SexyPrime, a blog by Susan Crain Bakos

DOES HE TELL YOUR SEX SECRETS?: The Beta Man's Revenge On His Alpha Woman

 

The following conversation with The Zola (slightly edited) initially appeared as a guest post on his blog The Zola System.  Some women are FURIOUS with him.  Their anger is understandable.  Having your sexual proclivities described for the amusement of others is a far worse betrayal than his masturbating to hard core porn.  Tell me what you think.  I want to hear from alpha females and beta males on this subject.

Photo Credit:  "Lips" by Dave Sewell

Does the loyalty Zola proclaims he has to friends not extend to former, and sometimes current, lovers?  Will he descrbe any intimate situation to get attention or a laugh? 

Here is the bottom line question:  Is Alex so willing to lay out these women naked in their sexual needs for our amusement because they’re alpha babes and he’s a beta male—and is this his way of leveling that playing field?

We are sitting in a Third Avenue pub that when I ask him,

“Alex, tell me a sex story about one of your girls, one that I haven’t heard.”  (I've heard many, many of them.) 

Grinning, Alex rises to the bait.

“I was dating Jenna, the hot brunette who also went out with older guys.  In fact, she preferred older guys in a relationship context, but she was happy to play with me.  One day she came into my bar, wearing a tight, short dress.  I leaned over to kiss her and she said, ‘Not on the mouth.  I just had a date.’

“The ‘date’ was riding in a car to the airport with a corporate lover headed to London on business.  She gave him a blow job in the car.

“She tells me this and says, ‘I’m so horny.  Would you take me into the bathroom and fuck me?’

“Did you?”  I ask.

He didn’t because the bar was way too small and too crowded for discretion.  Plus, the owner was on premise that night. 

“So, no.  I sent her to my apartment, told her to cuff herself to the bed post  and sealed the deal later on.”

Alex, I ask, why do you tell me all these sex stories?  I was really surprised at what he divulged over dinner with our friend Jessica last week.  He promises women nondisclosure; and then he discloses.  Where is the gallantry, the chivalry in a man who thinks of hiimself as a gentleman?

‘You’ve often told me that you won’t spill the secrets of patrons in your bars.  They come in with mistresses; you act like you haven’t seen them lately when the return with the wives.  They tell you stories but you keep their confidence.  You are loyal to drinkers.”

Is there no loyalty to lovers?

“Part of my business as a bartender is discretion,” he says as if that explains this.

“You know how to be discreet.  Why not apply it to your sex life?”

“I don’t tell everything, just the more interesting details.”

Sometimes I want to thump him on the head.  Yeah, he tells exactly the details the girls would rather keep private--like the one about his lover who likes to be choked.

“Women talk all the time,”  he says defensively.

Post "Sex and the City",  men know that, Yes, women talk. 

“Women share stories for validation, information, emotional support—sometimes to laugh at an adventure in bad sex,” I say.  “If a woman is really into a guy, she doesn’t tell those kinds of details--and if she does, only to BFFs.  She might talk disparagingly about his sexual skillis if she’s not going to sleep with again or sex  trash her ex—but if she’s crazy about her lover, she’s not putting all his little proclivities out there on the table for analysis and grins.”

“You tell the most intimate details for attention and laughs,” I say.  “You have told me a lot of stories about women when you were still with them, like the girl you thought you might marry.  You made fun of her sexual technique!  I don’t think you’d find women making fun of the guy they plan to marry.

“Girl sex talk can be hard on men, but not The Man.”

“It goes like this,” he says, his face closing up as his defenses harden.  “I’m a raconteur.  I can’t resist a good story.  It’s a personal failing.”

“You can resist a good story if it’s telling on your bar buddies or yourself,” I tease. 


“Not recently.” 

True.  Under my questioning, he's told more on himself recently than most people do in a lifetime.  I suddenly realize that my work here is nearly done.  For two years I’ve been beating him up.  Why?  I knew that he could really write if he started being honest with himself—and got out of The Loser Bar where he was spending three or four hours a night downing shots and beers with with snarky under achievers. 

“With the help of Jessica’s breasts [which mesmerized him], I’ve broken you down,” I say.  “You can no longer tell a lie to yourself.”

Once again, I ask the question, albeit in a slightly different way: “Don’t you value your lovers?”

“Some, yes.” 

“Some.  I see a pattern.  You betray the alpha females in your life, don’t you?”

“Some.  Yes, maybe.  In a way, I would say Yes.  Specifically the ones who attempted to exert the most control outside the bedroom.  Telling their sex secrets is purely reactive. But I like the raconteur explanation better.”

“Oh, no!  No easy out. You’re on to something here.”

He looks pained.

“You let them lead in many ways, but you get back at them for having so much power.  Most women would consider your describing in detail how they like to be fucked as the ultimate betrayal.”

Still pained, but not enitrely conceding, he doesn’t look me in the eye.

“Let’s turn it around:  She’s telling her friends what you like and how you do it, but with a comedic spin.  How do you feel?”

“It’s the only way you can tell my sex life.  With a comedic spin.”

Drum roll, please.

“Nice joke, Zola, but really.  She’s entertaing friends at brunch right now with your sex story.  Your dick comes off shrunken and shriveled.”

“She’s got that right…”

“Truly, how do you feel?”

As I watch him squirm on his bar stool before downing a shot, I know I am seeing open heart surgery of the emotional kind.  The heart of the alpha woman/ beta  man is a secret sexual equation.  This is where he can get back, like Jon, the presumably cheating spouse of the reality show “Jon and Kate Plus Eight.”  Jon lost job; Kate wrote successful books and traveled to promote them, leaving Jon home and in charge of the twins and sextuplets.  How did they think revenge adultery would not follow?  Alex is pulling apart the bones of his chest and exposing the weak heart of his loves inside.

Alex says, “Keep in mind, this is a frat boy context, locker room talk….”

“Aging guylander, Gen X-er having trouble growing up, beta male?”

“Basically, I would agree to all that.”

“So, you’re telling me that the answer to the question, why aren’t you loyal to your lovers is–”

“It’s a problem with the repressed jock culture.  If we’re not snapping each other with towels, we’re bragging about our conquests.”

“Oh, no, you haven’t been a jock in years.  And it’s meaner than that.”

“It’s an anger at the position of the beta male, the way the culture has changed…”

He stares into his beer.

“We’re trying to play Ms Pac-Man forever and everybody has moved on to the X Box.”

Okay.  Lame.  But he gets it now.  He knows what he’s doing and it goes beyod equalizing the balance of power by playing The Spanking Man in the bedroom.  She participates willingly in that power exchange.  He really beats her down, gets her back when he tells her erotic story the way he tells bar jokes.

Alex knows why he tells.  Knowing yourself is a tough and dangerous business.  You can’t be a really good writer if you don’t.  But why do women ever trust him?

After posting this piece on The Zola System, I asked a dozen guys, beta males, who they tell and what they tell.  The answers were shocking:  When it comes to talking about their lovers, they are clones of Zola.  They tell.  They tell all.  While a woman might tell all only to her BFFs, these guys are putting it out there for public consumption.

Explain yourselves, Beta Boys.

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

Zola Confesses To A Pair Of Sumptuous Breasts: Sex, Money and Lies, the Conversations

My guy pal and frustrating mentee Alex Zola and I are out with Jessica, a mutual friend visiting from the Midwest.  A psychologist and life coach, she specializes in working with men and women who have difficulty meeting each other.  Yes, there are people who don’t even have pick-up lines.  After leaving two packed restaurants because real New Yorkers don’t wait on line, we end up at The Black Duck on 28^th Street between Park and Lex.  It isn’t over-crowded; we can talk.  (The food is excellent.)

 

And Alex does talk.

 

Jessica is a Marilyn Monroe look-alike.  Many men babble in her presence.  The Zola, however, with no overt encouragement from her, describes exactly how his last girlfriend liked to be fucked. He’s repeatedly told me he promised her that he wouldn’t talk about their sex life.  Having known him for many years, I take all his nondisclosure agreements with a grain of salt.  Just like a blabby girl, he spills secrets he promised not to reveal.  Yet I am still surprised to hear him, with little prodding, tell us just where poor little Chrissie liked to be poked.  Who expects a man to tell sex details like a woman does?  (Yes, it's true:  Men talk as much as women do, given the opportunity.)

