BORDER WALLS

As circumstances would have it, Trump didn’t need to build a wall. Instead, he created one. To the north, as it turns out. I have a hunch Trump isn’t so good at geography and, frankly, doesn’t care.

 

**

 

This is a difficult post for me to write. Much of it is seeded in anger, laced with guilt. As a Canadian who was once a legal resident of the United States for sixteen years, I have many reasons for visiting the country to the south many times every year. Friends from university and law school live there. My parents and immediate family are there. My boyfriend, too. 

 

And yet everything that is happening politically in the U.S. based on who the majority of Americans voted to be president makes me no longer wish to visit. Like most Canadians, I am greatly offended by how Trump has taken his bullying and belittling personality and aimed it at Canada. 

 

My mouth dropped when he first referred to Canada as “the fifty-first state.” There is much the two countries had in common, but we are most certainly distinct countries. His jabs, literally blurring border lines, are highly offensive and his rhetoric cannot be disregarded, given how he lives in some sort of colonial era time machine, thinking he can claim Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada as American territories. 

 

What the hell is going on?

 

The current position of the
Republican Party...
heads in the sand.

I would expect Republican politicians to unequivocally say, “Knock it off, Donald.” Not so, of course. This is a group of “leaders” that kowtows to him. The wrath of Trump is too great. The possibility of Republican politicians being ridiculed by their chosen leader is something these weak-willed “leaders” fear too much. They covet their purported positions of power too much. What power, I wonder, if they are muted? They don’t want to be primaried in the next election cycle, booted from the ballot, replaced by a candidate who is even better at kowtowing. 

 

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and
President Ronald Reagan...I liked
neither of them, but they knew
the importance of a solid, amicable 
relationship between Canada
and the U.S.

A solidarity based on a leader’s coercive, vindictive power has no place in a true democracy. I’ve never aligned with Republicans, but I’ve also never been so disgusted with each and every one of them. Without individual voices, they are useless political beings. Cardboard cutouts could take their places.

 

And then there are the tariffs…

 

When the threat was first announced, Trump lumped Canada and Mexico, his country’s neighbors and traditionally close allies, with China. Yes, let’s punish trade via taxation, targeting Canada, Mexico and China. 

 

WHAT?!

 

I think Trump’s bullying tactics are his way of eventually bringing Canada and Mexico to the table to renegotiate North American trade, something a leader may legitimately wish to do. Agreements become outdated. Certain elements of them may be viewed as being “unfair” or “too favorable” to a particular party. Fair, rational leaders call for meetings and begin negotiations. But Trump goes for a Tonya Harding approach, taking a crowbar to the knees of Canada and Mexico. Let me rough you up. Suffer, dear neighbor, and then, somewhere down the line, maybe we’ll talk. 

 

This may be how a stone cold businessman leads. This, however, is not how a democratic leader governs.

 

Again, the “leaders” of the Republican party are too weak, too fearful to speak up. Why, Donald, are you actively, intentionally seeking to piss off the closest allies of the United States? 

 

In any other world scenario, it would be a legitimate question. It would be THE question.

 

I can’t even write calmly about Trump’s Putin crush and how he has disrespected Volodymyr Zelenskyy and imposed egocentric conditions on any support for protecting Ukraine’s legitimate right to sovereignty. Trump does not understand democracy. He has never had to be democratic in his business enterprises. Why the hell did the majority of Americans entrust him with leading what was once reputed to be the greatest democracy in the world?

 

It feels like Americans as a collective have lost their spines…and their souls.

 

I have American friends who did not vote for him. I know how upset they are. One good friend contacted me for recommendations of Canadian places to visit during his summer travels. This gesture is very much appreciated. I do hope a great many Americans, realizing the harm tariffs intend to impose on Canadians, come to Canada and do what they can to invest in our economy. 

 

Sadly, my family—former Canadians, now American citizens—voted for Trump. They shrug. It’s terrible, they say. But they do nothing. They say they could not have known Trump would target Canada. They don’t see their own foolishness in voting for a presidential candidate who ran on soundbites instead of a platform. Personality over platform…yes, a democracy is in demise. 

