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The
Beast with Two Backs
To me, making love is as make-believe as movies where a hooker with a heart of gold marries her business tycoon john, where a cranky ogre wins the hand of a beautiful princess, and where actresses with 10% body fat and size D breasts are presented as "everywoman." Making love is what Sandy imagined doing with Danny in Grease. It is the opening scene of From Here to Eternity. It is the reason Rhett Butler carried Scarlett O'Hara up her grand staircase. And it is what Samantha Baker (aka Molly Ringwald) of Sixteen Candles imagined she would do with the Porsche-driving Jake Ryan. Making love is an illusion that keeps us all wanting more and doubting the legitimacy of our own sexual experiences. My cynicism about making love began in junior high when I read my older sister's diary cover to cover not just once, but ten times. I felt guilty and devious and deceitful but that didn't stop me. I kept re-reading it, partly out of curiosity and partly to decipher the code that kept reappearing like Deep Throat in the Pentagon Papers: ML. What did ML mean and why was she doing it everywhere in the house? My sister would ML with her boyfriend in the TV room, her bedroom, the kitchen, on the sofa, and by the pool. The only place she didn't ML was in my bedroom and that was probably only because of the off-putting number of stuffed animals piled on my bed. Whatever ML meant, I figured it didn't involve homework. When I finally figured it out, a cartoon light bulb appeared over my head (and I hastily removed my snack plate from the kitchen counter). No, ML didn't mean Make Lunch or Master Latin. ML was code for Making Love. I was now scared to sit anywhere in the house before patting it down for wet spots. But even in the midst of my paranoia, I was struck by the absurdity of my sister partaking in an act that she couldn't even bring herself to spell out. Apparently, she was old enough to have sex but not old enough to call it by name. At the time, my sister was in high school and quite beautiful and quite popular and quite everything that I wasn't. While she was leading our football team to victory with cheers like, "go fight win tonight, boogie down ALL RIGHT ALL RIGHT," I was stuck with a lingering lisp, substantial baby fat and an inability to stand up to my mother and tell her to shove my well-intentioned violin lessons up her tone-deaf ass. Still, clueless as I was about most things, I could confidently say (or at least believe) that neither my sister nor her boyfriend had anywhere near the Scarlett and Rhett Hollywood glamour that making love requires. Married for eight years, I still don't have it. My friend Zoë believes that it's all right to call sex making love when a woman is either a virgin or under 20 -- after that point, she should know better. Zoë herself dreamed of making love until she lost her virginity at age 19, at the tail end of an unfortunate first date. While she cannot recollect the name of her prince charming, she does recall that her special night included a dine-and-dash dinner, pot smoking, a roughly textured rug and unforgiving lighting. Midway through the act, she converted her thinking. As her date descended upon her, bathed in the florescent lights of his studio apartment, she knew she wasn't making love -- she was having sex. Her dreams dashed and expectations lowered, Zoë said that with the next few men she dated, she was only able to reach orgasm if she actually saw her date pay for the meal. No, her first time didn't live up to her Judy Blume Forever fantasy, but it did teach her that sex does not create love. So why not just make it fun? Now in her thirties, she has had sex that is fun, caring, creative, and yes, even occasionally bad. Along the way she fell deeply in love, and now has what she refers to as amazing sex (most of the time). While in love with her husband, she still cannot refer to it as "making love" without having flashbacks to shag carpets, fluorescent lighting and a waiter getting stiffed. Zoë
is right. Certain women can get away with making love, but these
love-makers tend to be young teenagers (think of the high school
girl who forever doodles her first name and her boyfriend's last
name on her spiral notebook). I encountered the quintessential high
school love-maker last year when my husband and I went to see a
stand-up comedy show. I was already a bit crabby because the venue's
seating made me long for the roominess of a sardine can, when a
young, bubbly, long-haired girl bounded in with her fifteen-year-oldish
boyfriend. Based on their attire, I surmised that their giddiness
was a result of their newly negotiated Abercrombie & Fitch sponsorships.
They couldn't find seating, so Mr. Abercrombie wedged in next to
my husband on the end of the row and playfully pulled Miss Fitch
onto his lap. Then, the ten-minute pre-show began -- at least for
those lucky enough to be seated behind our row. She was moaning,
he was groping and they were leaning on my husband for leverage.
Despite the errant laughter, the youngsters just kept grinding,
groaning and dry-humping my husband. Finally, Miss Fitch came up
for air and cooed, "You know you are so lucky to be dating
me and not Emily because Emily would never make love to you."
continued...
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I've
never made love to my husband. We've been together for thirteen
years -- married eight of those thirteen -- but still no "making
of the love." Oh, we've had lots of sex: good sex, bad sex,
funny sex, loving sex, drunk sex, familiar sex and holy-crap-it's-five-minutes-until-The
Simpsons sex. But no matter what type of sex it is, it's still
sex. While love is involved, calling it "making love"
evokes images of Fabio on a romance novel, dressed in a pirate shirt
unbuttoned to his treasure trail and flexing his pectoralis majors
while cradling a swooning lass in his taut, glistening arms. 