 

Our conversation is already focused on kink—the strangest sexual behavior Jessica read or heard about or I witnessed as a sex journalist. 

 

“I saw photos of women tied up like roasts, basted with oil and tied to barbecue spits,” she says, her big blue eyes open wide.

“I watched a dom spend three hours putting a man in a rubber suit into extreme bondage,” I say.  “He breathed through straws inserted into his nostrils.”

Alex suddenly says, “You remember Chrissie?”

I nod.  She’s the pretty girl who dumped him in March.  I usually remember the spankees' names for three months.  Well, not always.

“She liked extreme bondage and hot wax,” he says.

Jessica’s eyes light up because she loves the sexual confessions.  I look slightly askance at Alex.  He ignores the look and continues to describe Chrissie’s sexual predilections. 

“She liked her hands tied tightly behind her back, wrists bound together, fingers splayed out.  She begged me to pour hot red wax—always red wax—all the way down her back to the tattoo at the top of her crack.  Then she asked to be flogged until the red lines from the whip matched the red wax.”

“Wow,” Jessica says, laughing. 

“Then she wanted me to masturbate, turn her over and come on her face.”

They continue to chat about Chrissie; and I sip my wine—a fine Aligote from Washington state; Zola knows his wine.  This is not the first time Zola has ratted out an ex-lover.  I remember hearing him make fun of another lover whom, he said, moved side to side rather than up and down on his penis in rear entry position.  I wonder how he would feel about the women in his past speaking disparagingly—and for the sake of a laugh—about what he did after his pants came off.  Also I wonder:  How funny might those stories be?

Where is the loyalty he’s always proclaiming he has for friends?  Does it not apply to former lovers?  Will he do anything for the sexual laugh at their expense?  Is Alex so critical of these women because they’re alpha babes and he’s a beta male—and is this his way of leveling that playing field?  These judgmental questions do not stop me from drilling for more details.

“Did Chrissie also like to be spanked?” I ask.  (Regulars readers of both our blogs know that Alex has an erotic specialty, spanking.)

“Oh, yes, she did!”  He is relishing the tale.  “She also liked a riding crop across her ass.”

“What did she do for a living, Alex?  I forgot.”

“She’s a corporate VP.”

Right.  Another Alpha babe.  Zola has been through a string of those, albeit in relationships so brief, there was no time for relating.  Jessica explains that high-powered women often like to be treated rough in the bedroom.   Apparently, he’s got that part down.

“It releases some of the tension they hold in their bodies from power positions at work.”

But why do they turn to beta males for erotic discipline?

“That’s a good one,” Zola says.  “Maybe it’s because we’re readily available and willing.  Some alpha men want the same treatment.”

A much smaller percentage of alpha men than women want their butts whipped; and the men pay doms to get it done right.  They don’t want to risk their authority and power status with the women they actually know.  In fact, male submissives are generally betas. 

“I’m the spanker, not the spankee,” Zola says, putting his hands up in mock protest.

This is the essential Zola dichotomy.  He lets an alpha woman ask him out, pick up the check and generally call the shots.  Then he takes down her panties, puts her over his knee—and wallops her.   Hearing about it messes with my head.   A dominant male is, or should be, a dominant male.  I don’t like my gender confused.  

“Do you like spanking women, Alex?”  Jessica asks.

He gives his demurring answer:  the ambivalent shrug followed by the protestation that he’s only supplying the kink they crave.

“But do you enjoy it, Alex?”  she persists, crossing her lovely long legs and leaning forward across the tiny table so that he cannot fail to drop his eyes to her lush cleavage.  “Well?” 

“I do,” he finally confesses.

At last!  The truth.  It only took an extraordinarily beautiful woman’s breasts to get it out of him.

But here is my question:  “Zola, what do these women see in you?”

Jessica laughs.  Zola blushes.  I want the answer. 

“Well?”  I demand.  “I want to know.”

“Well, thanks, Sus.”

“Control,” Jessica answers for him.  “She can control him in the areas that are important to her, like making social plans and, later perhaps, deciding on how and where they would live if they got married.  But she can trust him erotically in that power exchange.” 

The Zola nods.  He seems satisfied.  I, however, am not.

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

CONVERSATIONS: SEX, MONEY AND LIES, The Sex Part

Alex Zola and I are sitting at Maxie's Grill (19th Street between Park Avenue and Irving) drinking wine and talking about the lies that men and women tell.  

Alex has great stories about male money braggarts (including him).  I don't think he realizes that women are lying about money now too; and I'm not going to tell him.  He might date a girl who is trying to impress him with her imaginary trust fund or exaggerated salary and bonus package; I won't blow her cover and wise him up.

 

So we talk about sex lies.  

 

“Men lie more about sex than women do,” Alex says.

 

 “Oh, really?  Why do you say that?”

 

 “Men lie about how many women they’ve had; they lie to other guys.  They lie to girls too.  Where sex is concerned, everybody lies to everybody.”

 

 “Ha!  Women lie about their numbers to men.  They tell the truth to other women.  Did you never watch 'Sex and the City', Alex?"

"Of course I did, but it was television.  Men lie about having sex with specific women.  They claim they've slept with certain women that they never have."

"Omigod, I can relate to that.  We were just talking about it last week when I told you that so many musicians and regulars at St. Nicks Pub were claiming they'd slept with me after I was mugged there.  Why do men do this?"

"It's a learned behavior from high school," he says; and I groan.  Men never get out of high school.

He asks me:  "What are the big sex lies women tell?"

"Oh, that's easy.  I came.  It was wonderful.  You're so big.  Nobody else ever found my G spot."

"What percentage of women really do lie about orgasm?" he asks; and he doesn't seem particularly concerned about the answer.

"What is your guess?"  I ask him.

"Thirty percent," he says; and I giggle.  I cannot stop giggling.  "Fifty percent?"  he asks.  Raucous laughter.  "I don't know.  That's why I'm asking you!"

"Studies vary, but it's like 75%, 80%, 85% or more, depending on how the question is phrased.  If the question is: Have you ever faked orgasm?  The answer is:  Almost 100%.  If the question is:  Do you fake orgasm?  It's down to 75% or so.  That's across the board, young women, older women, married women, single women. Recently  Women's Health magazine (read by women under 40) reported that 80% of their readers said they faked orgasm.  

Women fake orgasm! (And usually they say they do it to end the sex.)  Get over it, men.

"So, Alex, how many women do you think have faked orgasm with you?"

"Realistically?  All of them."

I am laughing.  He's joking, right?  No man thinks his lovers fake.  Could Alex be that one wise man?

"I saw 'When Harry Met Sally' more than once.  Most men lie that every woman comes with them.  I know better."

Men lie about nailing someone they never nailed; women lie about having an O they never had.  What else are men and women lying about in bed?

"Men lie about sex acts, specifically they say they've had anal sex and threesomes," he says.

Ah, the very acts women deny.  Both men and women lie about how hot their sex lives are.  The myth of Hot Monogamy was dependent on married people saying they had great hot sex all the time.

"As a bartender, I have a lot of stories about sex lies, mostly cheating spouses."

Yes, almost everybody lies about cheating.  The alternative is sexual honesty through swinging or polyamory--just too politically correct in liberal circles, too white bread and suburban.  Boring. People lie about their fantasies, especially women who don't understand that a rape or SM fantasy is not a wish or desire.  It just means she wants to be overcome by passion.  Men lie about Internet porn use. 

"Yeah, men lie about Internet porn use.  When they get caught by their wives, they pull a David Ducovney and say, 'Baby, I'm a sex addict; I'll get help."

In that same Women's Health survey, one in five men watch porn daily.  Jay Leno jokes on "The Tonight Show":  "The other four watch it hourly."

Maybe the question really is:  Does anybody tell the truth about sex?  Who can we trust?

"Can we really trust Kinsey?" Alex asks.

Yes, Kinsey's sex interviews and Masters and Johnson's early lab research are trustworthy.  It's the men and women we know that we can't trust.

