what we talk about when we talk about sex[1]

I

It was on Thursday that I got this idea. Sitting at lunch with Rick and Henry, an associate and a partner who work with me on the matrimonial team, we were all joking about sex, largely in response to Rick's and my terrible cases of wandering eyes. Every time a pretty girl walked by, I would slowly phase out of the conversation, and then, as she left my field of vision, return.

"...yeah, I think she's attractive." Henry was saying.

"How about Gabrielle [Reece]?" Rick asked.

"I think she's attractive, but I don't think she has sex appeal." Henry responded.

He paused for a second to pick at the sausage in his pasta dish.

"Now, Sigourney Weaver, she has sex appeal." Henry mused.

My voice rose with incredulity, "She's older than my mom! How can I think of someone older than my mom as someone with sex appeal?"

We were slowly departing from a conversation with each other. Really, we were heading toward an internal conversation with ourselves about our own, personal notions of beauty, and how beauty related to sex.

"What about Laetitia Casta, that French model... she's all sex appeal." I suggested. I have always been smitten with that model. She has a 1940's pin-up look that I thought was interesting. Well, perhaps "interesting" is not the appropriate word. The two other attorneys nodded and mumbled their agreement. Henry stirred his straw in circles in the lemonade glass into which he stared down. I let my eyes lose focus as I digested my meal. The hostess walked over to our table, right behind Rick.

Rick, riled from this discussion, raised his voice as he launched into a thought. "Tell me you would not want to just sink your--"

I gave him a light kick under the table as the hostess walked over. We asked for the check and continued talking as the hostess left.

"Thank you," Rick said just after the hostess left.

"No problem," I responded. "And, as for whatever you said, I guarantee that I would not want to engage in whatever kinky sex act you were about to describe. I have ethics, my good man."

Rick was noted for telling us explicit stories of his sexual adventures. He was particularly noted for doing so at times and in manners that made no listener comfortable. Nevertheless, he was indignant at my joke.

"Oh madonn'," he said, borrowing an Italian phrase my boss often used, "tell me you don't like to do something that is remotely kinky?"

"I don't like kink."

"How can you not like kink?" Rick asked. He turned to Henry, "I bet you, deep down, that TPB is some sick sexual deviant. Dahmer, or something."

"Speaking of that," I said, ignoring his innuendo, "did you hear that what's-his-name... the preppy murderer, oh damn...... ah, Robert Chambers, has been paroled?"

"No," Rick answered, and then ignored my distracting response, "but seriously, what, do you have heads in your refrigerator or something? How can you not like kink?"

"I don't like kink. I'm pretty straightforward... maybe that's what's kinky about me." I answered.

"There's nothing wrong with kink," Rick stated, a bit defensively.

"Don't worry," Henry said, turning to Rick, his lips twitching as he tried to hide his smirk, "we accept you for who you are, even if you're banned from teaching grade school."

We got up to leave the table, finally accepting that we could not avoid going back to the office any longer.

"Damn, I bet Megan's Law really ruined dating for you," I said to Rick. Passing diners looked at us with a bit of confusion and horror.

"Dude, shut the fuck up." Rick laughed.

II

Rick, Henry and I are matrimonial attorneys. We may handle other matters related to families - domestic violence (mostly for Rick), kidnapping (mostly for me), corporate law (for Henry and, to a much lesser extent, me), adoption, premarital contracts, and, on a rare occasion, civil commitment - but we really do divorce. That means we deal with those issues that people fixate on until they manage to ensure that their lives fall apart.

That means we deal with sex.

Clients tell us their most personal stories that involve sex. Husband #1 had sex with a prostitute.[2] He was embarrassed, because he's a Russian Orthodox Christian, and did not want anyone knowing about his single past indiscretion while working overseas as an investment banker. Husband #1's involvement with a prostitute constituted six pages of handwritten notes by me, nine pages in a certification by his former wife, and four minutes of discussion by the Judge.

Husband #2 comes in for an initial client consultation. He tells me that his wife was horrible to him. She did drugs. She was verbally abusive. She beat the children. She was always like this, even before the marriage. His mother, there for moral support during the consultation, nods in agreement.

"I'm sorry," I ask, "this woman seems like she has done horrible things to you and your family. I will do my best to ensure that your interests are protected in the divorce, and that you retain custody of the children. That being said... if you don't mind me asking, why did you marry her?"

Husband #2 looks down, a somber face hardens into something even more mournful. I think for a second that he might start crying over the end of a marriage that lasted eight tumultuous years when he looks up at me, certain of his answer.

"She was a fucking acrobat, man!" He answers with conviction.

Husband #2's sweet, older mother nods in agreement. "Oh yes," she assents, "Husband #2 always said she was quite nimble in bed."

I nearly spit out my coffee as I hear this. I excuse myself under the pretense of finding some material to present to Husband #2. I close my office door, and try to let the humor of the last comment not affect me. Composure regained, I return to the conference room and listen to fifteen more minutes of horrifying stories about the wife's conduct towards her own children.

The first lesson of matrimonial law: sex makes us completely disregard our better judgment.

Sex made thousands of Greeks die on the shores outside of Troy. Sex made marine guards outside the U.S. Embassy to the Soviet Union give up the identities of secret agents.[3] Sex created the Profumo Scandal that toppled a British Parliamentarian and gave the Soviets a mole inside MI-6. Sex made FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen work for the Russians so he could spend tens of thousands of dollars on a local stripper. Sex killed the operatic character Carmen. Sex made our last president risk his career through perjury. Sex nearly imprisoned Senator Kennedy. Sex has made the Catholic Church the subject of countless late night television jokes. Sex permanently scarred thousands of victims of rape and molestation. Sex killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. Sex killed JonBenet Ramsey and the Black Dahlia. Sex makes us talk about these stories for years and years after they have long since concluded.