 

Prince Edward Island

To every American who wants to truly say, “Sorry, Canada. We’re with you,” I say show it. Call your political representatives, especially if they are Republican. Tell them in clear terms you do not support Trump’s tariffs and belittling tactics aimed at the country’s neighbors. Repeat your objection. Make clear that you will not vote again for representatives who stand back in silence. And, yes, come visit Canada. Vancouver. Calgary. PEI. Québec City. Banff. Montréal. Toronto. St. John’s. Winnipeg. Georgian Bay. The Bay of Fundy. Cape Breton. Whistler. Victoria. The Gaspé Peninsula. Niagara Falls. Whitehorse. Yellowknife. Churchill. Haida Gwaii. There are so many places worth seeing.

 

My predicament is that I still have to visit the U.S. in a time when the Canadian mentality is to stay away. Why go to a place where its leader is so disrespectful to our country?

 

I just returned from three weeks in Denver. I’m scheduled to go to New York City in May. These are not places that voted for Trump, but I am still crossing a line. My partner lives in Denver. I visit him because I love him and I want our relationship to continue to grow. He has an upcoming work gig in NYC, hence that travel destination. Keeping our relationship going requires as many regular visits as I can afford. (Airfare and exchange rates make things financially challenging as it is.) I’m a writer so I can work anywhere. My partner has very limited vacation time as is typical of so many American jobs. He’ll visit me in Vancouver in April, but it’s basically a long weekend as his company also has a very limited work-from-home policy. 

 

I know I will have several more U.S. visits this year. Oh, the things we do for love.

 

Another hitch is my Republican-voting parents live in the ever-red state of Texas. I have consciously avoided Texas visits, last going six years ago for my niece’s wedding. My parents have instead visited me in Vancouver and at our family cottage in Ontario. But they are 85 and 88 and far less inclined to travel now. Flying is looking far less likely. I will soon have no choice but to travel to them to see them. I visited them last fall, post-election but before the anti-Canadian rhetoric in the equally red state of Alabama where they drive for an annual vacation. I will likely have to go to Texas later this year. Family will have to come before politics.

 

Québec City

I feel guilty visiting the U.S. 

 

Moreover, I feel guilted by fellow Canadians. I totally get this.

 

I will do what I can. Yesterday, I contacted the Seattle Art Museum, expressly stating that Trump’s tactics have made it imprudent to be making quick road trips to Seattle and supporting American museums despite the fact I personally love SAM. My weekend getaways will be to Whistler, Tofino and Victoria rather than American destinations. It is with great regret that I will not be visiting friends in Los Angeles this year, a place where I lived for five years. I will also not be returning to the Oregon Coast for the foreseeable future. (It is my absolute favorite place in the U.S.) 

 

Greenland

In one sense these are tough choices. I like so much of the United States. But Trump has made staying away feel so much easier. When my partner and my family are not part of the equation, staying away doesn’t feel like a choice at all. Given the current tone at the helm of the American government, it seems like the only way.

 

Ever the traveler, I have so many other choices. I have my eye on trips to Iceland, Great Britain, Portugal, Sweden, Peru and, yes, Greenland.

 

As Canadians are so inclined to say, “I’m sorry, America.” But then again, I’m not. In a trade war between David and Goliath, this is what it’s come to. 

GAYDAR AT THE GALLERY

Awakening Faun (1914)

Keith Haring. David Hockney. Robert Mapplethorpe. I am familiar with the work of many gay artists. Other artists’ sexuality I only discovered by chance. I go to an art museum, see a work I like, Google the painter or sculptor and, every so often, I stumble upon the fact they are (or were) gay. Marsden Hartley. Maurice Sendak. The works speak for themselves but still I feel a sense of pride that the artist is/was “one of us.”

