I figure if I'm going to insist that people write about sex for charity, then I should probably do the same. Obviously I'm not up for any of the prizing, but that shouldn't stop you from donating to RAINN and naming GBBMC:08 and my blog in the "donation in honor of" field. Okay, PSA over.
Now then. Yesterday morning I started my day by calling legendary porn star Nina Hartley (and it probably goes without saying, but just in case, that link is so NSFW.) I should probably preface this by saying that calling Nina is not an everyday occurrence (not anymore, anyway), and the last time I called her was probably about a year ago when I interviewed her for Hooking Up. Nevertheless, Nina has a memory like a steel trap.
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"Carly Milne!" she squealed when she answered the phone. "How are you! I haven't heard from you in ages!"
(Okay, so she has call display in addition to a steel-trap mind. That's beside the point.)
I discussed the business proposition I had for her, then we carried on to a quick catch-up session before she had to split for a shoot.
"Are things good?"
I nodded as if she could see me. "Yeah, they are."
"Good, are you seeing anyone?"
"No, not at the moment."
"What about sex?" she pressed. "Are you having any good sex at least?"
"Uh, no."
I was kind of hoping it would end there, but Nina her this mothering thing about her where she wants to know what the issue is and help you to fix it, so she dug a little deeper. "No sex? Why not?"
"Well, because I've pretty much been single and celibate for two years," I told her, hoping to rush into, But it's been great to chat with you, and I'll keep you posted on that other thing, okay?
No such luck.
"Awwwww, honey! I'm so sorry! We need to remedy that! There's no f*ck buddies on the horizon?"
I laughed. I think it's neat that she cares, but... but. But the thing of it is, I'd say it's been 98% my choice to lock it down. One percent goes to my ex, because he and I kind of locked ourselves away from one another six months before our relationship finally came to a close. The other 1% is because there has been a very minute number of men that I've met in the past two years that I would want to sleep with, but the moon and the stars haven't aligned to make it happen. Like, maybe they didn't want it to happen.
Or maybe it's that I didn't want it to happen. If you want to get technical, Operation Shutdown (as Adam calls it) has been going on for two years and (almost) two months now (NOT THAT I'M COUNTING), and I have to admit that I feel a certain amount of comfort in it. I'm actually okay with not having any sex right now. Do I miss it? Sometimes, sure. But I've been taking care of business as needed, and while I know that's no substitute for the "real thing," it's what suits me at the moment. Is it a protection thing to keep myself from getting hurt? Yeah, that's probably part of it too. And I'm not saying that I'm itching to make this into a six-year stint, but I also don't want to jump into anything just to de-virginize myself so that other people feel better that I'm active again.
The past two years have been an interesting growth period, and I'm really glad that sex didn't have to complicate it at all. It certainly didn't start that way. I went through a bit of a destructive phase where I thought I might devolve into sleeping with just about anyone in an effort to eradicate the emotional pain I was feeling, but when that feeling started coming up, I sequestered myself. And then came the traveling, which was awesome. But the bottom line is this: in two years, there is only one man that I've met that got me worked up enough to make me want to ride the arm of my couch like a triple-crown jockey. And I sort of feel like until I meet a man who does that and makes me want to get to know him better, it's not worth breaking my voluntary celibacy over.
Make sense? Good. Now go donate to RAINN because you pity me. ;)
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