*Editors' note* This is the first installment of a book that we are serializing, to be published bi-weekly over the next few months. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of Oysters & Chocolate or any of its affiliates.
SLURP: Sex Life Under Reconstruction Project
Essays and Stories on Erotic Repair
The essays and stories in SLURP are linked around a hopeful theme: the idea that the best sex of our lives (my own, and yours too dear reader) might be yet to come. Borrowing a phrase from visionary political scientist Stanley Aronowitz—who did much to popularize the work of that first great philosopher of sex, Wilhelm Reich, among the American left—I like to think our quest for ever-hotter and kinkier sex lies in the domain of “radical futurity.”
“Hope,” Emily Dickenson once said, “is the thing with feathers.” But feathers might also be put to a more practical, randier use: as part of a concrete erotic project. I might, for example—if so inspired—choose to gently tickle the breasts of my new girlfriend with a feather, delighting in the pleasure she feels as her nipples harden; then, ask her to return the favor by tickling my balls with this same feather—both as a kinky prelude to sucking me off, and, while she’s actually blowing.
Continuing our erotic dialogue, she might request that I feather stroke the fuzzy perimeter of her pussy while my tongue dives into its moist pink epicenter; discovering, as a creative work-in-progress, but with a certain degree of mathematical precision too, which particular zigs and zags will maximize her pleasure, a fresh new calculus of tongue-on-cunt geometry to be invented, with a few slurping sounds thrown in for pornographic effect, as my hand makes its way north to bring her breasts into the erotic equation, stumbling merrily towards our own theory of orgasmic relativity, making order out of sexual chaos, while the juices from her string theory dangle from my chin, wetting her up for the big bang, my tongue like Einstein’s chalk working its theoretical magic (Energy = a Moist Cunt you Square!) on a blackboard at the University of Bern, Switzerland, during his most fruitful and productive year, 1905—when he upended our scientific notions of what might be—like I’m about to upend my girlfriend, so I can do her like the dog she deserves to be done like.
Together, we’ll bend space and time, creating a tiny eternity of sacred pleasure, as I slide my rock hard penis into the tiny space offered by her quivering snatch (her space, or my space?) to worship in this temple of earthly paradise, finding out what the bleep we know as I disappear down her rabbit hole.
Such an erotic project—perhaps more likely to happen now that I rendered it a possibility with language, simply by articulating it here in the introduction to this book—has the potential not only to elevate the level of sexual gratification experienced by me and my girlfriend, but might also send a ripple of pleasure into the world by offering a concrete erotic suggestion that you, the reader, might use to intensify your sexual happiness with your lover. As such, I believe SLURP (an acronym for Sex Life Under Reconstruction Project) has the power to unleash a tsunami-like wave of erotic energy into the world.
The ideas in SLURP are as complex and messy as sex itself. Still, they cohere around a common thread: maximizing human erotic joy. Using an existential approach to the problem of sex I derived from the work of education philosopher Maxine Greene, I argue that humanity’s expansion of sexual bliss will be most likely to occur if people render their sex lives as projects—therefore, amenable to repair. Here I hope to also convey a certain American can-do spirit, a roll up our sleeves (and unzip our flies, and lift up our skirts) and let’s do it approach to vanquishing the enemy of sexual boredom.
Why should the French have a monopoly on sexual fun? We’re Americans damn it, and we refuse to let a cabal of uptight religious nut-cases declare that the 60s and 70s—when we experienced that last great wave of miraculous erotic breakthroughs, along with the Civil Rights and Woman’s Rights and Anti-War movements…hmmm, is there more than a casual connection here?—be declared an aberration in American history, like Newt and Rush and O’Reilly and company seek to do, rather than a bold erotic step forward (like our stroll on the moon) in human evolution.
To counter this dangerous, anti-desire element in our culture—which has an authoritarian streak shared by the early American Puritans as well as the Nazis—I present the idea (part tongue in cheek and part serious) for a new Manhattan Project for Sex: to expand humanity’s collective erotic joy. Remember the actual Manhattan Project, that marshaled the talents of the best and brightest scientists of a generation, allocating billions of dollars worth of resources, and the creation of whole new cities (like Los Alamos, New Mexico) overnight? And for what, to produce a weapon that threatens to wipe out the human race? Shouldn’t we devote just as much time and money and energy investigating concrete and particular ways to maximize human sexual fun—one of the few, great natural pleasures left to our species—as we do devising more efficient ways to kill each other and destroy the planet? You’d think this would be a no-fucking-brainer.
At its most ambitious, SLURP might be construed as the birth of a new erotic philosophy. As such, certain pieces—in particular, the more theoretical essays—will have an intellectual and academic feel to them, to give them the requisite scholarly weight to be taken seriously by the important thinkers of our time. But I assure you, they’re a lot easier (and more fun!) to read than your typical dry philosophical text. Take Buber, for example. I mean, as much as we love his leitmotif—that human beings transform each other through honest, authentic dialogue—it’s pretty difficult for anyone without a PhD. in philosophy to read the guy. In the entire I and Thou, I bet there’s one or two paragraphs tops that an average person can make heads or tails of.