 

Last fall , I discovered another gay artist while wandering through the Ateneum, an art museum in Helsinki. Unlike Hartley who’s best known for his landscapes or Sendak, known for Wild Things, the pieces I saw on exhibit by Magnus Enckell strongly suggested the artist might be gay. Born in Hamina, Finland in 1870 and dying in Stockholm in 1925, some of Enckell’s bright paintings focused on the naked or semi-naked male form when for most of art history so  many artists have been seemingly obsessed with female nudes. 

 

Enckell’s first oil painting on exhibit that made me take notice was Awakening Faun from 1914, the figure being a young, pretty, lean, muscular male in repose, naked except for an orange fabric draped over his privates. The young man looks contemporary, the background a vibrant landscape of forest greens with yellow sun peeking through. Most artists of Enckell’s time would have had a bare breasted woman as the foreground subject matter instead. 

 

Hmm. Gay, perhaps, I deduced.

 

Resurrection (1907)

As I wandered into another exhibit room, I came upon Enckell’s Resurrection (1907), a religious study painting for an altarpiece for Tampere Cathedral. While religious art features considerable nudity, this work, in softer tones than Faun, doesn’t just feature a naked Jesus rising from a burial plot. Instead, there are five men, nude or semi-nude. Enckell seems to take license with the resurrection story and apparently the parishioners and clergy of the church in Tampare, Finland were liberal or oblivious enough to accept Enckell’s interpretation. As a casual museumgoer, I got a clear sense Enckell was pushing things into an intentionally provocative realm. The fact his study painting became a mural work in the church shows he succeeded.

 

Fantasy (1895)

I didn’t Google Enckell until I returned from my trip in Northern Europe. Ateneum held a special exhibit of his work in 2020, describing him as “one of the most significant names of the golden age of Finnish art.” Other works featured in the exhibition included a seated naked boy in 1983’s Boy with Skull, a shirtless young man in 1895’s Fantasy and a nude young man sitting up in bed in 1894’s The Awakening. Aside from the monochromatic Boy with Skull, these works seem to have homoerotic overtones. 

 

According to Wikipedia, citing a text in Finnish, “It is generally believed that Enckell was a homosexual, as seems indicated in some erotic portraits which were quite uninhibited for their time, but his homosexuality has never been officially proven.” Enckell is listed in Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II where it is noted he had a son though he never married the mother and his “private life has aroused fairly little interest. His love affairs with men have not been denied but they have been considered irrelevant.” As it should be, if history didn’t note personal lives of artists in general. But such is not the case. 

 

The point is, my gaydar was activated as I regarded two of Enckell’s works. It seems affirmed by other paintings viewed online. I don’t actively seek out gay bars or gay activities when I go on vacation but discovering and further exploring the work of Magnus Enckell while visiting a Finnish museum was an unexpected bonus to the trip.

 

MEN EXPERIENCING ABUSE - A LONELY JOURNEY

Last week, CNN ran an article entitled, “25% of US men experience abuse, but it’s hard to get help.” The title—and the topic—gave me chills. I’ve been there, on the receiving end.

 

Regrettably, the article focuses solely on physical and sexual violence. Emotional abuse as a separate rather than a subset form of harm is not addressed. It’s what I experienced two decades ago in a seven-year relationship that started out seemingly perfect. I’ve blogged about it before, but it’s worth recounting in case someone else identifies with it.

 

In the beginning, it seemed I’d discovered the perfect mate. My partner was sweet. Perhaps too sweet. Six months in, a conversation arose—I don’t recall the circumstances; it was something minor, as always—where his Mr. Hyde side came out in full force. I was berated and belittled in a nonstop diatribe that was totally out of character and was highly disturbing.

 

He went off to work and I sat on the sofa, stunned, trying to make sense of what was not at all sensible. I got in my car and drove to a beach an hour away, spending much of the day wandering and wondering what I’d done wrong. How had I set him off? 

 

I knew innately it wasn’t my fault and yet it seemed easier to blame myself than to find flaws in him. Still, I kept teetering in trying to process the incident. Was this a one-off I should forget about? Was this the beginning of a new dynamic in our relationship? I’d already fallen in love with this guy. Was I supposed to leave? As outrageous as his temper had been, didn’t it reflect poorly on me if I ended things after the first rough patch? 