"What kind of sex lies have you told women?" I ask him.

He hesitates and finally says, "I"m trying to think.  There's so many."

"Can you narrow it down to one or two?"

"i've never tried that.  Or, no, I don't have interest in that--Why, do you?  And:  No, I've never spanked anyone before."

Oh, well.  I take a swallow of wine.  Does Alex realize that lie isn't going to work anymore?

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

SHOULD THE SPANKING MAN TEACH HIS ART?: Zola Adapts To His Newfound Infamy--Has Been Asked To Teach A Spanking Seminar--And Wants You To Tell Him What To Do Next

Every now and then Alex Zola annoys the hell out of me.  Friday was one of those days.  After delighting in the fact that he was recognized on the street as “The Spanking Man,” bragging about his sky-rocketing blog numbers from the interview posts, sending everyone he ever met the link to his chat with Crystal Bougon on Better Sex radio—The Zola said:  “I’m not entirely comfortable with my new image.”

Not two minutes later, he was excitedly telling me that my pal Steve Otero at Sexy Spirits wants him to teach a spanking seminar.

“Should I do it?” he asked, that carefully cultivated look of agonized reflection upon his boyish face.  

“No,” I said, because I can’t resist letting all the air out of his ego when he gets like this.  “You should take down all the interview posts, announce to your readers that you will never discuss your Kinky Decade or answer to Spanking Man again—and go back to being the lone sniper on the bar stool [which is how I characterize his writing when he’s snarky about other people, like the women he’s dated].”

He was crestfallen and soon petulant.

But that was Friday.  It’s Monday and we’re friends again.  I’ve made him suffer enough.  Now it’s your turn.  Tell us what you think Alex should do about his new image as the Spanking Man—and should he teach that workshop or not?

 

SUSAN:   Are you really conflicted about becoming known as The Spanking Man?  Or were you just trying on an attitude in preparation for your future as a media guest?

ALEX:   What?  Are you trying to mug me like Mike Wallace?  Every now and then I do have a little conflict about what I’m doing.  One two-hour incident of corporal punishment—and I’m marked for life.  Then somebody passes me on the street, makes that little circular motion with the hand—and I think, "Hmmm, I might just be on to something here."

 

SUSAN:  Admit it:  You love the limelight—and stop blaming me for pushing you into it.

ALEX:  Okay, from now on, I’ll blame society. I like the limelight I have.  I’m grateful I’m not Brad Pitt.

 

SUSAN:  By acknowledging your kinky side, you have moved into new territory with your writing.  It takes more courage to put yourself out there than it does to shoot down other people.  So much writing on the web is snark—judgment without investigation.   Writers cop an attitude .  They think of themselves as ironic, but for the most part, they are just snide, mean-spirited little men.  Yes, they are typically men.  And, yes, I suspect they have small dicks.  What do you have to say about this category of blogger now that you’ve taken The Zola System to a more interesting place?

ALEX:   Snark has its place if it’s interesting, but most people who are snarking are not interesting.  New journalists like Hunter Thompson, Lester Bangs and more recently bloggers like Tucker Max snark in an intriguing way.  Most of the imitators don’t have the intellectual discipline or cultural awareness to make snarky comments that resonate with readers.

 

SUSAN:  You are more interesting now that you have a more fully exposed character on the blog.  Hasn’t the response to the interviews I did with you been largely positive?

ALEX:   With that singular exception, absolutely positive.  A lot of my readers are women; and they love the kinky posts.  Nobody has asked me to spank them yet, but the persona is young.

 

SUSAN:   Where did you learn how to spank, Alex?

ALEX:  A girl told me what to do.  The first girl I spanked said, “I like it this way.”  Then spanking became trial and error.  I realized I had it down properly when spanking sessions became shorter, more focused and rather erotic for both of us.

 

SUSAN:  What’s your secret technique?

ALEX:  We’re talking about spanking here; we’re not talking about wine varietals.  There aren’t many ways to do this.  You can cup the hand or not.  You have to slap the buttocks, not the middle.  Stay away from the smile; go to the cheeks.  It’s about the anticipation of the blow and the sound when it hits, not usually about corporal punishment.  My secret is to pay attention and continually figure out what my partner likes—and then see if I can’t push her into another direction that she might enjoy as well.

 

SUSAN:  And what direction would that be, Alex?  Are you talking about pushing her limits—or pushing her to give you a blow job?

ALEX:  I’d like to think I’m pushing for a blow job, but with my luck, it’s usually her limits we’re pushing.  And she wants them pushed.  That is the key.

 

SUSAN:  The sex and dating posts are but a part of your blog.  What’s the downside to embracing this new image?

ALEX:  Thus far, there hasn’t been, but I’m assuming eventually there will be.  I’m worried about turning off readers for other posts.  The Zola System is becoming a blog-azine, not a blog spot.  I cover Detroit and New York City, sports and music, weirder world events, colorful urban characters—and always from a Post Urban Culture perspective.  [See interview two for PUC; The Zola Interviews are all categorized under ALEX ZOLA.]

 

SUSAN:  Women get stuck in the sex writer category, but men don’t.  When a woman writes about her sex life, she’s discounted as a serious writer.  Men, on the other hand, are lauded for the effort.  I don’t see how this can damage you.  Am I wrong?

ALEX:  No, you’re absolutely correct.  Upon further review, there isn’t.  I’d like to end up like a modern day Henry Miller, like Walter Mosley.

SUSAN:  One of my favorite writers!  I loved his mysteries and was thrilled when he did an erotic novel.  Aim high, Zola.

 

Write to us and answer the burning questions:

What do you think about The Spanking Man image?

Should Alex teach a spanking workshop?  (And do you want a discount if he does?)

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

SEX AND RACE: How That Conversation Keeps Getting Me In Trouble--What Happened After I Got Mugged in Harlem--and How That Was All About Sexual Judgment

In part two of the Race/Sex interview with Alex on The Zola System blog, we discuss my mugging --and the response I got when I wrote about it for The New York Press.

 

Here is the interview in its entirity:

 

Twenty-one years ago, one my professors, Miles Davis’ former press agent the late Marc Crawford, sent me and several other students to St. Nicks Pub in Harlem to hear some jazz at a venue he described as “legendary.”  We were all giddy to see the music Crawford told us was “American classical” in a majestic club that helped to make jazz part of the national lexicon.  What we found was a hole in the wall joint complete with drug dealers and locals glaring at the dumb NYU kids who managed to find their way uptown.   I still don’t know how the five of us got below 14^th Street with our scalps intact.

 

 So all these years later, when my dear friend Susan Crain Bakos started going up to hear various acts play their gigs, I wasn’t thrilled.  But, then again, the whole island was gentrifying and so was Harlem.  How bad could it be? 

 

 Well, last year, Susan got mugged outside St. Nicks and I had to go collect her.  When I walked in the joint, I swear the same eyes from 1988 were looking through us. 

 

 In today’s interview, Susan and I discuss her mugging, the New York Press piece that followed and the really pissed off responses including more death threats from people who need to get a life. 

 

 

Q.   For our mutual safety, especially mine, we are conducting this interview from a secure bunker somewhere other than Manhattan, the undisclosed location previously used by a certain Vice President who shall remain out of office.  My first question:  Why didn’t you listen to me when I told you not to hang out at St. Nicks Pub where you were knocked down and robbed in front of a group of bar regulars who did nothing to help?

A.  In retrospect, I should have listened to you but until I hit the pavement on the back of my head and the small of my back, I naively assumed that the small-time drug dealers and buyers who do business there wouldn’t bother the jazz crowd.  I’d witnessed some minor skirmishes at the pub in the past, but they were between marijuana dealers, petty little thugs.   I knew the guy who knocked me down and stole my bag.  He is a hairdresser in the ‘hood who did my hair twice—and kept asking for more money, a gift, a loan, whatever, because he had to settle with his dealer.   Nobody tried to intervene.  They stood by while a 6’5” 250 pound man knocked down a woman half his size.   And they were mad because I called the cops! 

 

 

Q.   (Laughing) The place was the same moldy dive 22 years ago when I went there for the first time.  And how did calling the cops work out for you?

