She barely knew the guy. Except for the fact that he was a prince. And he had a white horse. Would it really matter if he de-saddled and she wasn’t attracted to him?
Nope. Sexual desire has nothing to do with fairy tales. To Cinderella, Prince Charming embodied freedom and security. Up to her elbows in cleaning fluid, those were the only things she hoped for. Sexual attraction to the knight in shining armor didn’t matter. She didn’t know what it was anyway.
You think Drizella and Anastasia talked to their step-sister about sex? You think they even had it? The only thing Cinderella knew about a man was that he could give her what her family could not: Unconditional love, adoration, safety and affection. Whether or not they had sex didn’t matter.
For most women, a truly intimate relationship with self-sex is delayed until college. If she’s lucky, she has an older brother, guy friend, or bathroom faucet to suggest the existence of masturbation. If she’s even luckier, she has the courage, time, privacy and know-how to explore it on her own. The joke is that women feign head/stomach/uterus aches to avoid sex. The truth is, women love it. They just don’t get the same time and resources to find out.
Little boys love their penises, and around the age of 10, they find out what it does. And it’s usually not alone. Between magazines, movies, jpegs and locker rooms, men have a library of information about what to do and how to do it. Knowing gives them the ability to practice, practice gives them the confidence to continue, and continuing yields new discoveries. Little girls don’t have the same extensive library of porn. But they do have Disney videos to each them about desire. Fairy tales to educate them on what they can hope for. And as it turns out, that education is very different than a man’s.
In my fifth grade sex ed class, the teacher said “boys ejaculate by rubbing their penises.” Every penis-having classmate went home to try it. Guess what the girls did that night. Nothing. Where’s our enlightenment? Where’s our porn? It’s no surprise that Christian Grey became a phenomenon. Here’s a man who sweeps the girl off her feet and throws her against the wall. (With a hand behind to prevent concussion. Isn’t that sweet?) No princesses or castles, no penetration close up or ejaculation to the face—here’s the epitome of the whole package and I was 27 before I got to hear about it.
Without learning about the balance between sex and Cinderella, women are at risk of marrying for safety and security over passion. And a marriage without passion is one giant pre-coital headache.
Kids Today
It’s not that we don’t know who we are. And it’s not that we don’t know who we want to be. We’re just stuck because this is the first time we’ve never known how we’re going to get there.
In middle school, it’s high school. In high school, it’s college. In college, it’s your first job. There was always a clear next step, and always a clear way to take it. Grades. Applications. Connections. Finite, decisive choices that move life forward. Whether you made them was up to you, but the choices were clear.
Today, they’re not. Even the next step isn’t clear. What comes after first job? New job? Completely different career? Marriage? Family? Let’s say it’s marriage. I still can’t choose to build the happy, healthy relationship to get me there. So even when the next step is clear, the path still isn’t.
It’s like the paved road is only 25 years long. Then it’s dirt. Which is different, but it’s still walkable. Now it’s a mud pit. Am I supposed to jump it? Do I walk around? Or do I hate my shoes enough to tromp through? Worse yet, for the first time, it doesn’t help to weigh someone else’s decision; I might not have the agility, time or outfit to make the same one.
But it’s been two years, and I’ve decided that the only thing worse than taking an insecure step toward an unclear future is not taking a step at all.
In middle school, it’s high school. In high school, it’s college. In college, it’s your first job. There was always a clear next step, and always a clear way to take it. Grades. Applications. Connections. Finite, decisive choices that move life forward. Whether you made them was up to you, but the choices were clear.
Today, they’re not. Even the next step isn’t clear. What comes after first job? New job? Completely different career? Marriage? Family? Let’s say it’s marriage. I still can’t choose to build the happy, healthy relationship to get me there. So even when the next step is clear, the path still isn’t.
