In Celebration of Being Off the Pill

I am horrible at remembering to schedule an appointment with my gynocologist before my prescription for birth control pills runs out. I know planning my yearly spin in the medical stirrups far in advance means my period will coencide with the visit, so I always think I’ll remember to set a date a few months before I run out of hormones. Yet without fail, every year I forget until a pissed off CVS pharmacist is reminding me I’m due at the doctor.

With the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I haven’t gotten around to making an appointment yet, so I’m currently living life off the pill. For those of you out there who haven’t made the switch to the pill or haven’t lived with a woman who has, it’s an interesting experience.

I first started on the pill because I was having horrible acne and heavy periods, but grew to love it when I was having sex on the regular. Yes, there are many things that can cause that method of birth control to backfire, but on the whole it’s effective at preventing a baby, and saves you from having to fumble with a condom once you’re in a committed relationship.

But there are downsides the chatty women on the Yaz commercials neglect to mention. Namely: The pill ruins my horny. Three days after my body realized no more hormones would be forthcoming, I was chatting with a guy I find attractive. With a smile, he invited me to a party. Like a junior high girl who just got asked to go steady, I’m wetter than Lake Superior.

My head was filled with visions of him kissing me in a dark corner, us leaving together, me fumbling, lust-drunk and stupid, with my keys as he walks me up the stairs to my bedroom. It was all I could do to control the flush in my face and refrain from asking him to take me home right then and there.

It’s been happening more often lately. Cute guy on the train? I’m envisioning throwing my legs over his lap and grinding him as people look on in horror. Sex scene on TV? I’m feigning exaustion and breaking out the vibrator. And while those thoughts occurred to me while on the pill, they’re much more vivid and get my juices flowing far faster than when I was chemically infertile.

So, boys: As long as you don’t mind putting on a rubber and can get past the acne and heavy periods, now is a great time to get with me.

The Good Times Are Killing Me

Sorry for the lack of content in the past few days—the holiday season has been seriously testing my commitment to being a lush. Every night for the past few nights has found me surrounded by empties, chatting with friends I have not seen for months. I think today will find me detoxing in advance of New Year's Eve.

Unless, of course, you're buying a round. BUT I'M ONLY HAVING ONE.

Please Stand So Close To Me

Look, I'm no sicko, but I have a hard time conjuring any sympathy for the thirteen year old dude who was nailing his rather hot, twentysomething teacher. Call me an ass, a bastard, a Yankees fan, whatever. I just can't feel bad for the kid.

Here's the thing: When I was thirteen years old, the closest thing I got to female flesh was when Sister Ella Francis whacked me in the neck with a chalkboard eraser. Meanwhile, this kid's living his own private Aerosmith video. Not to mention the fact that they banged at least a couple hundred times--according to her, "on couches, on kitchen floors, sometimes while her husband slept upstairs"--meaning this lad saw more action in the fifth grade than I saw throughout the past ten years combined. As a former thirteen year old boy, I can honestly say we could have used more teachers like her back in the day.

Hell, put the finishing touches on that time machine and I'll gladly go back and swap places with the kid. Until then, according to the aforelinked article, the teacher has been sprung from house arrest to visit her mom in Rhode Island for the holidays. That means for the next couple days, you'll find me hanging in the finest arcades and skate parks throughout The Ocean State, dressed and acting as young as I can pull off, in the hopes she might be trolling for new blood.

But I Wish He'd Get Into Me

Recently, I've been trying to get a paramour of mine to visit on the regular/become an actual, honest-to-God boyfriend. We've been grabbing clandestine kisses while waiting for the bus home for months, but he only recently got out of his halfhearted relationship. I figured this meant all systems were go. I made plans. We had drinks, he told me he was still not adjusted to being single. Then he nibbled on my earlobe as the bus pulled up.

