reality bites

Man: Yes, I suppose I wanted someone like myself, only smarter, though not too much smarter, and more beautiful - they could be infinitely more beautiful, I didn't mind that at all - and more outgoing, someone who could drag me outside of myself and bring me to the party. Someone who could draw out my best features, because of course inside my shy self was a brilliant wit and raconteur, a genius of language, an incisive, streetwise analyst, all that stuff. Someone who wasn't possessive either - I imagined us, this couple, to be great friends at the heart of a whole host of great friends, and we wouldn't be monogamous but we would be loyal to each other...

Mentor: You had this fantasy as a kid?

Man: By my teen years, yes. It was ridiculously far from my life as it was at the time. In fact I've never really come close to it. The closest I came, and it was still far, was around the time my first and only book came out, eleven years ago. The launch party, that was the closest to a taste of what might have been. Not that anything dramatic happened, just a lot of friendly, smart, happy people with myself and my wife at the centre. 

Mentor: So what happened? Why weren't you able to build on that?

Man: Well, I wasn't able to get my second book published, that was the first problem. But there were so many other things. My wife, who was several years older than myself, and a constant sufferer from chronic fatigue syndrome, and a woman of great practical knowledge and common sense and wit and sensitivity, was not, for all that, anything like the fantasy figure I'd too long contemplated - she was fundamentally monogamous for one thing, and I felt kind of trapped, and guilty. I knew she felt more strongly toward me than I felt toward her, but what we all fall for in another is never quite that other, but some version of ourselves that we want that other to be. I think that's why she fell for me, and to tell the truth I never really fell for her, I just drifted into acquiescing in the relationship, with a mixture of strong affection and guilt. Even marriage - I never wanted to marry, but I new she wanted it, she asked me to marry her but I refused. Then I asked her to marry me, to please her, because she'd been so kind and supportive to me, and my sexual relationship with her had been gentle and healing, after so many years in the sexual desert. It wasn't the great fantasy I'd yearned for but it was so so much better than nothing.

Mentor: And how is that relationship now?

Man: Well, we separated some years ago, but up until recently we maintained a close friendship. Then a few weeks ago she told me she wanted to see much less of me, and she informed various people by email that she was reverting to her maiden name - which I don't think she should ever have given up. 

fantasy pros and cons

Mentor: What about the present?

 

Man: The present? Well, obviously my present-day sex life is non-existent. Now, of course, I have the excuse of being middle-aged or beyond, and being borderline obese. In earlier times I blamed shyness and poverty. Of course, keeping sex in the head, and being fascinated with one's mind, can take its toll on the body. Neglect, disinterest. Your expectation of having something real happening, something that gives you more satisfaction than your fantasies, is so low that you can easily just let yourself go. Take that outré tub of lard, the Divine Marquis. 

 

Mentor: Yet Sade engaged in plenty of real, violent sex, in spite of his obesity, did he not?

Man: Nowhere near as much as he wrote about. And his writings were doubtless only a fraction of his fantasies. Nevertheless he did impose himself on others sexually, you're right about that. He argued that he had the right to use anybody as an object of his sexual pleasure, and that this was somehow natural, which of course is bullshit. You don't see too many animals fucking other animals to death, or whipping them to within an inch of their lives while masturbating feverishly, that's confined to humans, and very few of them. I've never had the gall to behave that way - not being one of the landed gentry.

 

Mentor: So you're content to continue with sex in the head?

 

Man: Certainly not. I'm very unhappy about it, but I see no obvious solution. 

 

Mentor: There are obvious solutions though, aren't there?

 

Man: You mean, going out and meeting women? Singles bars and that sort of thing? Are there really such things as singles bars by the way? If there are I'd be tempted to go to them, or I would've been before I got old and fat. 

 

Mentor: You’re not so old and fat, and there are many other ways to meet women. Special interest groups…

 

Man: Weight-watchers? Actually, I wonder if they have any sex addict meet-ups around town? No, I’m serious.

 

Mentor: Do you consider yourself a sex addict?

 

Man: Is it possible to be a celibate sex addict?

 

Mentor: Addicted to masturbation, yes, of course. 

Man: Well, I don't think I'm addicted to masturbation, frankly, I can do without it if I have to.

 

Of course, I never have to, so I don't. Do without, I mean.

 

Mentor: May I ask what you think about when you masturbate? 

 

Man: Better to ask who I think about. 

 

Mentor: Are you fixated on a particular person?

 

Man: At the moment, yes. It's not always that way, but it often is.

 

Mentor: Well I won't ask you about her. 

 

Man: Why not?

 

Mentor: It's more or less a given that a man becomes obsessed with a woman because he can't have her. So feeding the obsession isn't helpful. Let's talk about the kind of woman that attracts you in general.

 

Man: Very clever. But I will talk about her, I'll get there somehow. As to generalities, yes, let me take you back again, to my teen years, when I first thought about and fantasised about this....