A.  They asked me what I was doing uptown alone at 10:30 at night.  When I said I was going into the pub to hear jazz, they couldn’t believe it.  “What is a woman like you doing in a place like that?” Good music, cheap drinks, no cover.  That isn’t good enough?  Clearly they were not jazz aficionados or they would have realized that jazz is an expensive habit.  If you love it, you’re looking for the bargain.   They told me that “nobody in the bar saw nothin’ and that’s how these people are.”

Miles and Coltrane and Bird drank at that bar.  Billie Holiday sang on the tiny stage.  Every jazz musician who matters has been in St. Nicks Pub, to headline or jam or just drink.  Did I romanticize the place?  Hell, yes.

 

 

Q.  It was a bad experience all around.  Before you called me, you called that guy you’d been seeing.  He lived right around the corner but he couldn’t come rescue you.  What, was he only in it for the blowjobs?

A.  Yes, yes, he was.  I knew that.  But I really knew that when he couldn’t walk around the corner to see if I was okay and put me in a cab headed downtown.   He didn’t want anyone to know that we were lovers because he was very invested in his corporate image and I am a sex writer.  He was also seeing a rather blandly pretty little teacher; and I’m sure he didn’t tell her how much he loved those blow jobs.  If he hadn’t possessed such a fine cock…..

 

 

Q.  I know, I know.  However, given what a terrible night that was for you, why did you decide to write about the experience for The New York Press? 

A.  I was annoyed that the police couldn’t manage to pick up my assailant when I knew who he was and where he worked and would identify him and press charges.   If they couldn’t at least make him sit in jail overnight, I thought I might get him fired by identifying him and his employer in the paper.   Honestly, I do believe that they would have gone after him if I were a social worker or corporate manager and not a sex writer.   Years ago a writer for Forbes magazine joked when introducing me at a party that I was “the high class call girl of journalism”.   That attitude is pervasive.   You write about sex; you are open about your own sex life—and, therefore, you are a slut.   A sex writer alone at a jazz bar in Harlem is a slut looking for action and, in this case, finding trouble.  When something bad happens, like a mugging, you find out how people really think.  The judgmental Puritanical American character is squirming beneath the skin of many people who try to appear more cosmopolitan about sexuality.

In the interests of full disclosure, I admit that I am a big flirt—which may be a contributing factor to the image problem.  On a few occasions, I kissed a man at the bar, mainly to annoy the man who was pretending we weren’t lovers, watching from across the room.  

 

 

Q.  A big flirt? Talk about the concept of understatement.  You once made out with your old friend, a broadcast journalist, in front of me at Caliban’s,

I have to admit I was relieved when you went to the bathroom,  You two were blocking my view of the blonde sitting in the window.

A.  Oh, yeah, he and I were a bit exhibitionistic together.  Did I ever tell you about the time in Soho….  Never mind.

 

 

Q.  So your motivation was to out the bastard who stole that green reptile skin bag and once again—all hell broke loose when the article was published.  You got more angry responses from that than you did from the one on sleeping with black men.   Why did so many people blame the victim?

 

 

A.  First, I broke the Harlem code of silence regarding crime reporting.  An African American male friend in Chicago called me when he read the article online and said, “Baby, if there’s one thing black people hate more than crime in the ‘hood, it’s the po-lice.”   Pub regulars were especially concerned about preserving their habitat.  Fine.  Then police the thugs yourselves.  Don’t stand by and let them knock a woman down and steal her handbag.

 

Q.  Ah, yes, the use of that word “thug” drew some ugly comments, didn’t it?

A.  Some readers assumed that I was labeling all African American males “thugs.”  Several drew the further conclusion that I must now hate all black men.  I was compared to Bay Buchanan.   Angry old white men wrote to tell me they didn’t want me back.  Yeah, guys, I had been petitioning for re-admission to that club.   A pretentious African American woman “intellectual” wrote an unintentionally hilarious diatribe about how my love of African American culture was part of the problem that led to me ending up on my back on concrete.  Married to a jazz musician who hit on me every time he saw me, she has spent years claiming that a famous woman writer stole her work.  The crazy people crawled out of the woodwork en masse.   Oh, yes, I heard from various sources that many men, pub regulars and musicians, were claiming they’d had sex with me.  (In three years of hanging out at St. Nicks Pub, I went home with two men, the aforementioned dick-matizer, and one very nice man who cooked for me a few times.  Best Senegalese food I’ve ever tasted.  I still have one of his white shirts.  Maybe I should return his calls.)

 

 

Q.  My favorite bit of stupidity came from the readers who thought the title—“My Harlem Romance Ended With A Head Bang” referred to romance with the thug who knocked you down.  That begs the question, why do so many people have trouble reading?

A.  That shocked me too!  It was so clear that the shattered “romance” was my romanticized idea of Harlem.   My favorite nasty note came from a white male literary agent who drew that “romancing the thug” conclusion and said I was out on a “booty mission” that turned ugly.  Jerry Portwood, the Editor-in-Chief, opted not to print his letter because the writer was “obviously motivated by some personal grudge. “ (Yes, he shopped for weed at the pub.)  I was a little disappointed.  Wouldn’t it have been interesting to see how women editors and writers responded to the “booty mission” remark?

The most ugly comments, including threats on my life, were posted on my blog.  I deleted them.  As you know, every time someone hits our blogs, their email addresses and computer IP numbers are recorded forever.   People who think they can menace someone in cyberspace and remain anonymous are stupid.  They should all hope nothing happens to me or they’ll be suspects.

 

 

Q.  Do you think those comments were motivated by your previous New York Press article on sleeping with black men?

A.  Yes, I do.  The consensus was:  You said you sleep with black men; therefore you will sleep with any black man; and it was inevitable that you would get hurt by one of them.   First, that argument is illogical; and, second, it is demeaning to black men as well as me.  I’ve never had sex with thugs, black or white.  You know some of my lovers; and they are professional men.

 

 

Q.  The responses exposed the underlying anger and racism and sexual judgment, didn’t they?

A.  I never understand how people can harbor so much rage and resentment about another person’s sex life.  But some do.  When you add race to sex—you may create a real witches’ brew.   The angry, resentful people don’t just have opinions; they’re ready to kill you over them.

 

 

Q.  How do you feel about Harlem now?

A.  I love Harlem!  It’s a vital, energetic and artistic community—with its own unique set of pros and cons like any city neighborhood has.  I am more aware of the problems now than I was a year ago; and I certainly got the message that a lot of black people remain angry at white people.   I don’t feel quite as safe as I did before I was knocked down.  I could get mugged anywhere in the city, of course.  It happens.  But if it happened in Gramercy Park, the cops would be more sympathetic—and manage to arrest the thug.

 

 

Q.  Do you expect a negative response again from this piece?

A.  I am more optimistic about race relations since Obama won.  The election changed the landscape immediately.  I was in Harlem on election night.  You could see it in every face, black and white, this beautiful transformation.  Yes, racism and sexism and ageism and many other forms of prejudicial behavior still exist.  But the President and First Lady, the Attorney General and the CEO of American Express—to name a few—are African Americans.   It’s a new world order, long in coming. 

Harlem can throw the thugs out of the jazz bars now. 

Although I agree with Susan, I just have to worry if the thugs leave the jazz bars, where are they going to go?

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

SEX AND RACE: How That Conversation Keeps Getting Me In Trouble--and Why I Still Love Black Men

Almost four years after I wrote a very controversial essay on sleeping with black men for The New York Press, Alex interviewed me on sex and race on his blog The Zola System.

Here is that interview:

As you all know, I get myself into trouble just by walking down the street.  However, when it comes to causing myself mischief, I am not close to my mentor and Auntie Mame, Susan Crain Bakos.  I may try to shoot off my toes, but she actually gets death threats.

As we all know, nothing like sells like sex and controversy and I wanted to know how Susan did it.

Q.   You wrote an essay for The New York Press three years ago on how you prefer black men in bed—and all hell broke lose.  Letters to the editor from white men and black women were vitriolic.  I remember that one white guy had to be forcibly restrained from throwing a bar stool at you in a quiet
Gramercy Park pub.   And hasn’t an angry black woman blogger gone to the trouble of manipulating search engines to keep her angry tirade against you at the top when your name is googled?