 

I stayed. This was my man. This was my partner for life. We hadn’t exchanged vows—couldn’t back then—but I was invested…“for better or for worse.” That was an expression we’d all grown up with. It was something I believed in. I was supposed to stick around. Stand by my man. I was supposed to work things out. 

 

Everyone who met my partner saw him as handsome and oh so charming. I’d found one of the good ones. A great one! He never ever showed his darker side to my friends, family or colleagues. 

 

The tirades became more frequent. There was no way to predict when they would happen. Out of the blue, something would trigger him and suddenly he was spewing a rapid-fire, mostly irrational monologue about how f#*king “useless” and “worthless” I was. I learned quickly that trying to refute his claims only escalated and extended the fits. I learned to just sit there and take it. 

 

Whenever it was over, I would be quiet. I would try to avoid him. He couldn’t understand why I was so subdued. He’d returned to Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Charming. What was up with me?

 

What I came to realize was that he had no recollection of these tirades. These moments were episodes of blackout rage. This made the incidents more challenging to process. I couldn’t talk with him about what he said after the fact because he didn’t believe he’d said such things. (I tape recorded one episode but never dared play it back, fearful it might trigger something worse.) 

 

For six and a half years, I lived in fear of what might come in the present day, maybe the next hour or even five minutes after a totally normal exchange. I told no one until a decade AFTER I’d managed to get out of the relationship when my best friend ran into him at a party and started saying how great it would be if we got back together. 

 

I felt so much shame. I felt I should have been stronger in somehow helping my partner who denied ever berating me. (His mother and sister both exhibited the same behaviors.) 

 

I should have left. 

 

I internalized all the comments about being worthless. I blamed myself. I sometimes told myself I deserved the abuse. 

 

The CNN article mentions that children or pets are used as wedges to keep the abused person in the relationship. In our case, we had one dog, then another. My bond with both dogs was far stronger than his and I feared that, in a breakup, he’d insist we split them.

 

I spent two years actively looking for a place I could afford on my own, far enough from him but still close enough to work. After what I knew was far too long, I finally found my strength and broke up with him. Custody of the dogs was not negotiable. They. Were. Mine. After all my fretting, it startled me how he didn’t put up the slightest resistance.

 

I found a house with a yard for the dogs. It was a ferry ride away from where we had lived. That gave me a clearer sense of separation. It offered a false sense of safety. (His mother told me he’d staked out my new place.) It also meant five hours of commuting to work each day. It further isolated me from friends. Still, I was as free as I could be. 

 

It would be another eight years before he stopped emailing me, begging to get back together. Each email startled and scared me. Would my continuing to reject or ignore him escalate his behaviors. Would physical harm come next? My freedom came with my own dark thoughts about what might happen next, about how maybe things weren’t really over…certainly not in his mind.

 

Physical, sexual and emotional abuse does happen to men. The CNN article mentions that 1 in 4 men experience physical or sexual abuse and, as with so many harms to men, the figure could be low because men underreport and often fail to get help. Men are still raised to believe they have to “tough it out.” They should be “strong enough” to handle things on their own. Seeking help is seen as a sign of weakness.

 

I know I should have walked away not long after that first rage episode. It truly was outrageous. If not after the first incident, then maybe the second or definitely the third. I turned to no one. I didn’t know who to contact. To this day, when I’ve mentioned the abuse to psychiatrists, they have not probed as soon as I’ve made clear the abuse was neither physical nor sexual. What I experienced has never been acknowledged. 

 

I hope professionals are better equipped with responding to all kinds of abuse men experience. If men still find it difficult to confide in a friend or family member, I hope that psychologists, psychiatrists and helplines know how to listen, support and advise better two decades after I struggled alone. Still, no one knows the harm unless the man reaches out and continues to try and try again if the first professionals fail to provide significant acknowledgment and support.

 

Just seeing the CNN article offers some validation. Abuse happens regardless of gender. Let anyone experiencing abuse get the help they need and deserve.