Fast forward a month, and I haven't seen him despite practically begging him to hang out, drink, and stick his tongue in my mouth. He keeps saying he's busy at work. And before you Sex and the City fans start dropping that He's Just Not That Into You knowledge on me, you should know that he actually is very busy at work. (Thanks for the help, Facebook Stalking!)

That said. I have seen guys go without sleep for a week to have a date with a woman they really want to see. They will drive hundreds of miles in the hopes of even getting an eyeful of cleavage across the table. If he really dug me as much as I want him to, and as much as I deserve to be dug, he'd crawl to the bus stop to meet up with me.

It's time to go back to the drawing board, I guess.

Bad For You

It is, apparently, some cruel law of the universe that the most psychotic women who wander into my life must also be the most god-almighty fantastic in bed.

The first night I met Danni, she made the hair on the back of my neck stand up; that whine of a voice, the violent temper, the spitting, and the insistence on speaking like a female rap star. But she also came equipped with that body, god damn her. And ten beers later, when she was talking with her mouth dangerously close to my face and noting matter-of-factly that she wasn't wearing underwear, I was instantly reduced to a box of Feldman's Modeling Clay.

Later that night, when she delivered unto me a fucking that almost stopped my heart cold, I knew I was in trouble. Because the male mind cares not if a woman starts fights with bartenders or throws chairs in restaurants or tells you that your mother is a "twatburger" [all things she did within the first week I knew her, mind you]. Because we know that the screwing which will be levied after all of this anger has subsided will be an otherwordly experience. And that's its own reward.

I remember the nights I'd sit up, pacing around around her small apartment while she slept off the fuckathon, thinking I could change her. "Niceness begets niceness," I thought. So I tried. And it failed. Miserably. The night she spit beer in my best friend's face [after an argument over, of all things, calling plans], I realized that if I wanted to keep my sanity -- not to mention my friends and family -- I'd have to leave this sex behind.

So I did. And after the death threats subsided, I started seeing some fairly "normal" women again. Women who didn't scream at my relatives, or carry knives in their purses, or try to burn the back of my neck with a lit cigarette.

Also: Women who didn't fuck near as good as Danni.

Unfortunately.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Here on the East Coast, it's threatening to snow today. A lot. Which sucks, but it's the price you pay for living on the side of the country that's less prone to earthquakes and large fires.

However. I would be much obliged if someone would come over here and snuggle with me on the couch while it's happening.

It's not an unusual phenomenon to get busy while you're snowed in. Many hospitals see an increase in the number of babies born about nine months after a major storm. And who can blame people for getting it on when you can't leave the house? You can play Rock Band for only so long. There are only so many reality TV marathons you can watch. Sometimes the heat goes out, and you've got to stay warm somehow. What better way than by sexing the one you love (or love to sex)?

Sadly, I'm living single right now, so I'm looking at a night in front of the Christmas tree wrapped up in my Snuggie, not wrapped up in a man. Like many people flock to the Home Depot to load up on supplies, I envision I'll be making booty calls when the first flakes fall to make sure I have someone to get me through the storm.

There's No Sex in the Copy Room. None.

Oh, work holiday party. How I loathe and love you.

This year found me at the work party chatting up a colleague who left years ago to move closer to his parents. He's (biologically) old enough to be my father. He's married. But the cadence of his voice and the twinkle in his eye melts me into a puddle by the time the open bar begins to shut down. He grabs me by my waist and pulls me close to him, asking me why I'm there by myself.

"No date this year?" he asks.

"When do I ever have a date?" I ask him rhetorically, eyes twinkling. He produces an exaggerated pout as I whirl away from him, beer in hand. I smile. We talk about music and television and how much work has sucked in the past year.

But now I'm home, alone, and I can't help but think about the fullness of his lips, the way his hand felt on my hips, and the way he eyed the cleavage visible in my dress. All I wanted was to take him home with me. But now I'm here. Alone. Awesome.

