Frank Talk about Sex with Your Biographer

Hello and welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" A little sex talk today. Keeps us all young and grinning, don't you think?

Let me beat around the bush first ... tee hee ... double entendre ... playground humor ...

I'm rather opposed to biographies about people who are still active in their lives. We can't even count all the biographies of Barack Obama, and wow! He's just beginning a whole new four years of lively history-making work! In a previous incarnation I wrote biographies about people, and trust me, they get out-of-date fast, unless the subject of the biography is embalmed, entombed, or otherwise off the radar. Even then people can have a lasting impact on society -- but that is not necessarily the realm of the biographer.

All this is an introduction to my posing a question. Whose bright idea was it to send a married 40-year-old  woman with children to Afghanistan for a year of intense biographizing of General Petraeus? No-brainer, folks. I'm pretty much made of steel where extramarital activities are concerned, but put me in that situation, for a year, and whew! He's a pretty dynamic guy!

Let the record show that "The Gods Are Bored" understands the Petraeus situation to be beyond the capacity of almost any heterosexual couple to endure. Biographers have to be absolutely consumed by their subjects (try that with John Adams ... zzzzzZZZZZZzzzzz). Biographers also have to be single-mindedly delving into their subjects' lives, probing and interviewing, and interviewing, and interviewing. On the other side of the bed table sits the subject, who -- and I don't care if it's Big Bird, for the love of fruit flies -- absolutely loves all that attention.

It's very flattering to be so adoringly scrutinized. Add to that a gender difference and the fact that both biographer and subject are still ambulatory, and you've got a 90 percent fail rate for marital fidelity.

This may sound harsh, but I rather think it's both unprofessional and unneccessary to send a biographer on a year's trek through tough country in order to craft a biography. Presumably the man had a job to do, and to me it seems like no place for close scrutiny by a civilian. (The military's gonna get him on this, I'll bet.)

A little less colorful, perhaps, but just as biography-worthy, would have been the notion of actually interviewing people who worked with the general in Afghanistan. Or talking to the general about his exploits in the cozy anonymity of a Starbuck's. This is called being scholarly and professional, and it doesn't get your picture all over Facebook.

Don't know about you, but the most annoying part of this for me is that General Petraeus is still alive. Alive and kicking. And we're still fighting over there, and he was running the freaking CIA. As a subject of biography, he's not ready for prime time deployment.

To put an emphatic puch upon this sermon, let's just face facts. Biographies are single-focus, and if you're writing it, and you fall in love with your subject, then you wind up having to write about yourself. Because ... oh, you know what I'm going to say ... the next biographer is going to write about you, at length, and probably after your subject is buzzard bait. A tad embarrassing, that.

Frank Talk about Risky Business

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Let's talk about sex! Okay, I'm female. And you?

Another day, another junior-in-high-school online health class. Poor Spare! Imagine having to watch a half dozen videos about how your life gets ruined when you're a teenage girl who "does it," leaving not too much of the "doing it" to imagination! Spare was groaning and cursing the screen. "GROSSSSSSS!" and "EWWWWWW!"

Spare hasn't met that special dude yet who will render the idea of sex less gross and ewwy. She's 16. I remember when I was 16, I didn't think sex was gross and ewwwy, but I wasn't ready for it either. And not because I was afraid I'd get pregnant. In those good ol' days, you could go to the free clinic and get The Pill without even having parental consent. Any age. Groovy, huh?

Spare had to answer a lot of questions about risky behavior. The first one was, "Why do people say to themselves, 'Bad things only happen to other people, not to me'?"

By "bad things," I suppose the teacher means PREGNANCY or STDs, both covered exhaustively in sex ed class.

Let's take a look at this mentality, though. Why do people think they won't suffer any ill effects if they behave in risky ways?

Risky behavior with little regard to the consequences. Yes, this leads to unwanted pregnancies, drunken driving accidents, all kinds of bad, bad, bad stuff.

But risky behavior also leads to a defiant leap to catch a towering fly ball in the World Series. It leads a person to strap himself or herself into a spaceship that may or may not land safely. It leads an Italian entrepreneur to sail west beyond any previous western sail, thence to find land. It puts people on top of Mount Everest, in submarines, in laboratories and rescue vessels.

Where would we be without any risk?

I took this question to the bored gods.

Some of my Work involves deities that guided the human species long before anyone got the idea to write anything down. Those deities speak of a time when "survival of the fittest" meant "survival of the ones who took risks and lived." We are a risk-taking species. Especially when we're young, and our danger clocks haven't been chimed by too many calamitous events.

Raise your hand if you've never done anything risky. Oh yes, I see you back there! Wimp. Exit "The Gods Are Bored" now, and go console your fears by watching "Jerry Springer" re-runs.

All the bored gods know that I don't want my daughters to run around having drunken, casual sex with strangers. I never did anything like that. I'm a born romantic with a philosophy given to me by James Baldwin: The most powerful, most enduring love is unrequited. I can't imagine having casual sex. Eww.

But that's me. That's not everyone. We have risk-takers in our species. Some of them drink too much and have sex. And make babies.

If our world was suddenly deprived of every human who had the moxie and/or bad judgment to get it on with someone they hardly know, who would be left? Would we as a species be as adventurous as we are? Would we cheer at sporting events (okay, I live in Philly ... would we BOO at sporting events)? Would we venture outside on a snowy day? Would we even have invented houses?

