My Endless Ruminations about Sex & Intimacy
From: Six Sheep
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 2:36 PM
To: Julia
Subject: Dies Irae Again
“When I think of you watching WW2 documentaries before you go to sleep I think of the guy in The Wall watching all those war films while slouched in that awful green seventies naugahide chair with the cigarette hanging in his hand with the ash of almighty doom on it and his face unshaven and his face a flat mask of dulled stupor and all the awfulness of that.” – Julia, 11/1/2005
When I was in kindergarten, I would walk to kindergarten from my house. It was about six blocks away, the school. My memories from when I was little are always strange because I couldn’t see. I was literally legally blind. Nobody knew this until first grade, however. I dunno, I got around it somehow. I knew the way to school. I could see well enough to read. What else is there to kindergarten, really. It’s just bundling up, putting your things in the backpack and then going to your little desk. They tell you how to do the rest.
The next time I am in my mother’s house I will retrieve pictures of myself from those days. If you saw them Julia, you would never love another man again. That little boy was the head of heaven’s honor roll. I am smiling, always smiling. I have hair that covers my ears. I’m the prettiest thing on four wheels. I’m wearing shirts that say things like “Have an AWESOME Day” on them. That was my mission, at age 5, having an awesome day.
I had a blue quilt on my bed. It is much like the quilt I have on my bed now.
I had a pretty bitchin’ Hot Wheels. I rode my Hot Wheels far, far beyond the point where I should’ve been riding it. I think I rode it until I was in about fourth grade – about the time my parents got divorced. I remember the little plastic wheel was split in two, so that there were actually two front wheels to the Hot Wheels, moving more or less together. I think the only reason I stopped pedaling it around is because I couldn’t fit in it anymore.
I had a lot of sexual experiences when I was a little boy. These are not quite in the order that I have told them to you. I will attempt to tell them to you now as they actually happened. I have been truthful with about two other people on the planet about this. One of them was definitely a therapist.
The first and original experience is of course with Wendy the neighbor girl, as you have heard before.
After that year, we moved to Iowa and I had to start first grade at a new school. I didn’t have any friends there. I also had these glasses that were thick, ridiculous and bifocals. I was wearing bifocals at age six, that’s how awful my eyes were at that age.
I really only had one friend at that time and his name was [deleted] and he was the person I did a number of sexual things with when I was seven or eight.
Regardless what adults think about children, I’m convinced that most of them are doing sexual things in secret. I was perfectly capable of having erections doing things with them when I was that age. I did whatever I wanted to with my erection with that other boy and it felt nice and it was our secret. Having secrets from my parents and everyone else seemed perfectly natural at that point in my life. I didn’t just have penis secrets, I had all kinds of secrets, like the time I took the iron pyrite out of Heidi’s desk and took it home and put it in a film canister under my bed and took it out only when I’d been sent to my room for doing something bad.
He was my babysitter, believe it or not. He was four and a half years older than I was. I was about eight and he was about twelve. He was gorgeous also fyi, although I didn’t know that then, because I didn’t have any inklings of attraction towards one gender or the other. I did, however, know what felt good. I don’t think I could have an orgasm. I don’t remember having any, anyway. I just remember being naked with him in bed, and then when it was over we’d both put our clothes on and do something else, like Legos or building a backyard fort or something. It was not romantic or affectionate, I didn’t drape my arm over his chest afterwards and lay my head on him and nap there. It was very neat and mechanical. Not passionless at all, by any means. But very, eh, succinct and to the point. As I imagine a lot of boysex is, really.
That happened like a dozen times when I was little. Then, it just stopped happening. Really neither of us said anything to each other about ending it. I think he discovered girls. I think that’s what it was, he got to be in junior high and then it ended.
I know I do not think of sexual relationships the way most people do. I have tried to figure out why this is. I’m not a person that usually cares about why. I am the kind of person that appreciates the wtf factor of life, and prides himself on not picking things apart to the point where all the mystery and fire is gone from them. Sex seems to be very holy for most Americans. They seem to have a purity hangup about it. There are two sides of the purity coin. On one side is the person that keeps things bleached and starched and scrubs the dust and hair out from underneath the letters on his keyboard with one of those micro-vacuums and uses dental polish and has a very square and perfectly green lawn. On the other side is the person that finds purity by becoming something that is utterly corrupted. I see them going into Libby’s dildo store all the time and buying purple wigs, fishnets and whips. That is their purity, being as trashy as they possibly can be. They dye their hair and pierce things and get tattoos and attempt to go as far into whatever thing their mothers labeled “dirty” as they can possibly go.
I do not have a purity hangup. Sex for me is something you do with somebody you like. It is fun and it feels good. It is a physical activity. It is like having ice cream with someone that you don’t mind sharing spoons with.
Now don’t get the impression that I don’t have any understanding of intimacy or love. I think I have a pretty robust understanding of both of those things. That’s how I am able to say that for me, sex is separate from love or intimacy. Love I think is something that can happen between any two people, if they can appreciate the beauty of each other. Intimacy exists separately from that. Intimacy is when you know that the person that you are talking to you is on your side, and understands you, as you are sitting mumbling and whispering to each other during a play, and each of you still have enough brain bandwidth to be enjoying the play and talking at the same time, because you know the other person’s verbal shortcuts and general subject matter and mannerisms to be able to interpret their schtick on the fly and play along with them. Intimacy is when you know why they are doing something, better than they do. Intimacy is when you know exactly what they want to hear, and you say it just at that moment they want to hear it. Intimacy is when their lame jokes are completely hilarious to you, and to nobody else. Intimacy is you and them against the rest of the world. Intimacy is a private and special world, that is to be kept locked away in a box on the top shelf and kept until the 18,000th time they come into your store. Then on that 18,001th time, you say, well – you’ve been coming here so long. I have something special for you, today. Here it is. I’ve kept this just for you.
I can have love and sex with a person and not have any intimacy with them, and I can have intimacy with someone whom I’ve never had sex or love with. It’s the intimacy that’s the hardest to get. The others are usually pretty easy.
These kinds of thoughts are definitely relevant, during this week in my life. I am going to go get a salad.
Six Sheep 
yes, yes.