Serena and I had a hiccup.
She told me about a client of hers. She does sex work. He wanted her to treat him like her puppy. He wanted to wear what she referred to charmingly in her second language as a “dog necklace.”
He wanted to rub on her leg, to suck on her toes.
I sent her a link to this post, and it sent us down an unfortunate rabbit hole, one in which I allowed her to compare herself to Veronique and to all the other women who have delighted in sending me mountains of porn.
Serena wants to please me.
She wants to satisfy me fully.
She doesn’t understand that satisfying me fully is simply not a realistic goal, not because of anything about her, not even really because of anything about me, but because of the realities of human existence.
Because no two people are perfect for each other. Because no two people can give one another 100% of what each of the other wants. Because people are different, and difference is pain.
I’ve written tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of words about women I’ve had sex with over the last fifteen years or so. Women who have pleased me. Women who have made me suffer. Women who’ve done both.
Women I’ve pined for.
Women who’ve pined for me.
Women I’ve chased.
Women I’ve lost.
One of the occupational hazards of writing a blog is that the vast majority of women I’ve had relationships with in the last fifteen years have had the opportunity (or the challenge) of being able to read about my relationships with dozens of other women.
Almost inevitably, this leads them to compare themselves to those other women, and worse, to compare the words I write about them to the words I’ve written about other women.
The thing is, though, and I’ve written about this dozens of times, while I’ve never written a word here that isn’t true, while I mean every word I’ve ever written about every woman, about every sexual encounter, it’s a terrible mistake to imagine that all that I’ve written represents all that I’ve thought, or all that I’ve felt.
What inspires me to write is very different from what pleases me or makes me feel good.
In general, when I write the most, it’s because my conflicts are flaring. When I’m not feeling conflicted, I write far less. When I’m not feeling troubled, I write far less. When I’m happiest, I write the least of all.
Perversely, this means that the women who please me the most end up having the fewest words written about them, or at least, once the relationship kicks into overdrive, the writing tends to abate. What motivates me to write sometimes is ardor, sometimes is anticipation, but mostly it’s some combination of uncertainty and fear and anxiety and anger.