In my effort to discover yet more good music I downloaded the entire Earth Wind & Fire discography. You probably know a few of their great hits like ‘September’ and ‘Boogie Wonderland’ (and ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Boogie Wonderland’!), but this is just a tiny fraction of their vast wealth of awesome songs. They’re often described as a delicious fusion of… well, everything that exemplified the 1970s: Disco, soul, R&B (the good kind) and occasionally some African ‘world music’. And their songs are LONG too — they go places! None of that 2-and-a-half-minute-radio-wankfest that many bands succumbed to from the 60s onwards.

Anyway… Soul and R&B have the same kind of underlying tone and story: sex. I’m not talking entirely about… you know, fornication, but that does play a big part; especially for bands like Boys 2 Men where all they ever sing about is sex (go watch the ‘Honest R&B Song‘ if you haven’t seen it already). And where they want to have sex. Even the occasional song about their favourite positions… chrikee! But, as I was saying, this kind of music is about sex — men, women, their interactions. It’s about people, I guess, as they find themselves, or God (often God with the black Soul groups). Actually, I guess it’s called ‘Soul’ because it appeals to your soul… which is a spiritual thing, right?!

Sooooo… All this soulful and rhythmic music actually got me thinking. It actually… got me a little horny. Randy, baby. So, as you might’ve guessed from the subject of this post, I’m going to talk about SEX!

I’m sure most of us know where we are and what we’re doing once we get into the sack; hell, we can do almost anything in the bedroom and get away with it. Something magical happens when you have two naked people in a bed. You’ve already pushed through most of the barriers and inhibitions — the courtship, the embarrassment of early fumbles and awkward silences. Then that moment finally comes: you kiss. Not one of those normal kisses though — that passionate kiss. The kiss that speaks volumes; that lingering kiss that you just know is going to lead to sex.

Before you know it, you’re fumbling with each other’s clothing and trying to get naked as quickly as possible. You’re trying to navigate your way to the bedroom without losing your lip-lock (there’s probably a term for that kind of thing — Siamese Lovers, or something). Then you’re in bed, either under the duvet, or above, contorted into some kind of twisted meshed embrace where you can’t tell which limbs are yours.

And then that magical moment occurs… you can do anything. You’re both stripped away, mentally and physically. Your bodies are extensions of one another. There’s no peer pressure, no prejudices — you can just do whatever the hell you like.

I think that’s what I love the most about sex: the intimacy. Intimacy actually describes that moment perfectly — it means ‘to become familiar with’ and ‘innermost’. You’re both there, becoming very familiar indeed, baring everything, even your innermost secrets and desires.

There, I’ve shared what sex is like for me. That’s why I don’t have sex with just anyone — I want it to be special and intimate, damnit! Why not write about what sex is like for you, if you have a blog?

I wanted to share one more thing with you: a flow chart for dialogue during sex (from FlowingData). I never have a problem finding the right things to say during sex, but I understand it can be a problem for couples where one person has more experience than the other. Maybe you’re uncertain if you’re making the right noise; is that a grunt of pleasure, or pain? Perhaps you’re just not very talkative during sex, and you want to improve in that department. Dirty talk during sex can be very saucy, let me tell you! When a girl talks dirty to me… well… it ain’t pretty. But that’s another topic, for another day.

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For those of you that don’t watch enough Simpsons (and you’d be forgiven for stopping around Season 10!), or simply want the source of one my favourite phrases, take a look at this:

Right, with the derivation out of the way (I love etymology), I can now continue: my sex drive has re-emerged. Banished to a dark pit of deprived despair a couple of years ago he has finally reared his angry, chauvinistic head; and he’s eager to catch up on everything he’s missed — he wants to find out what’s been hap’nin in the world of coitus in specific, and penetration in general.

I think my re-kindled interest in sex has a lot to do with my current infatuation with 60s and 70s Motown and Disco music. It’s so sappy in places; love, sex, devotion, spiritual empathy: it’s all there in droves. I have no idea if they were really happy, but they sure paint a picture of an eternal, lush, golden summer. Listen to some Isley Brothers, or Diana Ross & The Supremes, and you’ll quickly know what I mean.

