Viva la vulva

I was at a journalism function at my alma mater, a Catholic university where I sometimes teach news writing, when the subject of vulvas came up.

Actually, the subject came up at a restaurant after the function—and a few gin and tonics—when I told a former classmate I was writing a romance novel and mentioned some of the research I’d been doing.

He was interested in what one women’s health website called “V fashion.” The website reported on a survey that found a significant percentage of women shave off at least some pubic hair, while increasing numbers scrape it all away.

Yikes!

Several sources said it’s the influence of porn, where the question apparently has gone from whether the carpet matches the drapes to whether the floor has any covering at all.

In the HBO show “Katie Morgan Porn 101,” the actress—in character and in costume—waxes snarky after showing clips of blue movies from the ’60s and ’70s, quipping, “Didn’t they have razors back then?”

Well, yeah. But, apparently, no one had thought of using them to turn grown women back into little girls.

Hundreds of men agreed with this sentiment in a Salon.com poll a few years ago. Other studies have shown that younger women are more likely to go bald than older ones, which makes me glad I turned nineteen when I did.

At any rate, I have to give my old college bud credit for summing things up so well. “It’s a destination,” he said. “You want something to be there when you arrive.”

It’s not electric sex—but then, who doesn’t need eighty bucks?

It’s been a while since I last posted, but I have excuses.

First, I’ve had a full plate of paying work, which is always good news. Second, we’ve had some busy weekends, including the last one, when I picked up my major award.

I know what you’re thinking and the answer is no, I did not receive a leg lamp. I did, however, receive an $80 check for having the third-place entry in the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association’s short story contest.

Those who’ve read my fiction know I usually like to write about people having sex or things blowing up (and, in more than one case, things blowing up while people are having sex). I do have a soft, squishy sentimental streak, though, and my winning story, “Twenty-three-and-a-half,” falls into that category. At least, that’s what I thought. The judge wrote the story “could have been predictable or sentimental…but it’s not.”

It doesn’t say much for my ability to judge my own work, but I’ll take it.

Thanks to the WRWA—and to the dozen or so writing group compatriots whose comments helped me make “Twenty-three-and-a-half” as good as it could be.

Chocolate and me

Women are supposed to have some kind of mystic relationship with chocolate. My question is, “Who doesn’t?”

The Field Museum’s website says the Maya first harvested cacao beans, roasted them, ground them up and mixed them with water and spices to create a frothy, spicy beverage they used in religious ceremonies. Twenty-four hundred years later, I eat a couple of squares of high-cacao-content dark chocolate every day.

Religiously.

My love of chocolate gives me one more thing to talk with my mom about. We talk often and about lots of topics, but when chocolate comes up, the first thing I do after hanging up is head for my stash in the spice cabinet.

When the kids were small, it was impossible to keep any chocolate around for long. Candy bars. Kisses. Chocolate chips. Cocoa Krispies. So I started secreting away Lindt, Ghirardelli, Hershey and Seroogy bars in a Tupperware container on a high shelf above the curry powder and behind the Pyrex measuring cup. Everyone knows to stay away.

Except my dad.

One day when he was visiting from Arizona, my son dashed into Mary Jo’s office in a panic and said, “Grandpa Buzz is looking for Dad’s chocolate!” Mary Jo acted fast, diffusing the situation by directing him to a communal stockpile.

Chocolate makes an appearance in Fast Lane as part of Lara’s musings about Clay before she meets him: “He was creamy and smooth as the ganache in a Lindor truffle. And as much of a threat to the heart as coconut oil. Women found him irresistible.”

Yes, coconut oil. So gooey in the arteries, so yummy on the tongue.

Wait.

Be right back. I have to run down to the kitchen for a minute.

Sex as a second language

Romance novels and other fiction aimed at primarily women sometimes use phrases that turn English into a second language for me. And I’m not talking about clothes or shoes here.

First, there’s the idea that feeling someone’s weight on top of you is particularly arousing. The second is wanting to have someone else “inside” you.

I come to Fast Lane with some points of reference about the first notion, only from the other side. For instance, I recall a buddy describing a night of passion with a particular woman, and what remains vivid thirty years later is what he said about how she felt underneath him. So vivid, that my mind still has no trouble photoshopping myself into his place. (No trouble at all.)

I’m all for having human flesh pressing down on me from above. It’s just not something that regularly wends its way into my fantasies. I don’t remember ever thinking, “I long to feel the weight of her body on mine.”

Another way to describe it comes from—I swear—a newspaper column that referred to “nail-her-to-the-mattress sex.” Google didn’t help me identify the source, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Dan Savage. Or Cal Thomas. I’m guessing maybe Kathleen Parker or Maureen Dowd. I suppose I could have jotted down a note at the time, but I seem to have had no difficulty remembering the important parts. That image will stick with me until three weeks after the end of the world.

At any rate, I get the idea of wanting to feel someone’s weight on top of you. It translates just fine from Chickish into Guyese.

That other one, though, I’m going to have to take on faith.