Ask Harriet / Harriet Zanzibar
Dreading a Future of Animal Sex
I met this terrific guy. But I found out on our third date that his parents are into crazy sex stuff. Seriously crazy sex stuff, like, dressing up as farm animals and suckling each other, stuff like that.
So I don’t want to be a prude, or judge “Dave” on account of his parents, but all I could think of while he was telling me about this was, does this thing pass on to the next generation? By telling me this, was he prepping me at some level for his own disturbing revelations two or three or ten years down the road?
— Pastoral Intimacy is Gross
Before I get started on your problem, PIG, I want to give a shout-out to the end of the election season and all of the complaining it entails about “my boyfriend is stupid because he’s voting for McCain” or “we broke up because she thought Tina Fey was running for president” or “omg lolcats luv teh nader, ok thx bye” that’s been clogging up my inbox like an interminable avalanche now that America has decided to spend half of every presidential term standing at opposite ends of a political football field shouting obscenities at each other like an entire nation of soccer hooligans left in a state of permanent enragement after a botched program of universal lobotomization. It’s a wonder that more of my mail isn’t originating from state penitentiaries specially set aside for significant others whose chief argument to their lovers’ embracing McCain was a blunt instrument upside the head. Americans are seriously indulging in so much mutual scorn and outright hatred it’s frightening. I’ve seen batteries that were less polarized.
I’m glad to see the back of it—though with my luck the Republicans will have stolen the election again by the time you’re reading this and this whole mess won’t be over until sometime next year, by which time the cities will be smoldering ruins and the tribunals will be guillotining cable news pundits by the dozen for their role in permanently screwing up the country once and for all.
Now to your problem, which reminds me a great deal of a friend of mine who found out, rather startlingly, six years into a relationship that her lover harbored a secret fetish for amputees, and who ended up spending the balance of that relationship, which was not all a very long stretch of time, hiding her left arm behind her back whenever they had sex, so that she’s now slightly skewed and tends to walk around with her right breast forward as if she were offering it up for critique. Now you can choose to look at this as a tragedy—the Collapse of a Promising Love Thanks to a Lie; or you can look at it, as I tend to, as six great years, one weird year, and then release: which really comes out to both of them regaining freedom to pursue a better match.
Sixty years ago you were stuck with what you got. If you took Hazel home from the chapel and discovered, upon a suitably respectful sober excavation of her garments, that she harbored an unsuspected third nipple, why, either you learned to love that extra nozzle or you spent the rest of your life writhing in an unshakable state of heebie-jeebification. But today, not only do we no longer expect relationships to last longer than our current wireless plans, but our capacity of amorous transience releases all the pressure. Discovering a new partner’s hidden bodily oddities or peculiarities in their sexual proclivities might not be the big brain-exploder it used to be: not being locked in might make it easier to say, “Huh. Well, that might be fun for a while.”
My point, PIG, is that it would be easy to let the potential for a sudden left turn in your sex life hang ominously over you like the sex toy of Damocles, but letting that happen can ruin more than the revelation itself. Have fun with your boy, forget about Cowdad and Bullmom (or vice versa), and enjoy the ride. Who knows? Your bubblegum lipstick could be more of a gross-out than any of the relics tucked away in his wardrobe.
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