Erection Detection
posted in Doin' Our Thang |
I’ll never forgive her for this. Here we are supposed to be relaxing, and it’s all going wrong. It seems like everything is right, we’re in a small brick building in the spa wing of a fancy hotel on a Caribbean island, the lighting is soft and low, the music is new wave, there’s an unmistakable scent of eucalyptus in the air. I’m lying on a waterbed filled with warm water, a light blanket draped over my naked body. My girlfriend, the offending party, is in the same position just a few feet from me. And standing in between us are two young Asian girls, vaguely pretty, dressed in white, hands covered in lotion of some sort.
I’d always heard that massages were supposed to be these wonderful experiences, even the upscale couples massages with no happy ending in sight. So sensual and, for lack of a better word, amazing. Your mind floats away while your body achieves total relaxation and all the stress and anxiety of life filter out for a solid hour. But I can’t relax because I’ve got to keep myself under control and make sure that nothing pops up. In fact, in order to best make sure that things don’t get, ummm, out of hand, I’m writing this article in my head. And I’m considering the problem of erections.
In a certain way, the issues that erections cause us are the be all and end all of our psychological neuroses, if one is unlucky enough to have them. Of course, as men, we are all obsessed with our penises and that’s okay with me. It is, after all, the reason for living, isn’t it? By which, I mean, in a cosmic sense, no one is here to make sure other people can retire at fifty or make sure that there are no factual errors in monthly publications. No, we’re here to make more of ourselves, and all our natural (some might say base) impulses are to that end. It makes sense that we think constantly about our cocks.
But it’s not always fun and games, clearly. Here I am, in this intensely sexual environment, trying desperately to keep myself at bay. Why? Because there is no worse social faux pas than an unwanted erection. And that is the very essence of the problem with erections, there is no other object (or state perhaps) that is as abhorred as an ill-timed stiffy. Dancing at a wedding, playing strip poker with platonic friends, even making out when things aren’t gonna go that far. One inch of extension and suddenly you’re the jackass. Maybe some other time and some other place.
But how are we to know what the proper time and place might be, especially when the existence of the erection itself can alter everything? It’s eternally frustrating to me just how repulsive an erection can be to the person for whom, at that moment, it is meant. To the person who has inspired and created it out of nothing. Is there anything closer to the divine than to make something that was dead come alive? In truth, it should be looked at as an honor, an achievement, but I guess the hardwiring on hard-ons is different for the sexes.
Let’s be frank about it, women do seem to have a conflicted relationship with penises, but maybe more so with a full on woodrow. Sure, it’s the beginning of something that might turn out to be fun, if he knows how to use it. But then there’s the other side, the dark side, the purple-headed yogurt slinger side. This is the dark side where the line between sex toy and weapon gets blurred. This is the side that makes work out of foreplay. But we never know for sure what’s going on in their heads and that’s what makes the problem of an erection’s timing second only to the fact of it.
When you spring it can make or break your night and an early erection in a make out session can kill your chance of taking things further. Everything is going along fine until she starts thinking you’re only after one thing, until she starts to feel pressured into something she might not be ready for. If only the ladies knew who was really feeling the pressure. Philip Roth has devoted tomes to the struggles of men living without erections; he showed us over and over how their souls were eaten away by not getting it up. But what about the psychology of the man who can’t keep it down? What about the difficulties of the easily sprung? There’s truly something very delicate here: get it up at exactly the right time and no sooner, and you better make sure intercourse was in the cards in the first place. Talk about being between a rock and hard-on.
Hang on, I’m being instructed to roll over.
Oh great, this is even worse. Now I’m on my back.
And so here I am, right in the place I’ve tried to avoid my whole life and exactly in the place of some of my largest defeats. And I’m supposed to be relaxing to boot. Instead, my heart skips with anxiety as the supple fingers of this woman move in circular motions up my thigh, getting closer each loop to getting a terrible surprise. I wonder if she knows what is about to happen. I don’t think writing this article in my head has really been as helpful as I hoped it would be, but then again, I just came up with a great title.