Assuming, as I have above, that sex is one of those primordial driving forces that motivates us toward action, it amazes me how many are motivated to such dark, horrific action. It's as though the justification for sex as a motivator - love, the desire to procreate, or physical pleasure - has been lost, and some are left only with the motivation itself, churning and driving them toward some dark, cruel interaction with others, some they once thought they loved, others they never knew or met before. When that interaction occurs...

Others, just as sad, focus so intently on the sexual act that they become repulsed by it, and walk away from all of its motivations as well. They reject love, their family, and joy in the arms of another, and become cold, unforgiving individuals, wrapped up in a pinched, angry ball of irritability. Their husbands or wives eventually leave them. They fill their children with distorted images of what a relationship "should" be, and, if they are single, they find themselves incapable of developing a relationship. Their obsession is no less real, and only slightly less destructive (if at all), than those who cannot focus on anything but obtaining pleasure from that grand realm we call sex.

Then, in the happy middle of this sexual spectrum[4], is the rest of us. Sex motivates us to fall in love, to raise children, to write passionate love poetry, to paint, to buy flowers, to declare, in an obnoxious and irritating fashion, the glories of our respective loves, and become generally well-rounded individuals, not distracted by the motivator, always heading to that final goal: love, children, and/or pleasure. The rest of us... well, I do not see this group in my office very often.

III

A lot of times, I think about writing stories about what I deal with here at work. I would love to address, if only to vent and let the issues escape me, the sex-related events of work. Then, I think back to a quote I always found interesting.

" We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write fuck on their airplanes because it's obscene! " ( Colonel Kurtz ) Apocalypse Now

Coppola, when he had Brando utter that strange little line, truly understood our culture. Violence, with all of its horrors, is more acceptable to American culture than sex, whether it be a positive or negative issue associated with sex. People always talk about how Socrates died. People rarely think about what Socrates said about sex and love. Sex is taboo. Even cutting off someone's ear is more acceptable than depicting sex, even when the latter is far more cartoonish and unbelievable than the former.

Thus, we have a culture that has a 51% divorce rate. Flip a coin. Chances are just as good that, one day, you will see me or someone like me. Since I do not come cheap, maybe now is a good time to think about why you - the whole collective, cultural "you" - need me so much, even though this culture pretty much universally reviles me and every other matrimonial attorney out there.[5]

Like I discussed above... sex is only the motivator. The motivations are distinct from the motivator, and may not actually need the motivator to occur. Love need not require sex. Children... well, children pretty much require sex... but you could adopt. Pleasure comes in so many myriad forms that sex is but one limited aspect of it. For example, I am convinced my father obtains more pleasure from hearing the crack of a bat at a Mets game than most of my friends obtain from, well, you get the picture.

Why? Well, though I would never be so crass or disrespectful as to discuss it with him, I suspect my father has gotten over whatever obsessions with sex that he may have had when he was a young man. He's 54 years old now. My father knows what he was motivated about and what he loves: my mother, being a father, and baseball. I'm pretty sure that's in order of importance, although baseball may take precedent over my brother and I, at least in October.[6] Sex is a lot like warfare tactics. You do it for a reason. If you forget why you use the tactics you engage in during war, you are never going to obtain your objective. If you forget why sex is your motivator, you end up retaining me.

Personally, I would rather lose a war.

Footnotes
1. Apologies and much gratitude to the late, great writer Raymond Carver, whose collection of short stories, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love inspired this title. Please do go read his work, especially his final collection of stories, Where I'm Calling From. Published just before Carver succumbed to cancer, this book remains the most amazing collection of short stories I have ever read. If that's no great justification for you, think about it this way: you waste your time reading these blogs, what's the harm in wasting a few hours reading actual published works.

2. I will never discuss clients by name or initials. Litigants will always be called: "The Judge," "the client," the "husband," the "father," the "wife," the "mother," the "adverse client," or the "adversary."

3. The Soviets, perhaps better than any other nation that practiced espionage, understood the power of sex as a motivator.

4. Please don't be offended about this discussion of sex. This, if you are interested at all in what sort of law I do, is what I do. I deal with sex and all its repercussions. I deal with other things too, but somehow it always seems to come back to this.

5. I litigate and try to stop domestic violence, and I end unhappy situations. I become a social enemy. Hitmen and vicious killers like Al Capone are made into legends. Go figure.

6. "Hey Dad?"
"Mmm-hmm?"
"I don't think Flounder [my affectionate {honest} nickname for my brother] is feeling too good."
"Is he bleeding?"
"No"
"Okay, the game will be over in four innings. He'll be fine."

updated 7/31/03 - removed initials, inserted pseudonyms

Comments

[Mel]

i needn sex

[viagra]

In the ancient era, the viagra influence was nowhere to be found as the erectile dysfunction medication Viagra didn’t came into being at that time. Specific details on impotence and pre-viagra age inform us that in that period men relied on Unani, Chinese, Herbal and other medications to treat their erectile dysfunction. But with the arrival of the modern age, Viagra was manufactured and approved by the FDA (Food and Drugs Administration) as an effective treatment of erectile dysfunction and after that the drug emerged extremely successful in treating impotence in modern society. Other than erectile dysfunction, Viagra has also evolved as an effective medicine to treat pulmonary hypertension and other ailments and this has further increased the popularity of viagra in global society