skin and mind

Mentor: Just say whatever comes to mind - about love or sex or desire.

Man: Well, if you're not getting much in the way of sex, you tend to overvalue it.

Mentor: What about the Pope? I presume he doesn't get much sex. You think that holds true for him?

Man: Mmmm. I don't know. You're right to puncture my claim though. I watched a program once about a mathematical genius. He was homeless. He spent his life dossing down at the homes of other mathematicians, travelling around the country like that - in the USA I think - and collaborating with these other mathematicians to write papers. He had a record number of mathematical papers with his name on them. That was his life, pure mathematics. No sex whatsoever. It almost brings tears to my eyes, such innocence, if that's what it is. I can't recall a time when I didn't think of others sexually. It was happening even before I knew about sex. 

Mentor: How do you mean?

Man: I mean, I thought of girls, I thought of boys, and my penis got bigger and stiffer and defied gravity, but I didn't know a penis was for anything other than peeing. 

Mentor: So tell me about those early thoughts.

Man: I was drawn to kids with beautiful skin, it didn't matter whether they were male or female - it matters now incidentally, nowadays I'm exclusively heterosexual. I loved the look of it, their skin, its tautness over bone, its softness at the cheeks, the fine hair on arms. I loved the feel of it when we played together, the warmth of it, the shifting tones under different lights. I would stretch out in my bed and imagine the sheets were my playmates' skin. I wanted to hold them, to cuddle them, to lie with them skin to skin, just barely touching, or not, like breath. Actually they weren't my playmates, most of them. They were kids I wanted to be my playmates. 

Mentor: How old were you when you had these thoughts?

Man: Oh these are thoroughly unreliable memories, if not downright lies. No, not lies, but you know how time distorts. In other words, I can't answer that question.

Mentor: How did you feel about thinking this way? Did you feel guilty?

Man: Deliciously guilty no doubt. I do remember the intensity of the feeling at times, thinking how fantastic to be alive and to give yourself up to these sensations. They made me think of my amazing mind, how it can take something experienced and bring it back to life through memory and imagination, give it an even more extended, more intense life than it originally had. The mind - they call it the problem of consciousness - that was probably the first intellectual concept I grappled with - though of course, the mind wasn't a problem to me, more of a wonder. They should call it the wonder of consciousness. It was a great haven for me. My external life has always tended to pale in comparison.