Fun New Words

I learned some new words at the gym today. They're so much fun.

Hoggin': When a group of men gather together and compete for who takes home the fattest girl.

Cougars (also known as Nolan Ryans): Older married women on the prowl for young men. Why Nolan Ryans, you ask? Because he's an old guy who's still in the game.

Sigh.

Inevitably this leads me back to the conclusion that there is just something sad and dreadful about large groups of men and about the sexual politics of contemporary American society. I was recently talking to a friend, an artist, whose studio-mate makes her money doing Full Body Sensual Massage. Full body. From "prostate massage" to "sensual release." Perhaps there's a little reflexology in there, too. I don't know. Her clients, my friend insists, are all married men, young men in their thirties and forties whose marriages are centered around child-rearing. So they say. This may simply be a "blame the victim" -- or, rather, blame the cuckold -- situation, but the men insist that their wives have lost interest in sex, and that they are actually saving their marriages by visiting these FBSM practitioners. They don't want to "cheat," so instead they pay for a "release."

There's an entire website in San Francisco that rates these experiences. You can find spreadsheets comparing various practitioners, complete with elaborate numerical scoring systems. Some guys, they just like to work those numbers.

I'm not sure what to make of all this. I am confident, absolutely, that my own husband is faithful. I also know he suffers from a surfeit of whatever gene leads to commitment. He is a prairie vole, he mates for life. My artist/FBSM lady is of the impression, however, that most men are meadow voles, and without a genetic transplant they stay that way.

Are the husbands of my friends out in the meadow getting their sensual massages? Should it make any difference to their relationships if they are? Is a meadow vole likely to turn his wife into a cougar?

Meanwhile I slept with someone other than my husband last night.

Michael is away and Rosie made her customary migration into my bed. Her brother Zeke soon followed. I spent the night with a set of 7-year-old feet pressed up against my legs and a little 3-year-old hand stroking my shoulder blade. All very sweet, but I miss their father. He's a lot easier to sleep with.