This Weekend's TV Guide...

I spent part of the weekend watching a couple shows, first on TV (Playboy TV’s “69 Things to do Before You Die”) then off the DVR (HBO’s “Real Sex”), and I think I found out a couple things about myself:

First: I think ambiance is more important than I gave it credit for. The “69 Things” featured a guy who flies couples up in his small plane so they can join the mile-high club. The back of the plane had a mattress wedged into it (those who use the service get to keep the sheets!), and the space was so cramped that, when the couple was doing it doggie style, her head was between the front seats – at which time the pilot started conversing with her (Seriously... “Isn’t that a great view of the city there…?”). It seemed to me it’d be about as exciting as fucking in the back of a van while a stranger drove around the industrial part of town, giving you the dime tour (“…and over here you’ll see Smith and Sons Foundry, where they make widgets for…”). The pilot got $500/hour for this.

Second (and related to the first): I think eroticism is important. One segment of the “Real Sex” episode featured a masturbation club, where… apparently… the group get together in one member’s living room, talks about masturbation in Alcoholic’s Anonymous fashion (“I’m Joe, and I masturbate. The first time I did it was…”), then they take turns getting each other off with hands and toys while chatting with each other. Nothing says erotic like two women talking about last night’s ER over some guy’s big belly while they jerk him off. The entire event seemed to have the sexual electricity of a family reunion – one where, without warning, your sister starts yanking your meat while you try to maintain the conversation with the uncle sitting next to you, and nobody seems to notice.

These things might (or might not) end up proving I’m nowhere near as sexual as I thought I was, but watching these kinds of shows has taught me two things: (1) There are a lot of people out there doing a lot of stuff that… personally… really doesn’t interest me [the mile high club thing, for example – I LOVE the idea, but, come on… for $500 an hour, it ought to more romantic than humping on a used mattress], and (2) Unlike my younger days (when all a girl had to do was pull up her shirt and show me her bra), there has to be some kind of sexiness in the moment. I need a little romance (or seduction, or mental-sexual stimulation, or whatever you’d call it) before I’ll get interested. I’m a lot more particular nowadays, I guess, and if the moment isn’t what I’d like it to be, I might even be willing to pass on the orgasm and find something else to do.