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There is a God, and her name is Melatonin. Thanks to that particular
goddess, I actually got a bit of sleep last night, passed out
cold after endless 20-hour workdays, in which my eyes glazed over
from coding and proofreading, and my knees cramped up from sitting
cross-legged for days.
The real thing that sank in, though, as I entered the last marathon
leg of completing our new issue, and as I was passing out exhausted
from doing so, was that working in the way that I do, in sex and
erotica like a missionary, has nearly killed my sex life. My head
swims with ideas, and I have in my heart a very politically passionate
feeling about sexuality and gender that keeps me doing what I
am doing. What it may come down to is that I am far more of a
political revolutionary than a personal one when I a working.
Couple that with rampant perfectionism, and you've got a real
doozy.
If the political is personal, someone needs have a chat with my
libido, because after a couple weeks like this, sex is the very
LAST thing I want to do: with myself, with my partner, and yes,
even with Edward Norton or Angela Bassett if they showed up at
my door.
Okay, so maybe I'd make an exception for Angela. Okay, I'd make
one for Ed, too. All right, already -- maybe I'd even go ahead
and have some with my partner, or masturbate for an hour. But
I'd need to be done with my brain first. Right now, to be perfectly
blunt, what I am craving is mindless, drunken sex in which I have
no idea who I am, how I got where I found myself, or what I had
for dinner.
I would have to say that most of the time, I have mindful sex,
and lately, I have distracted sex. Let's call it a case of mind-over-matter.
I bring my brain with me everywhere I go, including into the bedroom,
and it is not usually a detriment...except lately. It isn't just
about swimming in a pile of submissions full of really lousy poetry
or editorial about sex that makes me want to join a convent. It
isn't just about coding and editing.
What it is really about is what happens when on some level, your
sexual life becomes your job, and your job becomes your sexual
life. It's about being asked to constantly explain aspects of
my sexuality that I am bored senseless with, having had them with
me like comfortable friends all my life. I suppose on some level
what it comes down to is that a frog is far more enjoyable to
watch when it is frolicking in a bubbling brook than when you
are dissecting it.
My new response, I think, to nearly any sexual question, should
simply be that I'm tired of all of the ins and outs and ups and
downs and shades of gray, and the real point is, that sex simply
IS. It simply is okay if it is what you want and anyone you are
participating with wants, and you are all capable of using good
judgment, and it simply isn't okay if that is not the case. Period.
I am sexual because I am human. I am bisexual because I am, I
am comfortable with sex because I am comfortable with all aspects
of living, and I find beauty, ugliness, pain and pleasure in the
world because all of those things are there and my eyes are open
and my hands are warm and greedy.
So, my pledge to myself this week is to remember these things
myself, once all the loose ends of the new issue are tied up and
safely tucked away. I will remember that while my brain is capable
-- and enthusiastically embraces -- so many concepts and ideas,
and unearths, dissects and rearranges things methodically, it
is not that brain which led me down this path to begin with, but
the reptilian, sensate part of it, that takes everything in with
deep breath and vulnerability and openness to wonder, joy, sorrow
or fear.
One homeopathic cure for insanity is as simple as taking a patient
out, at the first break of dawn, and letting them walk barefoot
in the dew-soaked grass. It seems to me that may well be my own
cure. I leave you on that note, readying myself to be rid of keystrokes,
ringing telephones, FedEx packages and browser options and give
myself -- even for a few brief moments -- a walk in the proverbial
dew. It's high time I took my own advice.
Heather Corinna |