A.   Oh, yeah, all that happened and more.  On the other hand, I heard from some black women who prefer white men and weren’t upset with me at all.  Regarding the woman blogger:  I have never read what she had to say.  You know how I feel about haters who go for the personal mean-spirited attack rather than taking on ideas.  I delete people who can’t be courteous, rational, reasonable and logical when they disagree with me.  I’m certainly not seeking out her blog.  I’ve heard about it from other people, mostly friends who were offended by what she wrote and black men who still write to tell me that they bought one of my books in support.  If she’s that invested in search engine manipulation, that’s her problem, not mine.  I have a life.   Thank you, she has sold books for me.

Q.  What exactly did you say to piss all these people off?

A.  I said that middle aged white guys lose their sexual mojo—but black men don’t. Aging Boomer—and now Gen X—white men appear to be conflicted about male sexuality—to the point where they have low sexual energy.  Plus, they don’t take very good care of themselves as a group.  So many soft and bloated bellies out there!  Middle-aged women tend to look much better.  I am sure that we white women played a role in the de-sexing of the white American male by focusing on all the negatives of sex:  abuse, rape, incest, harassment and admonishing him not to flirt with us as we were serious working women.   I caution that this falls under the category of broad general statement but:  White culture doesn’t support male sexuality in the same way that African American culture does.  (I’m talking about American men; European and Australian white men seem to have it going on.) 

Q.  Susan, please tell us how you really feel.  Was there more?

A.  I also stated a physical preference for black skin over white.  And I described the rich, lush texture of black skin.  A woman who had bragged to me that her face wasn’t aging as fast as white women’s faces because “black don’t crack”—labeled me a “racist” for praising black skin.  Really.  Can she have it both ways?   

By the way, my friend says that the fifty-something men—white guys—that she sees at her husband’s golf club all look alike and project little or no sex appeal 

Q.  Why do you want to stir things up again?

A.  Oh, why not?  [Laughing] 

Q.  You are such a rebel.

A.  You know I love to provoke people!  Seriously, I dashed that essay off rather flippantly.  If I were writing it today, I would be more careful about making, or at least identifying, sweeping generalizations.  For example, there must be some middle aged single white guys who are still sexy.  And I would certainly take black women’s feelings more into account.

Q.  You didn’t realize that black women would take issue with your writing about your passion for black men—and theirs for you?

A.   I did not anticipate such rage.  An angry and well-educated black woman of a certain age got right in my face at a cocktail party and said, “Your great-great grandfather raped my great-great grandmother; and you have the nerve to talk about sleeping with black men.”  That is not appropriate or acceptable social behavior.  How the hell does she know what happened in generations past in my family?  For the record, a great-great grandfather did own slaves.  A great-grandfather was an abolitionist.  A great-grandmother was a light-skinned house slave.  I was born and raised in East St. Louis, Illinois.  The first penis I ever saw was black.   I did resent the condescending remarks from people who assumed I had emerged from my Ivory Snow background and discovered black men—“gone native” according to some—after age forty because white men didn’t want me any more.

Q.  I understand what you mean.  After all, weren’t your last two boy toys nice Jewish boys?

A.  Exactly!  But my background is crazy mixed up enough that I could state any skin color preference and insult someone who may be related to me.

Nonetheless, I would like to say:  I did not mean to put black women down.  Black women are beautiful.  They do age much better than white women.  Generalizing again, they have a lot of style.  When I moved to

Harlem, I marveled at how they dress for church on Sundays.  Magnificent hats, beautiful clothes. 
ncreasingly, interracial couples in Harlem are black woman/white man.   Good for them!  Older black women tell me that they were ostracized by “the brothers” for dating white guys in college, while those same brothers were crossing the race lines themselves.   Younger black women feel like they have more options; and they should feel that way because they do.

Q.   I get the impression that you are more concerned about explaining yourself to black women than to old white guys.  True?

A.  (Laughing).  True enough.   Squidgy—soft and pudgy—old white guys generally think more highly of themselves than the evidence indicates they should.  Part of their trouble may be simply this—and it’s an aspect of your Post Urban Culture theory—They grew up entitled and have finally reached an age where they know, or aggressively avoid knowing, that they’re not all that.   Black men didn’t grow up with that same unearned sense of entitlement. 

Q.  It’s going on four years since that essay—so I have to ask:  Do you still prefer black men in bed?

A.  Generally, yes!  Though I am quite fond of Boy Toys in different shades of skin, I still find that white men age out of their sexuality while black men don’t.    Black men are very sexy.  They do flirt; and they pull it off without making a woman feel she’s the object of licentious leering as, sadly, so many white guys do.   Hang out in Harlem and pay attention to how black men treat women.  They open doors, they pay compliments.  Their eyes light up with appreciation when women pass by; and they respond to a variety of sizes and shapes and colors.  They’re not afraid of women.

Q.  This is about penis size, right?  Are black men bigger?

A.  Statistically, black men are something like a fraction of an inch larger on average than white men.  That’s a negligible statistic.  I’ve known two really large cocks in my lifetime—one white, one black.  The race preference is not about penis size.  But I do think that a black cock is more aesthetically pleasing.  Some white cocks get that mottled red and purple look—which is not so appealing.

Q.  You do know that some people reading this are getting very angry with you.  They don’t like a woman saying she prefers big cocks or young cocks or black cocks or—

A.  Yes, big, young black cocks!  My Cougar dream.  [Laughing].  Let’s turn this around, Alex.  You prefer brunettes with olive skin, very pretty brunettes.  You want a woman young enough to have your babies—which is fairly selfish as you’re forty years old and were in no hurry to give someone her baby ten or twelve years ago.

But would anyone have to be restrained from throwing a barstool at you for preferring pretty young olive-skinned brunettes?

Q.  If they were throwing a bar stool at me, we can assume I said something to them and they took umbrage.  (laughs)  No.  I’m a guy.  I believe in the old saying:  Men fall in love through the eyes, women through the ears. We have to have what we have to have.

A.  I’m sorry, but you’re wrong.  Research studies show that women are more visual than men, are aroused more quickly by visual erotic stimuli—and also respond to a greater range of imagery than men do.  I have no patience with women who say it’s not about looks and go on to describe their instant deep feelings of love for their “soul mate.”   Initially, it was all about the way he looked when she first laid eyes on him.   That—and scent.  We smell our sex mates.  Nerve Zero is an olfactory nerve that transmits sex pheromones straight into the brain (bypassing the nose).

Love at first sight is really lust.  Some women just don’t recognize or acknowledge the truth about what attracts and arouses them in a particular man or men.

Q.  Hey, hey, I’m just the schmuck.  You’re the professional.

 

In the next interview, Susan and I discuss her Harlem mugging, why I had to go get her and the horrible response when she wrote about it.

 

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

WHY I AM A COUGAR: In My First Interview With Zola, The Truth Comes Out

 

In "What's Up With The Cougar Thing" the first of two (maybe more) interviews with my pal Alex Zola --I admit the truth.  Younger men have harder cocks.

Here is the interview in its entirety:

ALEX-- 

Over the course of five interviews, first published on SexyPrime and then re-posted here and on OpenSalon, my life, such as it stands, was examined or autopsied if you have a cynical bent, by Susan Crain Bakos. Now, in a wonderful show that Karma does exist and yes, it does have a sense of irony, I got Susan, dear family friend, my Auntie Mame and my Torquemada all wrapped into one, to sit down and allow me to interview her.

The subject for this interview is the rise of the Cougar phenomenon and why she only likes to date younger men.  We’ll see if we can’t get her on that reality TV show after all.

Enjoy!

Q. You’ve told me several times over the years you would never date anyone younger than me.  Why the change of heart?

A. That’s not my fault, Alex.  It was ten years ago.  You’ve aged.  I don’t go looking for men of a certain age, they come after me.  Half of my Facebook friends are wanna be boy toys.  Today I got an e-mail from one saying ‘I want to experience your experienced vagina.’  It’s not a very good line and it’s not getting him anywhere but I found it kind of amusing.