Raise your hand if you don't know anyone who was conceived by the coupling of two people who didn't know each other very well but who got caught up in the moment, through drinking, drugging, or just plain horniness. Aha! No hands. Because that's just how we are as a species.

I'm sitting here today because my grandmothers (BOTH of them) engaged in risky behavior. I owe my life to it! So did my mom and dad! Aunts, uncles, and cousins galore! All the end result of risky sexual encounters.

The moral of this sermon is simple. Risky behavior is dangerous, but it also informs who we are. Don't go out and get drunk and screw around because you read "The Gods Are Bored" and decided to be a sexual Christopher Columbus. But don't fear the risk, either. Modern life gives us tools to manage risk. Use them and live a little.

Heir and Spare, if you're reading this, forget it. You are the exception to the rule. Go to your rooms, pick up those samplers, and get to your cross-stitching. And I mean NOW!

Treatise on Movie Sex

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" No tithes, no offerings, just good ol' front porch rambling! Set a spell. You'll see what I mean.

This morning I read a movie review for a French film called "The Mistress." The movie is not MPAA rated, but the reviewer noted that the film is crammed to the plimsol line with nudity and hot sex.

The review got me to thinking. Once before I die I'd like to have movie sex. But it ain't gonna happen.

I'm not talking about having sex while being filmed. (I think that's been done, but not by me.) I'm talking about the kind of sex people have in the movies.

Movie sex is always perfect. No one gets a cramp, the bed doesn't creak, the cat doesn't explode into the middle of everything looking for a bowl of Meow Mix. With movie sex there aren't any kids creeping around the house, even when there are kids in the movie. With outdoor movie sex, no one ever gets stung by a bee or pricked by a thistle. It's bliss, bliss bliss!

Don't take this as a quibble about my life partner. He's a hot hunk, and we have had us some good times. Lots of good times. But it's never been movie sex. He's not Clark Gable. I'm not Vivian Leigh. If he lifted me into his arms and kissed me at the same time, he'd strain his back. And his arms gripping me that tight would hurt. The sunset would be covered in haze, and someone would steal the damn wagon.

I'm not gonna name any names, but I knew someone who knew someone whose cousin had sex outside once and got poison ivy on her elbows and her knees. With movie sex you can roll around in an acre of poison ivy and never get a pimple of it.

Sometimes movie sex is accompanied by appropriate music. Real-world sex is usually accompanied by a ringing telephone. Or the doorbell ... oh there are the nice Seventh Day Adventist ladies again!

Think about the wildest ride you ever had, and then compare it to movie sex. Was it that good? I'm thinking. Thinking. Mulling over my wild youth...

Okay, maybe twice we came close. Pardon the double entendre.

Please be advised that we aren't talking about pornography here. Porn is just fake as hell. Everyone knows that. What I'm talking about is the makeout scenes in your standard film fare. One of my favorite examples is Madonna getting a piece while perched on a pinball machine in Desperately Seeking Susan." Perched on a pinball machine? Does that sound like a fun place for whoopie? Maybe I'm missing something.

There's one bit of sweet revenge we can all enjoy as we contemplate that oh-so-perfect movie sex we're watching on the silver screen. Those scenes are hell to film. It takes hours, there are directors and gaffers and who knows who else watching, analyzing, saying "cut" and "action" and "could you open your mouth a little bit more as you orgasm?"

In real life, it's hey baby baby, cha cha cha ... and put out the cat.

Sex and the Shitty

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," putting on the prude hat today and ranting about something everyone else seems to love.

I am no expert on Sex and the City. I watched two or three episodes and was totally disgusted by it.

Remember, we at "The Gods Are Bored" do not tell you what to think. I suspect opinions on SATC will vary greatly amongst my legions and legions and legions of readers.

Here's what I saw in the little bit of SATC I watched: over-dressed anorexic women behaving like sexual predators.

Why should I pay HBO to watch this stuff when I can see it for free at Snobville High School? The tender young females at Snobville HS are asking boys if they can be "fuck buddies" with no emotional attachment. Word.

This is not feminism levelling the playing field. This is women being encouraged to act like bad men. Most of us don't find it attractive when a good-looking stud shags every pussy he can shag, discarding partners like empty beer bottles. Why should this be attractive in women? In my book, it's not.

Nor did I find particularly poignant the plot device in which the lead character falls for a married man and busts up his marriage so they can have great sex. We never see the wife and kids behind that one. Say what you like about Pagans, but we have moral values too, and this shoe don't fit.

Speaking of shoes, this brings me to my next rant about SATC. Every character is swathed in about $3000 of couture in every scene. Dresses, sunglasses, accessories, shoes, handbags. Never the same outfit twice.

Here where I live, they've been having SATC movie premiere events all week at which women are showing up in all this expensive glam, trying to be more like their heroines.

Gag me with Givenchy.

Why are we honoring women who have so caved to the patriarchy that they act like the worst patriarchs?

Here's a novel idea. Really a novel idea. Why don't we champion the likes of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice? Instead of women becoming hard and predatory, why can't men become gentle and romantic?

Come on, gals. Given the choice between Mr. Big and Fitzwilliam Darcy, who would you choose?

And guys. Would you really want those overdressed skin-and-bones hardass Sex & etc. etc. women for girlfriends? Two things: How much of that expensive clothing would you have to buy, and (cringe) what do you think those gals look like when they're not wearing it?

It's easy enough for me to avoid going to see Sex and the City. It will be much harder to steer my younger daughter through a high school where having a "fuck buddy" is the latest rage.

Hey, Carrie. Go to hell.