 

  

OK with PDA

I’m sixty but I’m still working on perfecting some moves I should have figured out in high school. 

 

My family moved from Ontario, Canada to East Texas just before the start of my tenth grade year. To say I experienced culture shock is an understatement. The social scene seemed to be on steroids. It was expected that students participate in sports, clubs and dating. Only weeks into the school year, I began feeling the pressure to ask a girl out, if not to one of the Friday dances that followed every home football game, then most certainly to the homecoming game and dance. 

 

Egad! Bigger but not
better homecoming
corsages in Texas.

The notion of a homecoming game in high school seemed particularly ludicrous.  Did people really return for a fall football game after graduating? (I think the answer may have been yes, but I had enough to focus on just trying to keep up with expectations for sophomores.) Let me offer what should be an obvious reveal: I did not get a date for the homecoming game in tenth grade; same for eleventh; and twelfth. I may have earned straight As in classes, but I failed where it truly counted. 

 

So no homecoming dates. No dates, in general. No “going together.” No exchanging class rings. No letting a girl wear my letter jacket. I did land a prom date after a couple of rejections, but we didn’t even last for the entire prom much less the after-parties (that I wasn’t invited to). 

 

Somehow I survived high school. And, no surprise, I’ve never returned for a homecoming game or any of the reunions. Just glad all that’s in the past. 

 

Even if being gay had been a thing back then—it most certainly wasn’t; NO ONE in my graduating class of 350 students was any form of queer—I would not have been dating. I was two years younger than my classmates, extremely introverted and blissfully immature.

 

The fact I never dated meant I never held hands with anyone in the cafeteria during lunch. I never sat on one of the benches in the school courtyard, my body pressed up against someone else like we’d had a Super Glue accident. I did not get caught kissing beside the smoking pit. I demonstrated no public displays of affection (PDAs). My roll-on deodorant would never have held up to that kind of test. Pit stains would have spread to soak my entire Izod shirt. 

 

When dating finally began many years later and far beyond East Texas (in Los Angeles), I still didn’t engage in much PDA. Dancing in the gay bars was always to fast-paced songs like “Vogue” or “Escapade” so the only touching on the darkened dance floor involved the occasional grope from a complete stranger. (The dim lighting hid my red face.) Between songs, our hands usually stayed apart, at our sides. Our lips only made contact with our drinks. The most public gesture between us tended to be eye contact which was hard enough to sustain. 

 

Outside of the clubs, the chance of PDA was even less. Whether we were spilling out of a club on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood or Davie Street in Vancouver, my boyfriend of the moment (moments albeit few and far between) seldom held hands, walked arm in arm, hugged or—gasp—kissed. I knew we liked or loved each other. I told myself we didn’t have any need to convey this to passing strangers. Public displays of affection were for the needy and the desperate. 

 

Look at us!

We’re SO MUCH in love! Can’t you tell?

 

Really, who needed to extend all that showiness of high school? Rings. Letter jackets. Clinginess.

 

A bigger factor in my restraint, I’d like to believe, was safety. Even in the gay zones, or perhaps especially in them, there was always a chance some straight guy or guys would react negatively to two men holding hands or—puke—kissing. Just walking by myself or with gay friends, I’d experienced plenty of drive-bys, windows rolled down, someone yelling, “FAGGOT!” or “DIE, QUEERS!” We knew not to laugh. Often, the shameful—shamed—response was to pretend nothing had just happened. Keep walking. Try to continue the conversation. And subtly scan the area to ensure witnesses were present in case the car looped around the block for round two, whatever that might look and sound like.

 

Maybe I should have gone to Pride parades more often whenever I was partnered. Generally, I figured I didn’t need to go under such circumstances. I had a boyfriend. Why not go for a hike, a weekend road trip or go to the nursery in pursuit of shade-loving perennials? Why stand in a crowd under the hot sun, craning our necks to clap for the gay swim team (in Speedos!) or the float with water bottle-toting go-go boys (in thongs!) throwing free condoms in our faces?

