & Dax." The first one was a little talky, as the two people described their careers in adult films and how having sex on camera has changed their private romance ("a little more vanilla"). The sex was a bit too quick to unfold, but Marie and Jack are both very attractive and at ease in front of the camera doing intimate things (Jack looks like a young Michael Keaton).

"Xana & Dax" is about a younger man with a slightly older, more experienced blond (see photo above). Hell, she could be Cassie a few years after Yale, it was quite unnerving watching her. The sex was hot, the couple seemed to enjoy themselves (her eyes rolled back in her head at one point), and I definitely recommend it.

Comstock has one other film in the editing process you can purchase in advance for half price. All in all, these movies are a big improvement over commercial porn.