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Now that I'm middle-aged and married, it amazes me that I survived such lengthy stretches of my youth without the consolations of the bedchamber. I'm talking about the rites of Venus, the horizontal tango, the incomparable flesh-feast to which most of our species regularly aspires. My bachelorhood was an extended one, and you'd think I would have spent all those good green years happily spreading my likeness throughout the population. You'd think I would have enjoyed countless flings with secretaries and duchesses, models and moon-goddesses. But no, the sad fact is that your Cynical Guy spent most of his prime time in a state of wistful, wilting shyness. I was a bookish specimen who frequently broke into a profuse and demoralizing sweat just talking to a ripe woman. (For that matter, I'd break into a sweat talking to unripe women, overripe women and middle-aged men with horn-rimmed glasses. I was usually fine with dogs and parakeets.) Somehow I prevailed over my affliction long enough to jettison my virginity while still in my twenties.
But then I'd retreat into my books and my sweating for a few more years, emerging for the occasional botched relationship and retreating right back again after the inevitable breakup. I became an expert at reclaiming my virginity, which is to say that I was somehow able to fall back to a pre-sexual condition of the spirit—
alarmingly content with harmless activities like reading, walking, drawing, watching classic films and devouring bags of cheese curls. I always hoped for more, and I looked for uncommon women in all the common places: bars, offices, coffee houses, country inns, farmers' markets, libraries, museums, theaters,
bird watching expeditions, Mensa conventions, park benches and pizzerias. But the gods rarely favored me with serendipity in the realm of romance. I might as well have been looking for love in the hills of Tajikistan.
When I did find my way into a woman's bed, it was sweet and sensuous and highly gratifying, thanks. But during the long intervals between relationships (and unlike most men, I always looked for a potential wife rather than a quick score) I don't think I was ever propelled by the 30-horsepower internal engine that constantly drives most heterosexual males to plant their flag between the accommodating thighs of a receptive woman. I'd feel the itch only in the actual presence of a pulchritudinous female; I almost pitied men who itched around the clock—
at work, at the gym, while opening junk mail or eating a cheese steak. I could see no point to such unrelieved torment, other than as nature's electrical prod to encourage the hasty propagation of our genes. I've read that the average young man thinks about sex approximately every thirty seconds, which doesn't leave much time for philosophy or changing an air filter. (And what if his fantasies last thirty-one seconds? Does the next episode start before the closing credits on the first one?) As for me, I'd sometimes go half a day without thinking of sex, so I was clearly a case for the abnormal psychology textbooks.
The relationship that led to my marriage put an end to my extended emotional virginity once and for all. Now, after sex, I began to notice lingering effects that I had never noticed before: a craving for beef, a loss of enthusiasm for vintage Hollywood musicals, an impatience with rigid style rules regarding capitalization and serial commas. Suddenly I was vaguely embarrassed to have the autographs of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers on display in my bathroom, though I know I shouldn't be. I began to understand why sensitive undersexed men tend to find themselves marooned in fussy detail work while hardheaded studs make fortunes from oil and sheet metal. (Real men apparently don't need beauty, except in their women.) What is it about good, steady sex that makes us harder, leaner, and less inclined to read Keats? Is sex more rewarding than Keats or just more titillating? Sex undoubtedly FEELS better than Keats; the Romantic poet's scented words delight our better brain cells but can't compare to the riotous sensuality of stroking a breast or hip. An orgasm revives us more thoroughly than a sonnet. In the ancient battle between mind and body, most of us tend to favor the body. A mind might be a terrible thing to waste, but we don't have the option of wasting it (or using it) unless our bodies cooperate. And nothing makes them more cooperative than vigorous bouts of primal sex.
We love sex because it simultaneously electrifies and soothes us, inside and out. But it's not easy. I've come to marvel at the ability of our species to master this intricate and demanding form of recreation. You'd think it would be a minority skill, like snowboarding or doing a passable impression of Lyndon Johnson. You wonder how librarians do it, or how our grandparents ever managed it. How did a Victorian gentlewoman raised on the verses of Elizabeth Barrett Browning ever reconcile the platonic ideal of love with the sweaty, hairy, meaty reality of it? From almost any objective perspective, sex is a strange and almost savage pastime. First we have to get unabashedly naked, which is something we rarely do with regular people like our neighbors or tax accountant. Then we wait to see if certain body parts grow sufficiently enthusiastic. Then, while remaining excited, we have to insert Tab A into Slot A, which isn't as easy as it sounds. (We're not talking about ship models here.) Then, once coupled, in a series of motions that call to mind the sawing of wood-planks, we have to keep chugging long and hard enough to reach a satisfactory conclusion for one or both parties. When it's over, all that remains is a cold, damp spot in the middle of the bed. And this is the thing that makes the world go round. Yet it works, and it thrills us, and it never ceases to fascinate us. Can we live without it? Of course we can. SHOULD we live without it? Of course we shouldn't. Our bodies and souls require it for maximum performance. Otherwise we might spend our time reading Keats, watching Fred Astaire films and fretting over semicolons. We could do worse with our lives, but sex feels so much better.
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 The
Cynical Pick of the Week.
Octogenarian billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, who fathered a daughter with a woman who is his junior by half a century, found himself slapped with a child-support suit that befits his socioeconomic stature. The mother, who was married to Kerkorian for 28 days, is demanding $320,000 a MONTH for the care and upkeep of their decidedly upscale offspring. For that kind of money you could probably raise all the children in a minor province of Bangladesh. But you wouldn't be able to buy them ermine diapers.
UB
Rick Bayan spent many years in publishing and advertising, both fertile spawning grounds for cynics. He is the author of "The Cynic's Dictionary," which sold nearly 23,000 copies before it was booted out of print by his publisher. Happily the book is still alive at Rick's website,
The Cynic's
Sanctuary, where this self-described "kinder, gentler cynic" has been writing dark-humored monthly tirades since 1996.
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