Breaking Them In

Back in college, I dated a girl I called "the school teacher." I called her this because, whenever we got busy, she'd map out every stage of the process in a gentle, almost instructive voice.

"Now I'm going to stroke your cock," she'd say, and start feeling up the Captain. "Now I'm going to caress your balls," she'd note, and begin fondling the jublees. "Now you're going to kiss my stomach." "Now I'm going to blow you." "Now you're going to lick my nipples." And so on and so forth.

After a while, sex started feeling like some bizarre educational video. So I tried to work on her inner vixen. Drag her down to the gutter along with me, so to speak.

"You can say other things," I'd tell her. "You can get a little dirty with it if you want to talk."

But nothing doing. So it was months of, "Now I'm going to touch you." "Now you're going to grab my wrists." "Now I'm going to sit on your face." Not complaining, mind you. The sex was pretty good. But I kept trying to crack the seal, unleash the inner porn star that I suspected was screaming to break out of her.

I made some progress over the summer, but the Master Plan never fully blossomed. Our romance ended before the start of the next semester, but we remained close friends.

I bring her up because I saw her again this past weekend at a friend's Christmas gathering. She had her fiance with her, and toward the end of the night, when the beer was flowing freely and the menfolk had retired to the mancave in the basement, Mr. Fiance started talking up his sexploits with my former.

I wasn't sure if she'd told him anything about our past; I suspected she hadn't since it was almost eons ago. So I kept it on the down-low, preferring to sit back and soak it all in. Especially the part where he noted that he's sometimes shocked by what comes out of her mouth.

Most recently, he explained, in the heat of passion, she blurted, "Better get that tongue ready, bitch, because you are going to suck me until I fucking say you're done."

A curious thing to bring up, for sure. But I just kinda smiled, convincing myself that somehow, I helped bring that along.

Everybody Expects the Christmas Inquisition

As the holiday season creeps closer, I know it will soon be time to sit down with the family and endure the Christmas Inquisition. It comes midway through my grandmother's fourth glass of wine.

"So. Ginger. Are you seeing anyone?"

I try to keep the hairs on the back of my neck from rising, because her finely-tuned mothering sensors will detect that she's gotten under my skin. My mother will find a very interesting spot on the wall to examine. My male relations will beat feet into the living room to catch some football.

My mind races. The first thing that comes into my mind is, "Why yes. I am seeing several someones. There's the guy who likes to get beers, make out on the subway platform, and never asks me to go home with him. There's the married guy who likes to hear about all my conquests and relive his glory days by telling me how he'd make my toes curl—if he could. There's my myriad guy friends who love to let their hand linger on the small of my back when their girlfriends aren't looking. But am I seeing anyone in the sense that he's going to come back here and submit to a DNA screening and fertility test to see if we'd make adorable grandchildren for you?"

I sip my wine, swallow my pride along with it, and simply say "No."

There But For the Grace of God Goes Our Sexting

As the Tiger Woods Fucks Everything That Serves Pancakes or Blowjobs controversy continues, I grow more weary of the story. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't care who the dude is shagging on the side. That's a problem for his wife (and the myriad women he was sexxin' without a condom) to deal with.

But the thing that does scare me is the idea that one's private text messages can be published in a gossip rag. This week's Us ran an entire two-page spread of select exchanges between the golfer and one of his paramours.

I am the first to admit that when I'm a few beers in, I like to take out the phone and start sending suggestive messages around. Hey, I'm thinking about you. Hey, what are you doing later? Hey, I'm not wearing pants. Some mornings, I blink the martini haze off my eyes, grab the phone, and blush when I read what I sent out at the apex of my buzz. Then I realize how the guy in my bed got there.

Who among us hasn't sent a dirty thought that would sound maudlin and gross to anybody else who read it? A large part of the magic in having a significant other or fuckbuddy or whatever you're up to is that secret language that no one else understands but you. It's comical to read that Tiger wanted his ladyfriend to "send [him] something very naughty" because it's not our words.

