Thursday, January 08, 2004

Less a(ttra)ctive

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a friend of mine, a celebrated writer and fellatio novice who is, despite getting a late start on the hobby, quickly mastering the rudiments and, apparently, taking every opportunity to refine the craft.

Naturally, I applaud his industry and initiative. I think I may even have mentioned once or twice looking forward to contributing to his research into this most practical of arts.

Anyway, in the course of conversation, he raised the topic of the dreaded "gag reflex" and means by which to mitigate it. Without a second's hesitation, I reeled off two bits of advice. First, I said, like anything, practice is essential. With time and repetition, nearly anything becomes easier and more comfortably accomplished. This is as true of mansex as it is of multiplication tables.

Second, I quickly added, the gag reflex is "less active" in the morning, suggesting yet another in the long list of pleasures to be derived from wake-up sex.

Now, I think the speed with which my answer came may have given it some credence, some mantle of authority, like a long-established fact that lives on the forebrain and waits to be recited. The trouble is, I have no idea if it's true, physiologically speaking.

I know, you're not supposed to believe everything you read and certainly, that's seldom a problem for me, since I rarely even retain most of what I read. But the "fact" that the tendency to choke up a bit when things aren't proceeding down one's gullet as smoothly as they might be is less pronounced in the early hours of daylight? That's something I first read (or, as will quickly be made plain, misread) almost 20 years ago.

It was right there in black and white on the pages of The Joy of Gay Sex, the original 1977 edition, prized today not for its subject matter, much of which was either laughably obvious or dangerously incorrect, but for it's lavish and artistic -- no, really! -- illustrations. Subsequent editions of the volume, which is still in print, have retained too much of the outdated original text and all but eliminated the beautifully rendered pictures and diagrams. I don't recommend it as a primer.

I see that I made generous notes on my reading in my personal journal from the era and, despite having already more or less grasped and in some cases carried out the basics of the operation, I clearly learned a lot from the book.

It was the summer of 1985 and a few weeks before, I'd walked into the Waldenbooks of a suburban shopping mall and, before continuing on to the arcade where I'd spend the rest on futile round after round of Dragon's Lair, I marched up to the counter, bold as brass and plunked down a week's lawnmowing wages to buy it. I still shudder a little bit at the relative courage that required of me, and I still marvel that such a book was even stocked in the, I thought, unenlightened backwoods of northeast Missouri.

Anyway, that's what it said, along with a whole host of other things: "The gag reflex tends to be less active in the morning." I would have taken that knowledge and added it to the growing register of things I knew about who I was and what I very definitely wanted but for one small detail.

I've told you what it said. What I read, however, was: "The gag reflex tends to be less attractive in the morning."

I am chagrined to admit that, because a couple of years later I lent the book to a friend in Texas and it was never returned, it was almost 10 years before I ran across a copy of the book in a secondhand shop in Chicago, reread the passage in question and discovered my error. Yes, although it may tarnish my reputation as a cultural and sexual sophisticate, I spent my late teens and early 20s believing that kecking a bit while sucking cock was an unwelcome foible first thing in the A.M. but, just perhaps, considered excusable after sundown.

The thing is, now that I put it all down in words, I'm not entirely sure that both interpretations don't have some merit.