At the age of 54, having once been married, having fathered two now grown children, I have been lately experienced a nature-prompted diminution of the passions.
I find, in my late middle age, that the demon of lust has little dominion over me anymore.
I don’t mean to overstate things: sexual desire has not gone completely dormant, but it has decreased significantly. It was at one time a daily pest, if not an hourly one.
Now it only strikes on exceedingly rare occasions, and those moments, rather than lingering for an extended period of time, are instead usually over before I can even process their passing.
To be sure, it is not quite like being a pre-pubescent child again, when those of the opposite sex (save for my mother) played absolutely no role in my hierarchy of needs.
Girls at that time simply didn’t figure at all; it wasn’t that I had anything against them, but really, I have anything for them, either. Having to see a man and a woman kiss in a movie or on TV was absolute torment; it was grosser than gross to see, or even to think about, two people becoming physically intimate in any way.
I still recall how one childhood friend told me what was involved in the begetting of babies; he was basically right, although certain details were off (without getting graphic, none of us knew that girls had an additional hole in their nether region besides the one we were all familiar with). “When we get married, we have to do THAT!” my friend exclaimed, indignantly. Feeling a rising tide of disgust in my gut, I declared that I would never get married, and I meant it (at the time).
While my drive in late middle-age hasn’t retreated to pre-pubescent levels of utter dormancy, it would also be erroneous to understate the extent to which I am now no longer interested in sex. To be sure, I still understand the appeal of it, but I see no cause to go out of my way to try to obtain it. I can live perfectly well without it.
And on the rare occasions when I do happen to run across someone who stirs something up in my heart and/or loins, I am nevertheless held in check by a consideration of the dire state of contemporary womanhood, a controversial topic that I have seen fit to give some attention in these virtual pages lately.
What repels me most is the notion of having to encounter the requisite “shit test.” Even if my own generally senescent sexuality were to be roused enough to give someone a try, I would abandon (relation)ship the very first time she decides to treat me with blatant disrespect to see how I react. Likewise, I’ll jettison the affair as soon as she asks me a seemingly innocent question, then gets upset when I answer honestly instead of giving her the answer she wants (another form of the dreaded “shit test”).
****************************************************
Ironically enough, me breaking things off when put to the “shit test” would be, I suppose, a “correct” response, since it would signify that I “wasn’t taking her shit.”
My passing of her shit test would, however, result in her concomitant failure, since my shit test for her was for her to refrain from ever giving me a shit test. Since she would have failed in this regard, I would immediately exit stage left, without a shed of remorse. Neither subsequent pleas for forgiveness nor tears, regardless of how seemingly heartfelt, would sway me.
**************************************************
Of course, the scenario described above is a hypothetical one. It is predicated upon the idea of me still being wanted. Lest anyone labor under the delusion that I find this a likely eventuality, rest assured, I have no such exalted estimation of my own prowess.
But even if it turns out to be true that I am indeed unwanted— being old, bald and broke, as I am— that state of affairs would not mean that I fit the label of “incel.” Instead, I am a glad-cel: that is, one who is glad to be celibate, who revels in the peace of mind it brings me in my twilight years.
Andy Nowicki is the author of several books, most recently The Insurrectionist, Muze, and Love and Hidden Agendas, as well as the just-published The Rule of Wrath.
https://substack.com/@andynowicki
No comments:
Post a Comment