And sure, you and I are just some faceless cubicle monkeys who hope to get a nice vacation before we go to the old folks home, but in these days of Facebook and Twitter and Sexting and whatever else the kids are inventing, whose to say some crazy ex or scorned lover won't start a Facebook group dedicated to posting the hundreds of pet-name-laden messages you once sent their way?

The hell with this. I'm going to start fucking the Amish.

My Plan to Live Forever

Despite my happy-go-lucky exterior and robust appetite for threesomes, I'm a man who spends a lot of time pondering my mortality. Particularly concerning is the fact that prostate cancer has downed a good sum of the men in my family and the treatment options for said disease can cause impotence and incontinence--two things that would almost certainly hamper my love life.

So how fucking happy was I to learn that the best measures a guy can take to protect himself from an exploding prostate include jerking off and drinking beer.

In other words, the two activities I commit a sizable chunk of my time to are actually helping to save my life. Bonus!

Just check these magical statistics from an Australian study:

Frequent self-pleasuring could protect against the most common kind of cancer. The protective effect is greatest while men are in their twenties: those who had ejaculated more than five times per week in their twenties, for instance, were one-third less likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer later in life.

Five times a week? Dudes, try five times a day. In fact, I may be the only guy in the world who's ever had to give the "not tonight, I've got a headache" speech to my own right hand.

And for the imbibers out there, the news gets even better, according to a German study:

Experiments have shown that xanthohumol, a compound derived from the hops in beer, blocks a chemical reaction that can lead to the development of cancer.

It's enough to beg the question: who's funding these studies and what will be the next prostate cancer miracle cure they discover? Messing about with hookers? Dry humping a mattress? Watching football and eating Pringles in an easy chair while a couple hot chicks make out between quarters?

Whatever the case, I'm not one to refute such findings. So the next time you see me locking myself in my room with a six pack and stack of Sinnamon Love DVDs, understand that I'm not merely fretting away the hours getting drunk and whackin' off. I'm saving my life!

I'll give your regards to the twenty-second century, suckers!

And Now, More Than You Ever Needed to Know About Ginger

I am one of those women whose charms lie mainly in the details. While I like to think I'm a pretty good-looking lady, most of the men I've been with cite things I never even considered to be my strong suits as my best points. I have long fingers and toes. Adorable dimples.

And, apparently, a good smell. You know. Down there.

I haven't smelled a lot (any) women in my time, so I have no expertise here. But I like my smell. I never had any hang-ups about a guy putting his face in my lap. Unless my Mom/his wife was about to come into the room, I actually enjoy the funk that two people create.

But. Unless I've taken up one hell of a sleep-smoking habit, I've developed a nasty cough over the past couple of weeks. In the hopes of breaking up the mucus party in my lungs, I've been taking Mucinex regularly. You know. The stuff with the gruff talking booger in the ads. And while the medicine is helping, it has an unusual side effect.

My smell is all wrong. It's almost... plastic-like. And much, much stronger than usual. Like, to the point where I turned a guy down because of it.

As with all matters involving a strong odor emanating from my most sacred of cavities, I did some furtive Googling. Apparently, I am not the only one with this issue. Good to know.

But it was the ancillary knowledge I gleaned from this search that has me worried.

[S]ome women fail to produce adequate amounts of this protective cervical mucus making conception difficult. Luckily, there are ways you can increase cervical mucus production and possibly get pregnant more quickly and easily!... Take a cough medicine containing guaifenesin. Guaifenesin is an expectorant and can be used to increase cervical mucus by loosening and thinning it.

I'll take the gruff booger in my lungs over the human being taking up residence in my uterus any day, thanks.

Friday Night Follies

As usual, Friday night found me at the bar, mainlining Guinness to erase the perils of the workweek from my memory. After a couple of pints, I noticed a fairly attractive guy checking me out. Button-down shirt, kinda geeky, chatting amicably with his friends. I made eyes at him. He made eyes at me. I turned my back to him and bopped along to to the music. I rotated again and reestablished eye contact.

