On my 46th birthday, I was having a quiet dinner with my father. We weren't at a fancy restaurant (because my father was footing the bill) but the steak was good and the baked potato was the size of a football. During the entree, he leaned over to inquire, "Son, can I ask you a personal question?"
Since he was paying for the grub, I shrugged, "Sure."
"You've never been married."
That was a statement rather than a question but I replied, "Yea?"
"Do you have a girl friend?"
I have friends that are female... but we both knew what he was talking about: A bed partner willing to have sex with me on a regular basis... without incriminating photographs or any other blackmailable materials to entice her. "Uh, no."
"Are you gay?"
My meal tasted a whole lot better going down than it did coming back up.
In a world of heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality and other extreme sports, the enlightened populace seems to forget that not all players compete at the same level. Some athletes are tops in their field. Others are talented amateurs. Many are couch potatoes who would rather watch than participate.
Me, I'm still trying to figure out the rules of the game.
When it comes to sex with the ladies, I am an admitted incompetent. Just because I'm a chronic fumbler, though, doesn't mean I've changed teams.
Regardless of sexual persuasion, every individual has a different sexual arousal level (or SAL). (Since I am in the male heterosexual camp, I based my observations from that viewpoint.) Some men have next to no interest in sex while others risk their careers and marriages because they can't keep their pants zipped. Those with low SALs can read a PLAYBOY and consider the pictorials secondary. High SAL individuals want to publicly expose themselves every time they see a gorgeous girl in a bar. Why?
The outmoded adage about age diminishing sexual desires has collapsed in recent years, thanks to open discussions and Viagra. Environmental factors have little effect. If they did, everyone in the same high school would be all nerds or all studs... and all politicians would remain faithful. Can you educate yourself into being more or less horny? Churches have been trying to curb such urges for millenniums and have failed miserably. Television advertisers, working on the opposing side, have discovered that overtly sexual ads repel others.
I believe part of the answer is the same as to why some individuals are attracted to the opposite sex, the same sex or both: That's the way their brain chemistry works. (The brain regulates the functions of the body's glands, thus the whole system is tied together. That explains why, when I see photographs of naked women, my dick gets hard.) Trying to adjust one's sexual preference (without outside chemicals) is akin to trying to change your eye color through willpower alone. Can't be done.
Changing one's SAL, however, is possible to a limited degree but it takes work. That involves education and practice.
The education part is ridding ourselves of the outmoded notion that virginity is a good thing. It may be charming and proper for someone under the age of eighteen but, if the individual in question is still chaste by the time he is thirty, he needs professional help.
Instinct does not teach us how to walk or talk, much less how to drive an automobile or read a book. As infants, we have to be taught how to eat solid food and be potty trained. Those that never learn to control their bowel movement are considered infantile. Those that never learn to read are illiterate. Those that never learn how to operate motor vehicles are pedestrians.
Virginity is a form of ignorance. To celebrate it is to akin to worshipping bigotry, sexism, intolerance and stupidity... and the other tenets of Midwestern Southern Baptists, right-wing conservatives and other castrati.
Sex is something human beings do not do well naturally. The caveman male urge to mate consisted of cutting a female away from the pack, forcing himself upon her, then departing. Today, we call that rape (or being from New Jersey). Guys have to be more sensitive to the woman's needs and desires... which is where problems erupt... and male penises do not.
Add in a medium to low SAL like I have and things can become highly unsatisfactory to everyone involved. If you think I'm being too hard on myself, that's nothing compared to some of my previous 'lovers'.