I guess the infinite energy pumped out from their their music, plus the affections (and the rather explicit situations my vivid imagination has recently put me in) of a certain cute girl were enough to stoke the proverbial fire of passion and lust.

I’m literally bubbling over with affection now. If you allow me a moment of crudeness, I simply can’t wait to stick it in something.

Perhaps more interesting than the return of my sex drive is the question that most red-blooded males are no doubt asking right around now: Where did your sex drive go?!

It’s a good question, one I think I can answer. Having once been the ‘5 times a day’ guy at university (my poor girlfriend — the morning-after walk into university was always funny), and recently ‘once every 6 months if I’m lucky’ I’ve seen both sides of the spectrum: Raging, unabated erections versus long, cold winters of discontent with nary a bulge to be seen.

Where did it all go wrong? Well, after my relationship at university I certainly needed a break. I like the company of others, but I certainly prefer spending time alone. I do tend to grow bored of all but the most interesting people (that’s a topic for another day), so it was nice to finally get away from university and spend some ‘quality time’ with myself. Obviously though, sitting on my own in my room or outside on the grass reading a book isn’t really conducive to meeting a girl and having wild, passionate sex.

Then there was the gaming. The long, never ending hours of gaming. From sunrise to sunset, gaming. I’m not sure if there’s a medical answer to this one, but I certainly felt less alive. For the longest time it was all about my ‘gaming essentials’ — my eyes, my hands, and my quick thinking — I’d all but forgotten about my meaty lovestick. And so it continued, for 18 months, until The American came back into my life.

I don’t want to re-hash the story too much (I kind of need to wait for my memoirs before I ‘dish the dirty’ on this one), but let’s just say that my senses were fully revitalised when she waltzed back onto the scene, into my arms, and then into my bed. During this time, I managed to play video games and maintain an erection — surely I’d just hit the motherlode?!

It wasn’t to be, though. As quickly as she had reappeared, she disappeared again. As did my throbbing purple-headed Indian. Poof. Like Leviathan sinking back into the deep, dark expanse of my sexless soul.

It was such a system shock, losing the girl that I’d chased for so long. That was about 18 months ago though and today I am happy to say it seems I’ve finally found the ability to create, flesh out and indulge in lustful thoughts again. Watch out, ladies!

Goodbye celibacy; hello sexual intimacy, how I missed thee.

Girls are from Venus. Boys are from Mars. While that phrase was coined to illustrate just how large the chasm is between men and women — how differently we approach life, and the problems we might encounter — the number of similarities we share are still too numerous to count.

I’m going to try and focus purely on the differences between boys and girls, men and women. This won’t be an article on how humans all endeavour to survive, but it might help you survive a little better by getting more out of friendships and relationships — especially if you interact a lot with the opposite sex! This guide could alternatively be called ‘how to get on better with girls’ or even ‘Seb tells you far too many trade secrets.’

To the girls: don’t take it too personally. This is going to feel like, at worst, that you’ve been sliced and prepared into a series of cutaway diagrams. At best, it’s going to feel like you’ve been stripped bare.

To the boys: remember, every girl is different. This is a guide, not a checklist!

Now, please forgive me for starting with the least romantic part of boy/girl relationships, but it sets the groundwork so nicely. It explains away a lot of the difficulties you might have, as a guy, with understanding a girl: it’s all in their head, man! You can skip the first section if you think it’s just plain unromantic.

The Psychology

Genetically, we’re almost identical, with just 78 genes separating boys from girls. I’m not a doctor, so I’m not going to suggest anything preposterous, but it would seem that those 78 genes would become, in later life, the differences in our physiology, our brain chemistry and ultimately the huge differences we notice between the actions and thought processes of men and women.

Tests would seem to suggest that almost all differences between male and female sensitivity and recall is based on our relative levels of testosterone, estrogen and progesterone. Women, for example, tend to have more vivid memory recall during their period. Women also have a much easier time recalling memories with emotional components (which might go some way to explaining why women, at least from a male perspective, seem to dig up very odd, ‘unimportant’ stuff during their period). It’s also female hormones that make women more sensitive, at least towards dangerous situations or a perceived threat. Couple this with the fact that the heightened testosterone levels in men can cause emotional insensitivity or a complete lack of empathy, and you can begin to see why men and women might fail to get along — especially during that time of the month.