 

What I failed to consider was the fact these crowds were practice fields for PDA. Hand-holding, hugging and kissing didn’t carry any sense of danger when we were immersed in blocks and blocks of thousands of queers and allies. 

 

Hold my hand.

Hug me.

Kiss me.

Drape your arms around me.

 

We are SO MUCH in love…and this is a place to express that. Joy!

 

With most of my long-term boyfriends, we did find moments in public to show our affection. And, yes, I imagine it might have felt like tenth grade. Oh! My! God! We are holding hands! Still, these moments were few. Even more so, they were brief. The giddiness was more often expressed in my mind as, We were holding hands. Past tense always came quickly. 

 

Then along came Evan…

 

Evan is not an in-the-shadows guy, not in any environment. He has a distinct style. He always gets noticed based on what he’s wearing. Holding my hand is just something extra. And, yes, he considers it extra special.

 

I can learn from Evan. I do learn from him. 

 

On our first date, we sat opposite one another in a booth at a Mexican restaurant, sharing stories, laughing aplenty and feeling an undeniable attraction. At some point, he got up to use the restroom or grab us another margarita and, when he returned, he scooted into my side of the booth. 

 

Yes, two men sitting on one side of a booth, the other side empty. That definitely said something. For that evening, World, we were together. For longer than that? Hopefully.

 

Sitting there, side by side, that was our first clear PDA. One hour into knowing one another. This relationship would be different…if I allowed it to be.

 

Three years later, I am still a work in progress when it comes to public displays of affection. The whole reason for PDA is different from high school. In adolescence, there is a desperate need to be noticed in the right ways. I’m dating. I’m cool. I’m not going through this angst-filled developmental stage alone. I’ve got me someone. Whew.

 

The PDA between Evan and me is not “Get a room” PDA. It’s tasteful and loving, that’s all. If there is anything performative about PDA now with us, it’s more a celebration of progress made, not as a couple but as part of a movement toward normalizing gay relationships. Some straight couples rarely show affection; some regularly do. Same for gay couples now. 

 

More than that, the physical affection is for our own sake. We happen to be a couple that likes physical closeness. Evan initiates far more often than I do. There have been times when I have flinched…regrettably. We both read certain environments as potentially unsafe. I happen to have a broader concept of unsafe than him so my flinching or all-out pulling away is jarring to Evan. My mistake, perhaps. I do want us to make it home unscathed at the end of each day. My realm of the unsafe is shrinking. We have each other. We love each other.

 

Of course, we should be able to hold hands when we want. Same for sharing a hug. Same for a kiss. Our PDA is becoming more spontaneous. It’s genuine affection. It’s between us. It’s for us. Thankfully, it just feels right.                                                                                                                                               

SEX ON THE PAGE

As someone who is writing a gay romance, I’m reading a lot in the genre. Writers are told to read widely but they also must know their niche. They are expected to list two or three comparable novels that have already been published to some success. Not Danielle Steel kind of success—that comes off as arrogance—but titles with enough sales that a publisher can envision having a reasonable shot of turning a profit. It is a business, after all, and the bottom line looks better when black instead of red. 

 

I was excited to read Adib Khorram’s I’ll Have What He’s Having since I’d previously enjoyed his young adult novel Darius the Great Is Not Okay. I like when authors write in different genres, something I am also trying to do. The story is set in Kansas City, arising from a case of mistaken identity as Black sommelier David Curtis meets Iranian-American, career-hazy Farzan Alavi. As this is not a review of the book itself, I’ll skip plot specifics. This post is instead about the sex scenes.

 

Ooh! Sex!

 

As a kid, I stumbled on sex in books my mother read. When she’d go out, I’d skim in search of smutty passages. Yes, Mom and Dad, this is what happens when you don’t have the sex talk with your kid. This is also what happens when sex ed in school is limited to a speech about abstention and posters showing the ravages of venereal disease. My mom’s books weren’t very practical. There was a lot of reference to bosoms and the knight or prince’s engorged “member.” Reading proved only slightly more helpful than my father’s explanation that babies came “from love” and TV sitcom mentions of “the birds and the bees.” Obviously, storks delivered the babies but what did bees have to do with my privates? (I’d never heard of anyone getting stung there.)

