I Am A Slut

It's recently come to my attention that even though I haven't had actual real-live sexual intercourse with another being in some time, I am a certifiable slut. First, I participated in a poll on Swoon.com (the Cond頎ast shillsite) that asked you to count the number of people you've slept with in your life. With many more (hopefully) active years left in me, the only thing close to my total was the "or more" category. Then this morning on the radio, the newscaster said that the average number of sex partners a woman has in her lifetime is four! Does anyone else find this number astonishingly low? The average for men is 12.4. Slightly higher, but still. . . . That number would maybe cover junior year of high school for most of the slutty boys I know.

Now I have taken a brief hiatus from making the beast with two backs because I foolishly fell in like with someone who is otherwise occupied. Making things worse is my heart's apparent inability to multitask, combined with the inexplicable hold it seems to be having over the rest of my body, rendering it utterly unable to get worked up over anybody but him. (I do hold out hope this phase will pass once a certain ex-fling rolls into town, just three days and seven-and-a-half hours from now.)

Anyway, I got this perfectly nice letter from a reader:

I'm ready to take the plunge in a not-quite-six-week-old relationship and sleep with my new, not-quite-full-fledged-boyfriend crush, but I want to make it something special. Light candles. Put on some music. Play up the romance. I sense he thinks this is silly at best and would prefer not to make such a big deal about it. Consequently I've become resistant and he's turning resentful. I'm afraid if I don't cultivate a more casual attitude, I might lose someone I'm really interested in. Should I give in? Or hold my ground?

Now this is a perfectly valid question. This woman is having a problem. She wants the flowers of romance and I can't get past the fact that she has already waited six weeks for actual penetration! Is anyone else shocked by this? I haven't waited six weeks to do anyone since the first time. And even then I only held out a brief 12 weeks! And I was a teenager! And I had an actual hymen and eternal damnation (thank you, Catholic school) to contend with as consequence!

So I did an informal poll. Over beers I asked my next-door neighbor, Maria, if she thought six weeks was a long time to wait before knocking boots. She shook her head firmly, "No, not at all." Because the world revolves around me me me, I asked her if she thought I was a slut. Again, she came through with a "no." She also added that perhaps if I had held out a little longer, chances are I would've wised up and not even bothered with some of the more loathsome losers who've passed through my sheets. Then my total might be down there with the nice girls. Ah, who wants to be a nice girl anyway?

I know I can always count on my buddy Travis to be completely disagreeable, so I posed the same questions to him. When I asked if he thought I was a slut, he looked up and smirked, "not anymore." Gee, thanks. Broaching the candles and romance that were the meat of my poor reader's question, this sensitive flower scoffed, "If I'm going to wait six weeks, I wanna see what I'm getting." When our friend Joe protested that candles were just fine, Travis added that they were good only for "ugly people" and they caused fires. "God only knows how many people are killed each year because ugly people insist on having sex by candlelight." Hmm, perhaps my friends aren't that helpful.

So here's the deal. Though it's been weeks since you wrote me, and man, I hope you two have already enjoyed the fruits of carnal desire by this late date, here's what I think: If you want Hallmark-card romance with this man, you're going to have to manufacture it yourself. Pick a date to do the deed and then go shopping. Get some candles, flowers, champagne, and whatever else constitutes romance in your world. I'd also recommend you find the Slut that Lurks Within and purchase some extremely hot lingerie (La Perla, not Victoria's Secret). There's no reason in the world to give Se�Stickinthemud advance warning on this either. Just invite him over and pounce. Believe me, he won't be thinking candles are so silly once you've got his dick in your mouth.

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