Since I’m such an unrepentant scumbag, I have pretty slim pickings when it comes to friends; decent, hard-working, attractive types don’t want to consort with me. I can trick them for about fifteen or twenty minutes by putting my napkin on my lap or some shit but then I end up in a dumpster screaming about injustice and doing whippets. And nobody wants to see that.
Anyway, I know this girl who’s a total bullshit artist but I hang out with her sometimes because I can’t do better. She sucks because she’s such a liar, but she’ll throw in for whippets. One night at the bar we were sitting around talking about Sex & the City (which I’ve never seen but I understand is about a bunch of venal harpies who suck the essence out of men to sustain their horrifying self-indulgence) and she was talking about how the lead harpy always wears a bra in her sex scenes because she had some kind of no-nudity clause in her contract.
At first I was like, “I can’t believe I’ve sunk so slow that I’m listening to some girl talk about Sex & the City because no one will be friends with me and I can’t face the crippling despair wrought by natural loneliness.” Then I was like, “How the fuck was that show on for so long?” Then I put on my SEX WRITER HAT (I hot-glued a bunch of hot dogs to a sombrer0) and was like, “Do you wear clothes when you have sex?”
She replied, “Yes, of course, don’t you?”
I’ve never had sex (I hear it’s awesome) but I pressed. “Clothes? Isn’t sex traditionally had with one’s clothes removed?” She fumbled a bit and I could tell she was getting kind of awkward, maybe because that’s a pretty personal question or maybe because I’m off-putting.
After some deliberation, Bullshit Artist explained that she liked the “urgency” of sex with clothes on.
First question: is this a thing?
Second question: Stop lying.
I tried getting her to elucidate but she couldn’t so finally I was like, “Holy shit, is this a lie women tell themselves? That sex with clothes on is somehow hot… because their clothes are on?”
The reasonable half (quarter) (fifth) of my brain was like, That actually may make sense. People kind of look more naked when their underwear is down but not off, I get that.
The rest of my brain blurted out, “Wait a minute. I’ve seen your boyfriend. He wears board shorts and goes to Burning Man. What kind of lie about urgent needs to fuck could you possibly weave yourself under?!” then, realization dawning, I said, “You do it to hide your shameful body, don’t you!”
After a manageable bout of crying she agreed that, yes, the line about urgency was total horseshit and she owns a bunch of teddies and babydolls because she can’t deal with the sight of her breasts flapping about like those decorative cylinder streamers you always see in front of car dealerships.
So, my question is, does lingerie exist not because men are into frilly underthings, but because women don’t want men to see all their flaws? Like, sure that corset makes your waist look narrow but it also hides that starburst of stretch marks you’ve had since puberty?
Because my own stomach looks like Tom Selleck’s face, I concluded this was genius and that perhaps my lifelong struggle with people refusing to fuck me had nothing to do with my awful personality or putrid countenance, but instead everything to do with my ignorance of flaw-concealing sex costumes.
This is not the reason no one will fuck me.
Then a whole scenario played out in my head: first I would enter a store, find a garter belt or corset, then I would put it on, then I would steal it because stealing is fucking fun, then I would go to the nearest bar and take home the first be’soul-patched loser I could trick into having loads of regrettable anonymous sex! And for the first time I would be confident and beautiful because my hideous body would be twisted, tucked and folded beyond recognition under forgiving lingerie!
And then I realized that even if my body could fold into a magical origami fuck swan, I’d know in my heart that beneath all the clean lines and constricted movements, I’d still be the same hideous unfuckable troll. The problem, I realized, is one deeper than can be solved by cheaply-made lace and polyester Huggies, it actually extends to genuine body acceptance and if I really want to have sex with someone, I should probably feel comfortable with myself first. And my body.
So, after this overwrought vision quest played out and I realized Bullshit Artist was still crying, I was like, “Wait, Bullshit Artist, maybe if we loved ourselves and were comfortable with our bodies, we wouldn’t have regrettable sex with shitty dudes whose only want in life is to go back in time and see Sublime live!”
And that’s how I learned that you have to love yourself because if you don’t you might fuck lame dudes. I also learned–and this is perhaps the more substantive lesson–that instead of hiding my Tom Selleck belly, I should buy a cropped Hawaiian shirt and fake mustache and run around like Magnum PI burst out of Magnum PI’s stomach.
And that is how I’ll find my prince.