 

Fortunately, for a younger generation that somehow hasn’t stumbled on porn, romance novels have become more helpful. “Sweet romances” keep things “lite,” sex defined as lots of hand holding, kissing and then abrupt openings to new chapters where characters suddenly feel like they might be in love. But, aside from a particular bottle of rosé and a homemade cake, I’ll Have What He’s Having is neither sweet nor lite. It serves sex on a platter. Had my mother had any interest in man-to-man romance and this novel been lying around while I was growing up, I might have taken notes. Khorram is more than generous with the details.

 

And, as an older reader who no longer searches for sex riddles in bird or bee talk, I don’t read sex passages in books to learn something new…though I did learn a few new terms (e.g., taint and bussy). (RIP, bosoms and engorged members.) As a teen, I was intrigued. Now, I’m squirmier. I’m okay with characters having sex. I just don’t need all the details.

 

Khorram provides plenty of details. So many that a readerly couple could use his sex scenes as scripted role play and there wouldn’t be any gaps to ad-lib. 

 

Color me red. But that squirming isn’t solely from discomfort; I’m bored, too. 

 

I’ve heard many times that, unless someone is going for erotica, a sex scene shouldn’t be gratuitous. It should take the plot forward, somehow changing one or both of the characters and their relationship. (Thankfully, Khorram’s sex scenes only involve couples.) And, yes, I see how things evolve as a result of each scene but, for all the bravado in trying to make the reader blush, Khorram’s scenes are too balanced in terms of turn taking. It made the sex scenes predictable. 

 

There are two more problematic points, however. First, prolonged sex scenes require the reader to play out some form of visual Twister in their head. It becomes rote. First, A placed his hand here. Then, B put his mouth there. Including all the choreography in a sex scene becomes needless work for the reader to imagine. It’s more tedious than titillating. The first sex scene in I’ll Have What He’s Having plays out over TWELVE pages spanning two chapters—that turn-taking thing. I really didn’t need that much sex Twister. I wish to assert a Donut Rule for sex scenes. Sure, a dozen pages of sugary sweetness may be tempting, but one or two is all I need for a sugar coma. I’ve gotten enough flavor and calories. Anything extra has bad consequences.

 

My Donut Rule is actually a more specific version of the wise, oft-quoted advice for writers: Less is more. 

 

Much less, in this case.

 

Again, I’m not trying to be the prude police (though, yes, I can be prudish). All the choreography only slows down the novel’s pacing. 

 

The second issue is that sex scenes can be overwrought in terms of how a writer describes the emotions. This is especially true in the romance genre where writers are building to a happily ever after. There seems to be an assumption that sex should be The Best Ever and, in reaching for that, unhelpful clichés emerge between the sheets. I’ll pull a few excerpts from pages 272-273 since, at this point, I’d had enough of the sex scenes and found myself distracted, picking them apart:

 

His skin was on fire, despite the room’s chill; his core was even hotter.

 

Electricity shot along his core as he relaxed…

 

Farzan rocked beneath him, thrusting slowly, making David see stars. “Oh, babe…”

 

Oh, no. Electricity. Seeing stars. I’m pretty sure Khorram uses fireworks somewhere in a sex scene but I didn’t care to skim to find the reference.   

 

It’s telling that the title of the book harkens to the most famous line from rom-com movie When Harry Met Sally. There, a fake sex scene plays out with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal fully clothed in a delicatessen. When the characters finally have sex, we skip quickly to the Awkwardly Ever After as Harry lies wide awake in the bed, one leg draped over the edge as the character contemplates a quick exit. 

 

I never thought I’d say this in terms of sex but, as played out on the page, here’s to quick exits. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GRAY'S ANOMALY

Things are getting hairier. On my head. (Let’s not talk about ears, brows and nose, please.) As a woman said to me at the gym last week, I’m getting shaggier. She meant it as a compliment. I think. 

