A minister friend of mine, a Methodist (not his real denomination), confessed to me that he had visited a sex therapist. He was desperate to return passion to his 34-year old marriage. The therapist insisted that the key to sexual excitement is dirty talk, and offered some titillating vocabulary. “Call her ‘Pussy Mama’, the expert said. “She’ll go wild.”
On the drive home the good Reverend practiced the phrase, experimenting with various inflections. That night in bed he moved eagerly to embrace his wife, and when the moment seemed right he uttered the magic words.
Her body went rigid. She stopped breathing. Then she started to laugh. Suddenly the two of them were laughing, and they laughed together for fifteen minutes, after which they indulged in the best sex they’d had in decades, even though “Pussy Mama” was not part of their verbal exchange.
AGE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT
Is my pious pal simply too old for dirty-talk sex? No! The failure of “PM” to deliver the desired response is not a function of age but of history. The Reverend knew the language of love, but not this particular dialect. He had never spoken the Lovely Lascivious and didn’t know how to begin.
A talent for dirty talk is not something you pick up easily in your fifth or sixth decade. Old guys who are adept at sex talk usually got comfortable with crude language at a very early age.
The minute I met PASHA and saw how he carried himself, the minute I heard his comic, self-assured way of speaking, I knew he’d have an irreverent vocabulary. His long-ago military service often put him in harm’s way, and when men are on the front line they rarely say, “Aw shucks, here comes a grenade.” I suspected too that by the time he had arrived at puberty he and his pals at l’école française were at ease with the ubiquitous “merde.”
GENTLEMEN PREFER BLANDS
None of the other senior guys in my DATING GALLERY have that bad boy edge. I can’t see them indulging in vulgarity, FIREFLY and STARGAZER especially, because they’re shy and even-tempered. FIGARO is not above an occasional “goddamn” but only when he rails against Republicans.
When PAST PERFECT resorts to “damn” he does so without thinking, but HARVARD YARD injects that same word hoping for effect. STUNT MAN is capable of a breezy “what the hell”. MILO is old-school, and would never swear in front of a lady. Ditto for DR. SHRINK, whose vocabulary strains to stay above the mundane language used by mortals. TV IDOL no way – trash talk is for people with inferior diction. As for both WEBSTALKER and LUST FOR BRAINS, their garbled terminologies defy scrutiny.
Of course sex talk and profanity are not the same thing. They are alike only because they get your attention fast. And because facility in one aids facility in the other. How do they differ? Sex talk is meant to soothe, arouse, and profoundly please. Profanity is for anger, frustration, or gratuitous effect – usually all at the same time, as in “why the f___ is this f___ing phone bill so f___ing high?“
IN PRAISE OF DIRTY TALK
There’s a lot to be said for talking dirty. It’s modern, it’s compact, and resisting it is an uphill battle – culturally, I mean. According to an Associated Press poll, 78% of Americans say they use foul language occasionally or often.
The bottom line is this: if sex talk comes naturally, by all means use it, no matter how old you are. If it doesn’t, don’t go renting porn films in the hope of learning from their laughable audio tracks. Better to stay non-verbal and go with spontaneous moaning.
Finally, if you think the f-word has no place in your bedroom or anywhere else in your life, that it’s only for rappers, hookers, and hit men, consider this scenario:
You’re cuddling on the sofa with your senior man. The lights are low and the background jazz is almost unbearably erotic. You tug at your skirt and cross your legs, flashing a bit of thigh. When you reach for your wine glass your blouse falls open to below the collarbone. “You’re beautiful,” he says, his voice thick with desire. “Let’s have sexual intercourse.”
NOTE: For another point of view, follow this link to Beyond the Bedroom’s “Talk Dirty To Me, Baby.”