It’s like the paved road is only 25 years long. Then it’s dirt. Which is different, but it’s still walkable. Now it’s a mud pit. Am I supposed to jump it? Do I walk around? Or do I hate my shoes enough to tromp through? Worse yet, for the first time, it doesn’t help to weigh someone else’s decision; I might not have the agility, time or outfit to make the same one.
But it’s been two years, and I’ve decided that the only thing worse than taking an insecure step toward an unclear future is not taking a step at all.
11.8.10
Everyone keeps telling me, "there are plenty of fish in the sea." I have no doubt that they're right, but once you take out the girl fish, old fish, baby fish, ugly fish, gay fish and married fish, you're left with not so much an ocean but a pond. Take from that the dull fish, weird fish and fish with issues, and what you've got is something just short of a teacup. And not many fish fit into a teacup. More importantly, I'm not sure how many would take my bait.
9.10.10
Sometimes I take mental snapshots of my life and imagine what I’d think if I saw them from the past. What the me from three years ago would say if someone handed her a picture of me, right now, standing on this bridge overlooking the Chicago River. Aside from having longer hair and a noticeably smaller percentage of fat on my ass, she probably wouldn’t say much. I mean, what could she? For all she knows, I’m still feeling the same things she’s feeling, I’m still doing the same things she’s doing, and I’m just visiting whatever place I’m seeing. This always makes me smile. Despite any homesickness or nostalgia for whatever changed between then and now, doing this gives me the strangest sense of accomplishment. Because little does she know, everything is about to change.
Wax Fruit
I sat next to a man on the plane who told me his serendipitous life story. As nice and melodious as that word is, I’ve never liked it. It reminds me of the movie. Which reminds me of Hollywood. Which reminds me that scripted romanticism is different from reality, which makes me doubt that my story will be a series of beautifully orchestrated events filled with fortuitous happenstance. I shook his hand, followed him down the jetway, and waved as we turned in different directions.
That night, I read the depressing Facebook status of a jobless mid-20-something living at home. I felt sad for her. And then for me. Though our circumstances are hardly the same, we share the same fear of never amounting to anything and, worse yet, doing it alone.
The funny thing is—we’re not alone. Almost every mid-20-something I know is suffering from what I’m officially naming Transplantancy Syndrome. Trans-PLAN-tan-cee-sin-drom: the unfortunate side effect of having a solid education, geographical freedom and unlimited possibilities. We have 580+ confirmed friends yet we lie on our backs in the dark and stare at the ceiling, increasingly aware of the silence. And loneliness.
In some psychology class, I read that emotional bonds are fostered by face-to-face contact. Being able to read human expression. Feel empathy. And with face talk/book/chat, you’d think we’d feel closer than ever. But what we see isn’t our friend’s face. It’s a picture of their face. An illusion of closeness. A kind of faux-proximity that is as satisfying as binge eating—elation when it’s in front of you, emptiness when it’s gone.
My poor generation is starving for closeness, and Facebook is a wax fruit.
That night, I read the depressing Facebook status of a jobless mid-20-something living at home. I felt sad for her. And then for me. Though our circumstances are hardly the same, we share the same fear of never amounting to anything and, worse yet, doing it alone.
The funny thing is—we’re not alone. Almost every mid-20-something I know is suffering from what I’m officially naming Transplantancy Syndrome. Trans-PLAN-tan-cee-sin-drom: the unfortunate side effect of having a solid education, geographical freedom and unlimited possibilities. We have 580+ confirmed friends yet we lie on our backs in the dark and stare at the ceiling, increasingly aware of the silence. And loneliness.
In some psychology class, I read that emotional bonds are fostered by face-to-face contact. Being able to read human expression. Feel empathy. And with face talk/book/chat, you’d think we’d feel closer than ever. But what we see isn’t our friend’s face. It’s a picture of their face. An illusion of closeness. A kind of faux-proximity that is as satisfying as binge eating—elation when it’s in front of you, emptiness when it’s gone.
My poor generation is starving for closeness, and Facebook is a wax fruit.
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