The solution here, gentlemen, is to be gentle. A girl only feels bonded in a relationship by a feeling of closeness inspired by shared feelings and emotions — intimacy, in other words. Believe it or not, watching a sporting event with a girl doesn’t actually cement your relationship very much. In fact, the only real shared ground between men and women is sex. Men love it: it’s active, it’s sporting (’Maybe I can go for another hour this week!’, ‘Let’s go for 6 orgasms…’) Women love it — at least, most do — because of the bonding, physically and mentally, and it is inherently very intimate.

Orgasms. Girls love orgasms. Oh, and sex too, but really… orgasms.

With the psycho-babble out of the way I can now move into much safer (if not easier!) waters. The wild, wet seas of the Big O.

Orgasm in the morning; orgasm in the evening. Orgasm at work, in the supplies cupboard. Wherever and whenever — a girl wants to orgasm. I’m not going to turn this into a guide on sex (maybe next week: ‘The master geek at work in the bedroom’), so just go and look up some guides on the internet. I think the most vital thing to remember is that very few girls reach orgasm from the ol’ fashioned ‘just stick it in’ technique — men should really know this by now, but in case you didn’t: you have to get messy! And I don’t mean poo play.

As I mentioned before, girls really need intimacy. Unless you make a habit of watching sad movies and sharing your thoughts (some guys with low levels of testosterone are quite happy to do this — like me), sex is probably the only time you will be truly intimate with a girl. So you might as well make the sex good, and do it often!

Girls want to be loved

I’ve learnt that, despite their apparent faults, misgivings or erratic, emotional outbursts, a girl wants to be loved. This desire to be loved is so strong that a girl will often slight her own ethics or personal integrity to get a guy to love her.

It’s important, for the success and longevity of a relationship, that you don’t let a girl sacrifice herself to please you. Women are constantly in search of intimacy (and the love that follows) and will do almost anything to get it from you. Most men are unaware of just how many hoops they (inadvertently!) force their girlfriends to jump through, to earn their intimacy and love. It’s unfair and it destroys the very essence of what makes a person a person: self worth. Sure, you might end up satisfied in the short term, but you’ll be left with a bereft, empty, soulless shell of a girl; a shell with only a few shattered fragments of the girl you first met and hit it off with.

If you’re not ready to love (I’m guessing this is a genetic thing again, stopping guys from saying those 3 fateful words; those 7 immensely heavy letters), you must at least be ready to be intimate. A girl probably doesn’t want to actually hear you say ‘I love you’, she’s more than likely just looking for you to share your feelings and emotions… so try to do that! Watch The Notebook and cry with her. Trust me.

Girls solve problems differently

This is the difference that really counts. Life is, as you know, just a constant stream of making decisions and solving problems. Both men and women are equally good at working out problems — and thus, surviving! — they just take very different paths to the solution. Us men like to take control of the situation and get it solved as quickly and effectively as possible. Women, on the other hand, are more interested in the how and why of the problem — analysing how that thorn came to be there, and how to remove it,  is far more interesting than ACTUALLY removing it.

In a relationship, this means the girl will assess other possible solutions before deciding on the ‘right’ one. For girls, sharing and solving problems together (either with friends, or with their beloved) is of great value — almost more so than the actual doing! This is often a problem for guys, because they seek the self-assurance derived from solving problems on their own! While a guy will often adopt the ’spray and pray’ approach of problem solving (keep trying until something sticks), girls are far more likely to pool ideas with other people, and learn from other people’s past mistakes. It’s amazing how rational women can be without testosterone clouding their judgement…

In reality, a mix of these two approaches is ideal. Sometimes there just isn’t time for the bureaucracy of female problem-solving — but sometimes there is, and as a guy you should try your best to sit down and discuss problems, and the possible solutions, with the girl. I’m not even talking big, pivotal relationship-shattering problems; it could be something as simple as whose house to stay at on a given day, or which TV show you watch, and which one you record. Discuss it!

Girls want to be wined and dined, and looked after!