This went on for hours. Finally, when I approached the bar for my fifth pint, he sidled up to me. He put his empty Bud Lite on the bar. He made eye contact.

"Hi," he said.

"Hey," I purred back.

He smiled, walked away, put on his coat, and strolled out the door.

Yet another Christmas without anyone to bring home to the parents. Goddammit.

In the Rough

Here's the thing: I don't give a shit where Tiger Woods is stashing his clubs at the end of the day.

I didn't even know the guy had crashed his car because I was in a news blackout for most of the Thanksgiving weekend (read: I was so drunk on tryptophan and cheap wine I couldn't read words on my phone). When I sobered up and caught up on the headlines, I thought Huh. Tiger Woods crashed his car. The airbags didn't go off, but his wife was so panicked to free him from this low-speed wreck she broke his windows? She probably found out he was cheating on her and was out for blood.

Lo and behold, two days later he gives us the vague "I am sorry for my transgressions" statement. And thus, a million golf-themed double entendre headlines were born.

The way I see it, this is the problem of approximately 10 people in the entire world—Tiger, his wife, his two kids, and the women he slept with. There are thousands of more serious and more compelling stories than that of a wealthy philandering husband. Like, you know, denying an entire state's gay residents the right to marry and cheat on their spouses.

Also: Never leave a voicemail. I doubt Tiger will do a PSA on that one, but he should.

And The Horse You Rode In On

I get roughly 400 e-mails a day from sites offering "Teen Girls Fucking Sheep" and "Horny MILF Taking It Out On The Family Dog" and "Dr. Phil Making a Pizza, Shirtless."

Needless to say, I don't click on any of them, not even out of sick curiosity.

But somebody's gotta be buying that shit. The question is, who? Who needs to see a woman blowing a horse? Especially if it's an ex-girlfriend of mine who swears that the horse is just an old friend who she's helping through a difficult time.

Myself, I just don't get it. Once, during a high school party, I saw a girl jack off a dog, and it was the single grossest thing I've ever witnessed [never mind the fact that the dog saw more action in that night than I'd had in a month]. That kinda turned me off to animal porn right there. Of course, I can't even watch the money shots in a porno featuring humans. Hey, call me crazy, I don't like watching another guy shoot his load; dogs, even less so.

Perhaps it's just the fascination of the abomination that attracts people to these flicks. But what of the girls who star in them? I know times are tough, with the recession and all, and pride always takes a backseat to three square meals a day. But if you absolutely, positively had to get into porno, wouldn't you try to get into the branch that focuses on human-on-human fucking? Wouldn't that just make more sense? I mean, if I was a chick, I'd rather be the meat in a Wilford Brimley/John Madden sandwich than take it up the ass from a camel.

But that's just me.

Undergrad Undergarments

Like most Americans, I spent the majority of the post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping. At one store, I asked a sales girl for help. The college-aged girl strolled to me on her high heels, the hems of her pants swinging around her ankles. She didn't seem to have the answer, so she called over the manager.

"Do you have a walkie-talkie?" The manager asked. The clerk snapped her gum, rolled her eyes, and bent over to fetch the walkie-talkie from under the counter. In the process, she gave her boss (and me) the full view of her G-string. From the small mesh heart with a charm on it at the top of her crack to the first inch of the thong disappearing into her pants.

I took my eyes off the girl's underwear and moved them to the next natural landing space—her managers' face. In the split second I kept my eyes there, I saw his eyes widen in horror as he recognized he was an older gentleman getting a face full of undergrad undergarments. The thought of sweet Jesus I never wanted to see that O God was telegraphed across his pupils. I moved my eyes before any hint of delight could register in his face.

And that is why my mother isn't getting a GPS for Christmas.