How to do what’s wrong right
HOWARD LEWIS RUSSELL | Special Contributor
askhoward@dallasvoice.com
Dear Howard,
I don’t believe in sex addiction, but I think I’m overly fond of having sex. Does this make any sense? I’m 36, and somehow more sex-crazed now than when I was even 16. Trawling for quickies is the driving force in my life. Seeking out sex comes above food, it comes above career, and it comes above family. I spend my lunch hour at highway porno arcades. I moved to rural Texas from San Francisco for the explicit reason of slowing my libido down. That sure was a big mistake — heck, I now score sex more regularly living 30 miles outside of Dallas that
I ever did living just one block over from The Castro! The cruddy truth, Howard, is that I enjoy wham-bam sex with strangers, and don’t feel even one bit guilty, ashamed or remorseful. Why do you think this is?—Titillated By Too Many Men
Dear Tit-Too-Man,
First, let me praise you for chutzpah. Second, allow me to say that not just any hail-fellow perv can lay it all out there with barely so much as a flinch.
Personally, I’m with you to a point, Tit-Too — I don’t believe in sex addiction, either, per se. I think “sex addiction” to be a crock of manure concocted by too many pseudo-psycho therapists to keep them in Mercedes-Benzes.
That said, I do believe one can overdose on too much of a good thing (your move to rural Texas from titillating San Fran being in support of my argument). Naturally, where sex is concerned, if a little bit feels good, then a whole lot feels a whole lot better (at least in theory); however, it’s not 1982 anymore. There are repercussions out there these days that a shot of ol’ penicillin just can’t fix. I am the last moralist, God knows, but to quote that most famously self-destructive sybarite, Truman Capote, himself, “There is such a thing as life-saturation: the point when everything is pure effort and total repetition.” If nothing else, Tit-Too-Man, you may have reached “life-saturation” point.
Give it some thought.
Dear Howard,
I know your column is mainly for those who are emotionally downtrodden, but my situation is a little different and I’m interested, Ward, in what you have to say.
First, my stats: female, 52, lesbian, skinny. Yep, while most gal pals out there are constantly trying to shed those extra pounds, I’m forever trying to gain. Case in point, Ward, my high school yearbook nickname was, “Karen Carpetmuncher.” I wish there was some magical witchcraft by which Rosie’s extra heart-attack tonnage could be transferred to me. — K.C.
Dear K.C.,
I’m confused: Was there a question you wished to ask me, Karen, located somewhere within your backhanded, complimentary self-praising; or, were you merely trying to martyr-gloat that, at 52, you’ve still been able to retain, through no supposed effort nor exercise at all, the same lithe body you once boasted back in high school without actually succumbing to a self-induced, starvation heart attack thus far? And for future reference, there’s a “Ho” attached to the front of “Ward.”
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition November 2, 2012.