Q. Actually, I think that line is pathetic.  It’s a kind of Facebook version of hey baby, what’s your sign.  How often do you hear younger men use lines like that?

A. First, I don’t think it’s a pathetic line.  Lame, not pathetic.  A pathetic line is delivered by a man who knows you don’t want him and he is resentful and his resentment just bubbles up. 

Q.  Is it only younger men that come on to you?

A. Mostly.  It’s rare that I attract men my age.  It’s been that way for years.

Q.  You’ve sat at several of the bars I have worked over the course of the years and I watched younger men over look younger, more beautiful women to hit on you.  Frankly, it amuses the hell out me.  However I can never figure out why they walk past the bleach blondes.

A.  It’s a positive attitude about sexuality.  Men respond to that energy.  It makes them feel more comfortable with their sexuality.

Q. I know one young man who was utterly horrified of you and your openness when it comes to sexuality.  At a dinner party we attended, He actually had to leave the table when you and another woman were discussing the new sex toys available.  While turning beet red, he demanded you call them marital aides and ran away.

A. Neither one of us were married.  All of this from a discussion of the viability of new vibes in the marketplace. (laughs)  It wasn’t like I was describing masturbation sessions. 

Q. Ok, that begs the question: why younger men?

A.  Ok, let’s take on the stereotype: the cougar pays most of the young man’s bills, serves as a mentor and has most of the power.  My boy toys are accomplished, interesting men in fields not my own.  I don’t mentor them and they pay.  I don’t pay for men; men pay for me.

My first cougar love experience was with a man named Jack who used to joke he was more mature than I was.  He definitely took care of me on many levels and I wrote about his penis in an article for Penthouse.  It was re-printed around the world.

Q.  You avoided the question.  So again, I ask: why younger men?

A.   Hard cocks.

Q.  (Zola laughing)

A.  Come on Alex, how long have you known me?  You know the one man my age I have seen in the last decade possessed an exceptionally fine cock.  He played tennis several times a week.  The cock is all about blood flow.  I worship the cock.  Nothing relieves stress like sucking one.  I was totally dick-matized by this particular man.

Q.  Ok, I’ll play along.  If it’s all about the cock, why do you only hang out with accomplished men?

A.  It’s a good question.  Men have to be smart.  If they are stupid, I’m not getting to the cock.   Men have to be smart and interesting to engage me in conversation.  The cock is an extension of all they are.  If he’s not a wonderful, smart, interesting man, I’m not getting to the cock.  I will not go there.

Q.  So it’s the cock then?

A.  The cock leads the way for these guys.  They’re dominant because the cock leads them; and I like my men to be dominant in bed.  Not in a BDSM way, just a take charge kind of way.  As men get older and lose confidence in their cocks, they become less dominant.  Some women find that endearing.

Q. It freaks a lot of younger women out when their men are in charge in the bedroom.

A.  They aren’t completely comfortable the male/female sexual dynamic. They can’t separate the daily life competition at work with the nighttime–I want this guy to ravish me.  Because some women aren’t yet comfortable in their sexual skins, they have difficulty with men who are comfortable in theirs.  The strong, sexual self-confidence of the younger male can seem overbearing.  I find it very appealing.

Q. What does the cub get from the cougar?

A.  Sexual confidence, sexual expertise and no pressure.  They can have an affectionate relationship and hot sex without all the relationship talks via text messages.  Girls are always telling me that they ask guys “Where is this going” after a few dates.

Q. Really– because my cougar sent me long, odd e-mails demanding to know what I was doing and why I acted a certain way.

A.  Your cougar was a therapist. She was crazy.  I just call my boy toy and say, “Can I come over and suck your cock?”

 Next week, race and sex.

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

 

THE KINKY ROMANTIC: The Spanking Man, Alex Zola, Exposes "The Underbelly of His Cynicism"

The generally accepted definition of erotic spanking is:  Spanking for sexual gratification, using the hand or a variety of implements.  The art of spanking has been practiced for centuries  The ancient classic Kama Sutra lovingly described the sounds of slaps.  My courageously outspoken pal Alex Zola, The Zola System, has acknowledged that he spent his thirties as a provider of kink for the women who love it--and that his sex life for the past year has been one spanking girl and "some sloppy Wedding sex."

 

My post on The Spanking Man  received a lot of attention--most positive, but some from outraged women.  One attacked me on Alex's Facebook page (where he promoted the blog) as a pornographer.  She hadn't read the piece and objected to the photo image of a lovely female ass, a male hand poised above it.  "His thumb is clearly aimed for her anus!" she wrote.  She refused to read the piece where she would have learned that the thumb had no such trajectory.  No surprise.  Most people clamoring for censorship don't read what they castigate and would outlaw.  But this story has a happy ending.  James, a male reader rushed to my defense and told her she needed a good spanking.  She dis-friended Alex. Isn't it always the most repressed who are also the most perverted? 

Alex, who confides he prefers a firm butt because the sounds of the slaps echo, wants women to know that he is a romantic, albeit a kinky romantic. He pays for dinner, buys flowers, and some years ago was in the habit of leaving breakfast--a tea bag in a coffee cup and a muffin--with flowers outside a girlfriend's apartment door.  ("We had a good sex life, a normal sex life with a little spanking and some fisting mixed in.")

Once again, I question Alex.

 

SUSAN:  I defined you as a "kinky romantic" in one of our interviews.  After The Spanking Man post, some women wrote and asked me, "Where's the romance in spanking?'  So, Alex, that's my first question to you:  Where is the romance in spanking?

 

ALEX:  It's not quite serenading her beneath the window with a red rose in hand.  Although it appears to be violent, spanking has nothing to do with violence.  As anyone who has ever been mugged in New York City knows, violence is short, terrifying and paralyzing in equal measures.  Spanking is a power exchange.  In dating and mating, women have all the power.  They have so much that they can afford to give a little away now and then.

 

SUSAN:  A woman who wants to be spanked is handing over some power to you--correct?

 

ALEX:  Yes.  There's something romantic about giving a woman what she desires.  Bringing her fantasy to life is utterly romantic.

 

SUSAN:  Okay, there's some truth--and charm--in that.  But why are American women fantasizing domination now?  

 

ALEX:  Americans firmly believe in the American dream and have embraced the Wollstonecraft version of feminism.  Women are making greater strides in the workplace as men are becoming both equal partners and lesser earners.  Spanking and other BDSM games may be a manifestation of the need for male/female role play.

 

SUSAN:  That reminds me of a discussion we had about non-penetrative sex orgies.  I was invited to one (and declined).  Sex without any form of penetration seems like a sensible thing for strangers to do in terms of cutting down disease risks.  But it doesn't appeal to me.  [Orgies don't appeal to me; I'm such a one-on-one-at-a-time woman.]  Women crave penetration--whether we come that way or not--and men want to penetrate--because they always come that way.  Penetration speaks to a deep need in both sexes.  Let's not forget that lesbians popularized dildos and vibrators.  Do you think spanking is a viable way for a woman to feel like she's with a real man--when she chooses not to have intercourse for one reason or another?

 

ALEX:  I prefer not to think of spanking as the whole act--at least not going in.  When she says "I'd like to be spanked," I'm thinking:  kinky foreplay.

 

SUSAN:  But spanking was the whole game with the woman we've been talking about in these interviews--and with other women.

 

ALEX:  Yes, that wasn't my idea.  But let me make one thing clear:  Most of the women I've spanked have wanted a few slaps or maybe five minutes, not two hours.  She was an anomaly.

 

SUSAN:  You generally spank women in their twenties to maybe 40--which is consistent with the culture where that seems to be the age group asking for the whip hand.  Do you think that women under 40 want to be spanked more than older women do or did--or they're just more willing to ask for it?

 

ALEX:  They might be more willing to ask for it.  There's always been an interest in BDSM.  

 

SUSAN:  Bettie Page, the famous bondage model in the 50s, did a fair amount of spanking photos and reels, but she looked like she was in on the joke.  She didn't convey a passion for spanking or being spanked.  A famous movie scene in "Woman of the Year" in 1942 where Spencer Tracy spanked Katharine Hepburn was tongue-in-cheek--but, again, still doesn't seem all that sexual even reading today's context into it.  The overt sexualizing of spanking is a fairly recent phenomenon.