I like to think of myself as an erotic, lay version of Buber: launching a project whose quest is to achieve ever-better equations for human sexual happiness; exploring the infinite variety of kinky ways I + Thou might = Wow! Given my own intense attraction to female breasts (in particular ones that, like the character Valerie in Michel Houellebecq’s novel Platform, are “spectacular”—firm, round, and C cups or better: see the woman with the amazing bikini clad tits on the yellow cover of his book), I’d like to exercise some artistic license here and play with the word Buber: flipping its syllables in reverse so that it rhymes with “Her Boobs.”
Appropriate to my ambitious claim at discovering a new erotic philosophy, I invent a new concept—the dick-a-lectic of desire—which implies a Buber-esque deep dialogue on the topic of sex (exchanging erotic narratives, histories, fantasies, and the truth about what turns you on); along with any possible erotic actions a couple might engage in as an outgrowth of this dialogue: everything from the subtle erotic gesture (like a woman making a lollipop out of her finger), to role playing, the use of erotic clothing, sexy poses, strip-teasing, light touches leading up to hand jobs, and, naturally, any actual sucking or fucking.
I draw heavily on one particular real life experience (which appears, as a narrative thread, in more than one essay) of a sexy black woman I briefly dated back in the Fall of 2003. When I persuaded her to come to my Hoboken apartment on our second date, I found my excitement at the prospect of scoring tempered by my fear of disease. My solution to this erotic problem, which she happily complied with, was to initiate a safe sex dick-a-lectic. First, we watched some porno together on the couch. Switching the stage venue (or laboratory) to my bedroom, we stripped off our clothes and I began masturbating to the visual of her playing with her nice big tits. Me, the erotic maestro, orchestrating! Next, I persuaded her to fellate her index finger for me. Then, while I continued to work my own dick pump, to lightly stroke my chest and balls: the move that would catalyze my squirt.
In an age of AIDS, a responsible sex project ought to advocate for this kind of Non- Penetrative Joy (NPJ)—ushering in the era of the Kinky Hand Job. Of course, there’s an added visual bonus when the woman manually gets off a guy: they both can savor the nasty thrill of watching his cum geyser blast off like Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park. This also allows for a delightfully lewd competitive element. Picture a guy telling his new girlfriend: my ex got me to squirt twelve feet; quick, grab the measuring tape and see if you can break the record! Safe sex Olympics anyone?
For my part, I’m determined to see which skillful woman can get me to “paint the ceiling”—something I last did when I was home alone at 15—and I have faith, political faith even, like Bill Clinton (the man from Hope) that she’s out there somewhere. One reason I dragged Clinton’s ass into this argument is because it was he, in a rare flash of Puritanism, who fired Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders for daring to bring masturbation into the conversation about AIDS: a strategy which might’ve led to the promotion of NPJ, and the saving of thousands of lives.
Ironically, it was in his Clinton’s actual romps with Monica that he made up for firing Elders by modeling for the world an erotic project that utilized Non-Penetrative Joy: cigars, cum stains on a blue dress, etc. The real “scandal” here was that the media completely missed this potentially life-saving aspect of the Clinton/Lewinsky affair: the opportunity to begin a truly creative, however embarrassing, public conversation on safer sex practices.
SLURP features three types of pieces. There are the theoretical essays, where I draw on scientific, literary, and philosophical knowledge to lay a scholarly—but not too egg-headed—foundation for dick-a-lectic theory. Other essays are more narrative and memoir based, and I even threw in a few short stories to illustrate my proposal for a new erotic paradigm. I invite you to read them in any order, for your pleasure and enlightenment; and to share them with friends, lovers, and even potential lovers. Before committing to a relationship, it might be useful to see if a likely partner is “down with the dick-a-lectic”: so you’ll be sure that maximizing erotic pleasure (in a safe way) is as important to them as it is to you.
In the final analysis though, the real work of this book will only occur in the multiple transactions of readers who encounter it and, it is hoped, are transformed so that a space of transcendent erotic possibility opens up for them. My desire is that SLURP will inspire others to launch their own erotic construction projects: in the process reviving dead sex lives, making good sex lives better, and already-hot sex lives off-the-hook scorching.
Folks might even record the results of their sexual experiments in written or filmed narratives: towards the creation of a public erotic curriculum, and to accumulate hard data to feed a new Manhattan Project for Sex. Imagine, the dream of a Whitmanesque erotic democracy rendered achievable at last! Within the grasp of our hot little hands, and imaginations.
In the event that we’re one day blessed with forward-thinking political leadership in America, such a government-sponsored sex project might become a reality: fueled by research happily gathered by a “thousand points of erotic light” citizenry. But, should such a project prove too hot for even an enlightened government to touch, a bold and innovative NGO might step up to the plate. Would the Kinsey Institute be interested in funding such a project? It was, in fact, my encounter with the film Kinsey (in the fall of 2004) which got my creative erotic balls rolling—and led to SLURP.