I’m probably on dangerous ground here, especially with the ‘looked after’ caveat. Perhaps I should rephrase it as ‘girls like a guy that knows what he’s doing’, which is a very broad phrase, but accurate. A girl doesn’t like a guy that’s uncertain of his role in life — a guy that can’t make good choices and survives poorly is unlikely to be the target of a girl’s affections. In the same vein, girls like guys that know what they’re on about –  ‘confidence’ in other words! A girl likes a guy that knows a nice place to take them out for dinner; she doesn’t like a guy that drives around, uncertain of what to do, or where to go. Girls don’t like guys that mope around in the house, not sure of what to do with their life, or where to go on a date (both of these points is where most geeks fail, incidentally, including myself!)

Perhaps this is more a hint for getting a girl, rather than keeping one, though I would’ve thought that gifts of flowers, jewellery and other tokens of affection are the in-relationship equivalent of ‘wining and dining’.

She really does look fat in that dress…

Yet again, the classic, brute-force problem-solving ability of men (the same ability that first brought meat to the cave!) comes back to bite us on the ass. ‘I think I’m coming down with the flu’ your girlfriend says. ‘Don’t worry honey, I’ll call the doctor.’ Wrong. ‘Perhaps I would look better with larger breasts’ she trickily states. ‘How much does it cost?’ Wrong… so, so wrong. When a woman poses such questions she  is nearly always looking for understanding and emotional support. The problem? Men are far more interested in their ability to solve problems, and quickly. The woman is posing a challenge; the man wants to solve it, further cementing his position of supremacy!

You will only be able to catch these ‘curve ball’ statements after months or years of experience, so you should probably start watching for them as soon as possible… When she says ‘You’re so rash and uncaring!’ that’s normally a sign that you’ve said the wrong thing (even though you thought you were being very caring…)

Tips, tricks and further reading

I’ve given you enough information to make even the most stalwart, embittered ice-queens fall for you (I speak from experience: The American), but I thought I could share a few ‘tips and tricks’ that I’ve picked up in the few years that I’ve been, um, ‘active’, though I’m not going to share my real trade secrets. That’d be like shooting myself in the foot.

• The compliment game – Try being complimentary. Really damn complimentary and affectionate.  Not so complimentary as to be facetious of course, but if you think a girl (or your girl) looks nice in something, say so! If you notice she’s wearing a new shade of lipstick, and it looks pretty, say so! If she smells nice, whisper it into her ear as you hug tightly. I want to believe that I developed this game with my cousin, but I’m sure someone thought of before me. It’s amazing how far sincere affection goes — and how far it will get you.
• Be a good lover, really — Again, I’m not going to turn this into a guide on how to have sex, but sex is so important early on in a relationship. While sex is often sublimated towards more creative outlets later on, it’s really the only intimacy that both you and your girlfriend can share in. Later in the relationship, you’ll find a lot of other ways to be intimate… like a good foot massage!
• Further reading — There are lots of resources on the net on this topic — though, often from very specialised points of view. There’s an excellent condensed version of ‘You Just Don’t Understand’ by Deborah Tannen which looks, very deeply, at the fundemental differences between girls and boys (which, sadly, is of more interest to girls!) If you like the psychology thing, there’s lots of stuff by clinical psychologists offering their opinions on the web, just search around. There’s also data on the statistical differences between men and women — and finally, of course, the obligatory funny (and insightful…) picture.

This is a series of posts (Time-Travel Thursday) which so far has looked only at the beginning of my time at university, between 2003 and 2004. After the events of last week’s entry I begun a relationship that would span the remainder of my time at university; it wasn’t an uneventful time, but it was particularly peaceful. I’ll write about sometime, just not today. I want to talk about the past, so you can understand a bit more about me today.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed a recurring theme: I’ve been hilariously unfortunate when it comes to girls. I’ve been fortunate too — heck, I still consider myself lucky to have been with all my girlfriends — but, inevitably, bad relationships end. I remember the good times fondly, of course, but it’s the bad times that really stick with you. The pain and emotional distress from a bad relationship and the ensuing break-up really bogs us down! Some people are still plagued by uncertainty, unknowingness and doubt from relationships that ended a decade ago. Bad relationships haunt us.