 

ALEX:  Yeah, it used to be covert, now it's overt--like from the Cold War to Guantanamo Bay.

 

SUSAN:  Again, doesn't that reflect our increasing comfort with violent even if the act is only symbolically so?

ALEX:  Acceptance of violence is part of the culture.  Quentin Tarrantino has made a career out of romanticizing violence.  "True Romance," "Pulp Fiction," "Natural Born Killers" which he helped write--aren't these ultimate American romance/violence films?  Spanking is a simple consensual act between two adults, not romantic violence.

SUSAN:  Remember Lisa Kudrow's Phoebe character in "Friends" confiding that she liked an occasional gentle spanking?  And Madonna's "Hanky Panky" song?  Spanking, as they say, is the new cuddling.

ALEX:  [Laughing,]  Who knew that a couple of whacks on the ass would draw this much attention?

 

SUSAN:  More than a couple...more like a couple hours.  Women have commented on that too.  As one woman wrote:  "A few slaps on the ass are sexy; two hours is corporal punishment."  I must admit that I relate the two hour spanking session to Victorian porn with its flagellation obsession.   Porn from that period is easy to analyze:  A sex-fearing, sex-hating culture wielding the whip against people who liked sex.  SO...Is spanking a way of putting sexual women in their place?

 

ALEX:  Maybe, for some women, but not for most.  I see three categories of women who like to be spanked:  women into serious pain, utter masochists; those with psychological issues who want to be punished for being sexual; and the majority of women who want a little more intensity, who are comfortable in pushing the envelope.

 

SUSAN:  And the spanking girl?

 

ALEX:  Well, she said she was bad.

 

SUSAN:  Do you think that women are "badder" than men?

 

ALEX:  They like to think so.

 

SUSAN:  Will a romantic comedy ever be built around your marathon spanking session?

 

ALEX:   "Exit to Eden" was so bad.  Surely some good romantic mainstream comedy will come out of the mainstream BDSM scene.

 

SUSAN:  One last question:  How long before Spanking Girl could sit down following your session?  And did you call the next day to inquire about the condition of her ass?

 

ALEX:  She seemed able to sit down the next morning after yoga.  I was still in her apartment.

 

SUSAN:  Wait a minute--you stayed over after she threw up?

 

ALEX:  I had to pass out somewhere.  The good news:  She was sitting fine on a bar stool at Mollys just an hour ago, next to the woman I was chatting up.

 

SUSAN:  Alex, as interest in these interviews builds and they become more and more widely read--do you think you'll ever get laid again?

 

ALEX:  I'm looking for a woman who doesn't Google.  [And as he walked out the door]:  I'm going back to that bar to see if the new woman Googles.

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THE KINKY DECADE: Alex Zola Reflects On His Thirties And Figures Out Why He's Not Married At 40

Photo Credit:  Alex throws down three card monte in Manhattan by Karen Sterling.

Other men have told me similar stories about dating in the city, but only Alex is bold enough to go on record. Here he is in our fourth interview which may be the nadir of his sex life. (Soon I will be asking for donations to the Buy Alex A Date fund.) Alex Zola, writer/bartender and blogger (The Zola System), is one of those guys some girl would have married a decade ago back in the Midwest—had he not been mired in increasingly frustrating dating in Manhattan.

When he came to the city as an 18 year old freshman, New York University, he reveled in “a target rich environment, beautiful girls everywhere, why choose one?” In the past decade, he’s had one relationship with the potential for marriage. She broke up with his voice mail two days after breaking their date for New Year’s Eve. (While he was at work, she picked up the things she’d left in his apartment, including some Christmas gifts to him, and dropped off the keys with the doorman—all a fait accompli as she left the voice message.)

Other than that one foray into “serious relationship”, he’s been a provider of kinky acts for the women who love them. Yes, women ask to be spanked, whipped, paddled, choked, fisted, tied up—in one case, she begged him to chain her to the radiator in his apartment room and leave. Women control the sex scene in the city. We go after what (and whom) we want; and a lot of women are at least a little bit kinky.

But my first question to Alex is:

Why is that what you have attracted for a decade? There are still women out there who want to have oral sex and intercourse, with perhaps an occasional slap to the ass.

Alex: I honestly don’t know. I tried having the “Into Kink” tattoo removed from my forehead. Apparently that didn’t work. About that girl and the radiator: It was May, not heating season. And she was on Real Sex 28. She was hot, an erotic performance artist.

Susan: Not gonna’ let you get off with that “I don’t know how the kinky girls find me” explanation!

Alex: It could be the energy that people radiate. I must give off a vibe.

Susan: Yes, I think so. You’re a little bit misogynist. Women who want to be disciplined tap into that. On the other hand, women like the one you briefly considered marrying don’t pick up that vibe. She was a dom. I remember that she left you with a memorable 112 item Honey-Do List.

Alex: She used to tell me that she was thinking of making a life with me but things had to change. So I once said to her: Choose three or four things that you want me to fix in my apartment. I’ll see if I can get them done before you come down next weekend. She gave me a Honey Do list of 112 things. Two full pages, back and front. A few small points: Change brands of toothpaste, toilet paper and soap and categorize loose change by denomination instead of throwing altogether in jar. Jesus. I was thinking I could paint and clear out one of the closets for her.

Susan: You were the odd couple, both trying to force a relationship. Frankly, I thought you were behaving like a woman, trying to make something out of clearly nothing. I remember meeting the two of you for dinner; and you had your head down most of the meal, looking miserable, while she talked about all the changes you had to make in that apartment.

Alex: I even bought some skirts, not for me, mind you. Now I wonder what the fuck I was thinking. Maybe I was afraid of ending up alone. I don’t know. There was no humor in her; and that was probably the worst thing.

Susan: After she dumped you, there’s only been the spanking girl, right?

Alex: Yes, the spanking girl and some sloppy wedding sex with a bridesmaid and a post dinner-date kiss or two. That was the Sex Life of Alex Zola, 2008.

Susan: A lot of people commented on the spanking story in an interview I did with you posted on my blog, SexyPrime. You never had “sex” with her, just a few spanking dates, one lasting two hours. Ouch!

Alex: She said, Spank me. Spank me harder. Keep spanking me. What else could I do? I’m a gentleman. I spanked her. She told me that she gets nauseous when she gets close to somebody.

Susan: Ah, ha! There’s an obvious disconnect between two people if the entirety of their sexual expression is spanking (or any other single kinky act.) Her acknowledgement of nausea is telling. Did you ever make her throw up?

Alex: She threw up once; and she hadn’t been drinking that much. We made out for an hour and a half, I spanked her for two hours and as I tried to undress the rest of her—she got up, went into the bathroom and vomited. I thought: Boy, I have to hit the gym if I’m having this effect on women.

Susan: She threw up when you took off your clothes?

Alex: No. But it did make me think about what her gag reflex might be like.

Susan: No BJs? [Alex shakes his head: No.] Did you ever get to see her breasts?

Alex: Yes, I did.

Susan: Was that the last time you saw her?

Alex: Yes. As I left she said, “I’m going to be mean to you now.” It’s sad that she can’t make a human connection beyond having someone whack her rear end.

Susan: Oh, my, Alex, when did you get into this pattern of being a kink provider for women?

Alex: The Real Sex girl. She was into whipping. I used a belt. She gave me a paddle once. She called it “getting a beating.” One time after a wedding, we were in a cab and she said, “Alex, I need a beating. Do it here.”

Susan: A lot of guys would have paid the cab driver and gotten out. What did you do?

Alex: I spanked her. When she asked, “Why am I bad?” I said, “Jesus, you’re bad because if you wanted me to do this in a cab, you could have worn a skirt not jeans.” The poor cabbie was from Pakistan or India and dumbfounded.

Susan: So. The experience left you hungry for more kinky women?

Alex: When I was younger, I thought I was being open to the experience. I thought I was having adventures. Now, I wonder if there is more, a different kind of adventure out there.