 

Yes, I’m letting my hair grow out to some proximation of my Big Hair ’80s era. My hair has certainly receded in the passing decades and it’s thinner but the top of the noggin is still well covered and, for that, I am grateful. I think bald men can be very sexy, but I tell myself my head needs hair. Too many moles hide underneath. 

 

They are still hiding, aren’t they? 

 

Hair insecurity makes me reluctant to look too long into the hand mirror that mostly gathers dust in the bathroom vanity. 

 

I’m letting the hair grow out while I still have hair to grow out. It means that the cleaner, closer-cut, left-parted haircut—I call it my “Swedish cut” after seeing so many immaculately, conservatively groomed men during trips to Stockholm—is giving way to big curls. The back of the head, in particular, is curling up. 

 

“Just don’t grow a mullet,” everyone says. 

 

The fact they say that makes me realize it is, in fact, looking a little mullet-y at the moment. Without hand mirror scrutiny, I believe I’m in the awkward phase of growing things out. It’ll get better, I keep telling myself. My hairstylist will have to clean up the neckline during my next visit. 

 

I’m also sprouting facial hair—mustache and beard. When I was twenty and in my first year of teaching—yes, in the ’80s—I grew a mustache to try to look older. I was a high school special education teacher and some of my students were a year older since Texas law permitted students to be enrolled in secondary school until they were twenty-one. I’m rather thankful I don’t have any photos from that period. I don’t think it was a good luck. 

 

This is the first time I’ve attempted a beard. I’ve sometimes been a lazy shaver, letting facial whiskers linger for up to ten days but then I’ve always felt uncomfortably itchy, causing me to lather up the shaving cream and revert to a smoother look. I’m now about six weeks into the beard. It seems as full as it’s likely to get. The itching has subsided. My boyfriend and my best friend are fans of the beard. “You look Scandinavian,” I am told. I will always take that as a compliment. 

 

So far, I’ve gone to the barber twice for beard trims with electric razors. (The thought of a blade trim worries me too much. I imagine myself flinching at the wrong moments and having my chin, cheeks and neck gushing blood.) The process is quite soothing and extremely detail-oriented. I imagine it’s something like having a massage…which I’ve never had. (The thought of my body being needed like bread dough is as appealing as a bloody blade shave.) 

 

Arr, Graybeard!

I’ve come close to getting rid of the beard several times. A few more days, I keep telling myself. I am conflicted by the look. While my hair is blond with some gray growing in, the beard is one hundred percent gray. I feel old. I look like a skinny version of Santa. (Am I even that skinny? Do kids I pass do a double-take. “Santa?!”)

 

Without the beard, I look considerably younger than sixty. With it, I feel sixty-five. I keep asking myself why I would sacrifice looking more youthful? What’s the beard’s appeal?

 

This weekend, my boyfriend, Evan, suggested I dye the beard and mustache. One box of Just For Men blond beard dye and—Bam!—I lost a decade. (Maybe more?) 

 

Somewhat blonder facial scruff...

So now I’m a big, shaggy faker. I have blond highlights in my hair and blond dye for my beard. I am relieved. I’d even say I am happy. I am no longer peeking into the bathroom mirror with dread. The beard will stay a while longer, at least.

 

The concern now is about whether I’ll know when to say my final goodbyes to all blondness. There will come a time when the color will look blatantly painted on, when people will see me for the blond fraud I am, an old guy trying unsuccessfully to look younger. I’ve seen it in other men and women. I just wonder if I’ll see it in me. Will I know when to let the dyes die? Will it take friends and family holding a hair intervention? Will someone slide an anonymous note under my door? “Today’s the day for you to go gray.”

 

For now, I believe I still have enough natural, non-gray hairs on my head to carry off the blond deception. When it’s all gray, may I have the common sense to let things be. Frankly, I think a full head of gray hair can be sexy, too. It can look distinguished. It can convey confidence. It’s possible, I have self-esteem issues around the terms sexy, distinguished and confident. Maybe the real work to be done is inside the head rather than at surface level.