The relationship I’m going to tell you about still lingers hauntingly, affecting my decisions when it comes to other girls — potential girlfriends.

If you’ve ever experimented with blindfolds in the bedroom with a loved one you’ll know that the experience is intense. With our visual sense deprived, other senses kick into overdrive, competing and clamouring to be heard by the brain. Before you know it, you’re flinching and squirming and whimpering, unable to predict what will happen next. Your partner has you in the palm of their hand.

Ultimate gratification is a boon that only your partner can provide in such a situation. Or, alternatively, your partner could walk out of the room and leave you there on the bed, blindfolded, prone, alone, unable to act and defenceless.

A relationship itself is like being emotionally blindfolded. In a relationship, our remaining senses are heightened, our emotional empathy increases.  In exchange, our foresight disappears. Love is blind(ness)! Objectivity flies out of the window. The world you so gracefully inhabited beforehand slides into a blurred, grey background — out of sight, out of mind. It’s just you and your lover, spotlit, center stage. In my case, it was me and The American. She had me blindfolded, but it wasn’t so dark that I couldn’t make our her brilliantly bright form, picked out by the focused spot light of my love.

(Ironic, now that I think about it, that I put it into photographic terms. I’ve known her for 8 years, and I possess just 2 photos of her. And about a million mental images of her.)

In a relationship, our happiness is completely at the whim of our lover — the lover that has us chained down in a bed, emotionally blindfolded. You can’t force her to bestow upon you the heavenly, nirvana-like pleasures of love, intimacy and sex. It’s up to her. Where there isn’t an equality of control, where one person controls the entire flow of the relationship, where one partner holds the keys and forces you to jump through hoops to attain love, and thus happiness and satisfaction — these relationships are destined to fail.

If only I’d known that when I was 16.

If only I’d known, as I sat there on the bench, watching a beautiful blonde girl slowly wend her way through a throng of school friends towards me, that 8 years down the line, I’d still be nursing a fragmented heart.

She was short. Really short, perky and cute. It was a strong start, certainly. She’d finished traversing the crowd of kids and stood before me.

‘Hi!’ A ready smile, too. Good teeth. A grin that lit up her little face.

Unfortunately, she had an American accent.

‘Ah… you were doing so well, until you opened your mouth!’

The opening words of a relationship that, one form or another, would span almost a decade. Middle school, highschool and college.

I’ve told you before that I’m really mean to girls that I like, right? It’s probably a self-defence thing; a self-esteem thing. Pushing a girl away before she gets close enough to tease my heart-strings, and then inevitably dump me for a stronger, hairier and manlier man than I. Well, try as I might, this one wouldn’t be pushed. She sat down next to me and just continued to smile. I perservered. Continuing with low blows, sarcasm and a neverending, incessant pick-pick-picking of her American accent and mannerisms, I just couldn’t shake her off.

She loved it. She’d never experienced it before, being America — the dry, English wit; irony — or perhaps she just fancied the socks off me. I like to think it’s because she wanted my babies. Perhaps I was so funny that she wanted my babies?

She only stayed for the summer that time but she promised she’d be back. If she hadn’t come back, I would’ve gone to her anyway; 5000 miles was nothing for a couple of smitten, lovesick teenagers that craved each other’s company.

A year later and I’m in the process of finding a buyer for one of my kidneys when I receive an email from her: ‘I’m flying over in August. We need to talk.’

She refused to tell me about it over email.

In fact, she must’ve realised sometime between writing the email and the amazing 3 months we spent together that summer that her mother could talk to me instead.

And so it was that, one day, sitting outside eating lunch, her mother sat down beside me.

‘We need to talk, Sebastian.’

‘About what?’ I’d completely forgotten about the aforementioned ‘talk’ and I had a big grin on my face: I didn’t like her mother particularly, but it made sense to smile at your future mother-in-law, right?

‘This relationship of yours, between you and my daughter. It can’t continue.’

My heart skipped a beat. ‘Why…?’

‘She has a fiancé in America. Her childhood sweetheart. She’s marrying him this winter.’

To be continued…