Susan: The culture supports these kinky, limited activity hook ups. They seem deadening. On the other hand, the culture also supports endless yammering about soul mate intimacy—and I find that stultifying.

Alex: The new technological age is supposed to keep us closer in touch, but it has dehumanized us more, put more walls up. Instead of sitting down and really getting to know somebody, you choose an act, advertise, meet someone interested in same act, have a drink, commit said act and leave.

Susan: Exclusively limiting your sex life to one activity—intercourse missionary style or spanking—is not adventurous. The missionary folk consider themselves more righteous than the rest of us while the spankers think they are edgy. They’re all playing it safe, as they define “safe.” No risk-takers here.

Alex: I would agree with that. The kink-as-sex-life strategy backfires if you are interested in meeting somebody. You’ve become addicted to a singular act. That act is what you’re looking for, which limits your partner options.

Susan: The big sex trends of the last decade and more: Kink and heterosexual anal intercourse. (Well, there’s Cougars and Bi Girls, but we’ll save your thoughts on that for another day.) Is anal one of your fantasies/fetishes?

Alex: No. If Tucker Max has taught us anything, it’s that people really don’t know about anal sex. The way that most people commit the act—no preparation and after wining and dining, no less!—they run the risk of causing damage to her rectum and their sheets.

Susan: Yes, I periodically run my anal sex preparedness lecture on the blog. It seems to me that men (and women) Gen X and younger are more limited in their sexual expression than previous generations. Kink and anal.

Alex: As you have pointed out, sexuality in the city is highly feminized. The scene is run by women.

Susan: So don’t blame men? Maybe women’s responses developed, in part, as a reaction to male sexuality. What about the impact of 24 porn on the male sensibility? Men watch porn and think that they can “just slip it into” her anal opening as easily as her vaginal opening—and, she loves it! And the cock comes out clean!

Alex: Maybe women are influenced by porn too. Story: Recently in a bar, a girl came up to me and asked, “Can I confide in you?” I thought: She must know I’m a bartender and she wants to tell me her break up story. We chatted a bit. She said, “I’m a practicing auto-erotic.” I was gun shy to do anything else with her. I didn’t want to end up like Robert Chambers.

Susan: (LOL) Do you have any interest in vanilla sex now?

Alex: In the past decade, it’s all been very kinky. Women have one kinky act that they want practiced upon them. I play the facilitator, the blank canvas on which they paint. I did meet one normal woman and brought her back home from a date with me. She peed on the floor of my lobby; we didn’t make it upstairs. I asked her to clean up her mess and put her in a cab and sent her home.

Susan: Ah, dating in the city. Is this what happens to men who’ve remained single too long? Years ago, I told you that you were behind the curve, that you should have been in your starter marriage, having your first affair. When people wait too long to get married, they grow rigid. And odd. And cranky. And neurotic. It doesn’t matter if the marriage lasts or not. The marriage inoculates you against becoming a curmudgeonly, misogynistic old bachelor.

Alex: I should be married. When I was feeling depressed about being dumped at New Year’s, I made the mistake of Googling my first love Amanda, now an attorney working for a firm in Midtown. Well, it turns out that Amanda had gone off and gotten herself married back in 2005. It was a really nasty knock, the kind that leaves you winded with your stomach in knots wondering if therapy might be in order. I tried to be rational. We hadn't talked in 14 years or seen each other in 10. Why should I be upset? But I was. I felt like a car that had been blown into a mobile home by a tornado that came out of nowhere. I soldiered on, figuring the whole thing would blow over in a few days.

Susan: And it’s still a sore spot? [He nods in the affirmative.] I guess that surprises me because you haven’t had more close marriage calls. What’s up with that?

Alex: In this bartender’s opinion, I blame the internet. Or Cosmo. A lot of things started going wrong for me when I picked up an issue of Cosmo.

 

 

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THE ZOLA INTERVIEW: Alex Explains Why Gen-Xers F***-Up More Than They F***

Photo credit:  Alex throws down three card monte in Manhattan, Karen Sterling

My pal Alex Zola, somewhat misogynistic, slightly misanthropic and definitely curmudgeonly, is fast becoming the hot new read on the web, both on his own blog The Zola System and Open Salon where he posts at least once a week.  Famous people are befriending him on Facebook.  I, however, knew him "when," so the media will have to come to me for the real story, right?

Here is my third interview with Alex:

 

Q.  Alex, do you really think that your generation, aging Gen X-ers, could possibly have fucked up more than mine, the Boomers?

 

A.  Yes, we are bigger Fuck-ups because we're a generation that had everything handed to us and we didn't know what to do with it.  Our parents lived the American dream; and we have not taken it to the next level as we were expected to do.

 

Q.  Well, is that entirely your fault?  Look at the shambles the economy is in.

 

A.  You gotta blame someone.

 

Q.  Okay, at last a social disorder that is not the Boomers' fault.  Blame the recession on you lousy Gen X-ers.  I like that! 

 

A.  We all fell behind on our correspondence at the same time.

 

Q.  Why are you such fuck-ups?

 

A.  On a macro level, we simply don't pay attention enough to outside events.  And they're handed to us on a 24/7 basis now; we still don't pay attention.  We've become a horrible misanthropic group who does not draw the proper conclusions from history because we just don't give a shit.  "Singles" was supposed to be the movie that defined our generation early on.  The motto of this movie that came out in the summer of '92:  "Think global, act local"--and then we went out and bought SUVs which wasn't thinking global or local.

 

Q.  That's heavy pop critical commentary.  So how does this theory work itself out in your own life?

 

A.  I find myself being an ostrich when I should be engaged.  (Yes, it is worth noting that Alex virtually sat out the 2008 Presidential election and was the only person I know--Democrat or Republican--who was not moved by Barack taking the stage in Chicago with Michelle and their girls.)

 

Q.  For example?

 

A.  I can tell you what year "Zen Arcade" came out, but I can't tell you what's in my checking account.

 

Q.  So how does this specific form of generational angst play out in your sex and relationship life?  

 

A.  I let all the good ones get away.  When I first came to Manhattan, it was a target rich environment, beautiful, available women everywhere.  So I thought, Why choose?

 

Q.  Did you really think that you had your pick of all those women even then?

 

A.  Woody Allen was wrong.  It's not rationalizations that help you get through the day, it's delusions.

 

Q.  I've heard you say before that your generation can't commit.  However, they marry in approximately the same numbers, at just slightly older ages, than the Boomers and other preceding generations.  I think that you generalize from your own experience of growing older single in the city.  What do you think about that?

 

A.  I'd have to give that one to you.

 

Q.  What do you think about the sex lives of guys in your generation?

 

A.  If they're like mine, it's poor to pathetic.

 

Q.  Women in their 30s and 40s tell me that their mates would rather whack off to porn than have sex with them.  What about that?

 

A.  Currently my right hand is my girlfriend.  I'd like it to be the other way around.  I guess the grass is always greener.

 

Q.  Do you guys fuck up with sex?

 

A.  If Tucker Max has anything to say about it, yes.

 

Q.  For my readers who maybe don't know Tucker, can you define him in a sentence?

 

A.  Tucker Max is the frat boy who never grew up and knows it.

 

Q.  Yes.  Anyone who has not read his infamous piece on an anal sex incident really should find it on his website--and prepare to be horrified, nauseated and amused, all at once.  Alex, give us one of your personal big all-time fuck-ups.

 

A.  I went out one night with one of my restaurant managers after our shifts for a few drinks.  We got so hammered, but she, being a tiny girl who was matching me drink for drink, got more hammered.  I took her home in a cab, walked her to her door, turned around and left when I should have seen her safely inside and collapsed on sofa or bed.  She promptly fell up her stairs breaking her jaw in three places.  Unfortunately, her boyfriend was the director of operations for the restaurant group.  I spent three months getting back under the radar after my write-up.  When she returned, she got a promotion.  You can read about the whole escapade this coming Sunday on The Zola System.

 

Q.  Oh, yes, i remember that incident.  Well, Alex, any final advice on fucking up?'

 

A.  If you're gonna do it, do it big.  That way the story becomes myth faster.  Wouldn't you rather be a myth than a small embarrassment?

 

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