But the real driving force behind this writing project is my own sense of being haunted, in early middle-age, by the paltry amount of explosive sex I’ve experienced so far in my life; a fear compounded by the fact that, with each passing year, the opportunity for such experiences dwindle as I become older and less attractive to the opposite sex. Perhaps this situation is more dire for women in my age group. And yet, as we engage in exploring and creating the new knowledge of a dick-a-lectic, I believe there’s a “still juicy enough” window of opportunity for men and woman in their 40s and 50s (and, as Bukowski proved, even into their 60s) to make up for lost time and repair our erotic deficiencies. Indeed, my grandparents were alleged to have made their own porn movies—right up into their early 80s!
Charles Bukowski
As such, I’d like to introduce another new concept I hope will catch on: the idea of erotic justice. Grounded in an ethos of erotic democracy, it’s based on the premise that all human beings have the right to hot, juicy, fantastically orgasmic sex—not just the rich and famous who can buy their way to such pleasure.
I blame my own lack of hot sex on the fact that, in a capitalist-fascist society such as ours, the so-called “winners”—beginning with the jocks in high school, and continuing with those who choose such “empire-sanctioned” fields as law or business over nurturing, humane professions like teaching or social work—tend to get all the goodies in life, from money to sizzling hot sex. This is a morally wrong situation, and ought to be named as a deficiency to be repaired. Perhaps this will begin when the non-fabulous among us, those who don’t fetishize products by Prada or Dolce & Gabanna, simply start talking to one another about our erotic needs: offering mutual assistance whenever possible.
But lest critics accuse me of arguing for a world of loveless, casual sexual encounters, I need to say a few things about the L word. What place could love have in a book that’s specifically about sex? First of all, it might be possible that sex and love are already inextricably linked, since the idea of providing another human being with sacred pleasure is—by its very nature—a highly loving act.
As for the traditional romantic view of love being defined as a monogamous relationship where two people grow old together over time, though the notion certainly ought to be critiqued in an age of normal serial relationships, and where polyamory—having a cluster of sex partners where everyone knows about each other and is cool with it—is emerging from the fringes of the avante garde to gain broader public acceptance (evidenced by the 2005 documentary film Three of Hearts, and the annual polyamory festival in NYC); still, as a deeply romantic person at heart, who cherishes the fact that my grandparents had 60 + years of marital bliss, and my parents 40 + years of, well, if not exactly bliss, then deep and tender feelings which sustained them through the years: I haven’t given up on the storybook possibility of an old-fashioned, one-man/ one-woman magical romance. My soul, in fact, hungers for it—despite increasing doubts about its achievability for me.
To explore these hopes and complexities I created The Love Project in 2005: a year-long series of public conversations about love in NYC. The purpose of the discussions—which took place in downtown cafes and in people’s apartments—was to begin a dialogue about love and allow it to evolve naturally, to follow it and see where it led. I sought to create a radically open space around the theme of love, so folks could share their dreams, concerns, questions, problems and stories involving not only their personal love lives, but public visions of what might be in a society that is more encouraging of love.
Incredibly, my Love Project attracted the attention of bell hooks—who had just published her fifth book about love. In an awesomely kind act of mentoring, bell gave me the thumbs up for my love activism over lunch in a Chinese Restaurant in Greenwich Village—which boosted my love agency, and gave me confidence to explore even edgier relationship and social projects: like SLURP.
Another critical discovery I made through the Love Project, by way of a random Google search on relationships, was stumbling across Mama Gena’s School of The Womanly Arts in Manhattan: a school that empowers women to be “pleasure revolutionaries.” Eurkea! This was my major Aha! moment: since I had already been playing with a similar concept, of men and women becoming pleasure revolutionaries together—via a mutually constructed project for sexual repair—Mama Gena inspired me to follow my erotic activism dream. Such a quest, to achieve ever-hotter and more ecstatically joyful sex with your partner, rather than being antithetical to traditional love, has the potential to strengthen relationships by giving each partner less incentive to stray. Why roam around when you’re having this much fun at home?
Finally—if I can possibly say this without sounding self-promotional—given the particular agency of film to awaken, inspire and arouse people to action in our time, I’d like to suggest a movie (documentary or fictional) be made to disseminate the radical erotic ideas contained in SLURP: for the noble (and not self-promoting) purpose of creating a more sexually satisfied planet. Meanwhile, nothing’s stopping YOU from starting your own erotic research project right now!
You might begin by simply sharing this, or another piece from this collection, with a special someone—and asking for their reaction. Releasing your erotic imaginations, while calling up courage, you might be inspired to ask for something else. Bon appetite!
Have fun, and remember to practice safe sex. Peace.
Hoboken - April 2007
Originally published on O&C May 2009