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 I
recently watched a rerun (for the nth time) of one of
the Sex and the City seasons where Carrie Bradshaw is
feeling the rush of 'the first date' with Jack Berger,
a charming author who she meets rather magically at
her publisher's office while trying to negotiate her
book deal, and he sweeps her off her feet. Sparks fly,
and she has 'that' feeling about him. They meet again,
at her book launch. Everything is all-new, all-sexciting,
all waiting to be explored. They plan their first date
after endless tentative voice messages, and her endless
agonizing on what to wear. They do movies, popcorn,
candy and crosswords. They go on lots of dinner-dates,
she buys six outfits(all returnable!) every time she
meets him, they are like quintessential lovers-in-love,
they kiss at restaurants till the lights go out, the
shutters are down, and they are asked to leave, go to
parks, talk, laugh, kiss some more, can't keep their
hands off each other, and then eventually they go to
bed…and then, all is not well. Carrie feels nothing.
She just doesn't get it. Not talking about it to her
girlfriends is her first impulse. So when they pop the
inevitable, "Have you buggared Berger?" she
is a trifle embarrassed.
"You mean he can't get it up?" says one
"Does he know what he is doing?" says another.
"No," she screams. "He knows what he
is doing, he knows his way around, he can get it up.
Except it was a disaster. It's too…. quiet. There
is no sexual chemistry in bed."
"May be you need to work on it," says the
ever optimistic Charlotte.
"But I have never had to work on it with someone
I really fancied," says Carrie.
"We are so good together everywhere else-in movies,
at restaurants, on the street. But in bed, it's like
nothing." Carrie is justifiably confused. Should
she talk it out with him?
Sex goddess Samantha thinks otherwise. "If it isn't
going good, it doesn't pay to say it isn't. You never
talk about these things. You just do things differently,
you shuffle things around, you change stuff." Red
furry boots. Tarty lingerie. Alcohol. All Samantha's
ideas.
But what Carrie is most worried about is the fact that
Jack could actually be thinking it's good if she doesn't
say otherwise. She is horrified by the thought.
She still goes ahead and buys red fur shoes, tarty pink
lingerie and literally puts her boobies on the table
at dinner on their next date, drinks a glass of wine
too many, suitably unnerving him, and then gets ready
for a night of passion as she puts on her red fur shoes,
dawdling about in her bedroom. Needless to say, he passes
out….and so does she.
Carrie had just been with a good-on-paper-bad-in-bed
guy. What she feels hopeless about is that she didn't
see it coming. That he was so right for her in every
other way. That she really fancied him and feels wretched
about dumping him for his dismal performance in the
sack.
The
universe of men is broadly divided into three:
Good-on-paper-bad-in-bed
Bad-on paper-good in bed
Bad-on-paper-bad-in-bed…
Don't ask me why things are so skewed. They are just
like that. You are not meant to have it all. Yes, there
is an infinitesimal chunk of good-on paper-good-in-bed
guys that got hooked to women you hate some decades
ago. It is a question one must post to the universe-when
everything else is all-right, what makes the sex not
so all-right? Or alternatively, when everything else
is not so all right, why is the sex always great?
Sexual
dynamics is a strange thing-it has nothing to do with
looks, or intellect or compatibility. It either works
or it doesn't. And when it doesn't, it is usually pretty
bad. Which brings me to the point of - do men really
know when they are not good enough? Or do you have to
do the dirty job of telling them?
And why is talking in bed so over-emphasized, even though
most of it is so over-dramatized, and under-lit that
you don't really know whether you are saying what you
mean or meaning what you say.
But then, a little bit of acting never did much harm
to anyone, did it?
The question is, if all else is well, but the moves
in bed aren't, is it enough cause for worry? We have
all been buggared by incomprehensible sexual episodes
which most of us are too smug to admit, because we think
it is reflective of our skills or the lack thereof.
It is true. You can change your bank balance, but changing
the man might involve more complication…..
There
are so many variables in the act of sex:
The act-is it great or is it not?
If it isn't - do you tell him or do you not?
If you do - does he hurt or does he not?
If he does- does he still sleep with you, or does he
not?
If he doesn't -does it get better or does it not?
It's a wonder how people end up having so much sex at
all. May be they all have ironed out their issues. Or
they are just going through the motions.
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