The Sexual Education of a Beauty Queen

by Taylor Marsh

  Of course, I was lucky, because the two men I simultaneously bedded were both nuts about me. Nothing was more thrilling, confidence-building and out of character for me than being chased and caught by one man, then the other, then back again and again. It was a roller coaster ride that was one long, sustained, ever-crescendoing and crashing, multiple orgasm. They didn’t have any complaints either, at least not sexually.

  I distinctly remember giggling while driving from David to Mike’s place, after having been sufficiently satisfied before the journey, with the added joy being that both men knew what I was doing. I hadn’t lied. That wasn’t in me. I wasn’t sneaking around, which takes too much energy and, for the life I was living, didn’t fit. I simply told them both that I loved them both and couldn’t choose, wouldn’t choose, didn’t want to choose, at least not yet. They would have preferred a decision, but the sexual gladiator inside them, in most men, took on the challenge.

  An ode to Venus is required here, because it’s tremendously freeing to have such a sexual education delivered through the able mind, hands, tongues, penises and hearts of men who aren’t afraid of a woman’s uninhibited libido. Trojan condoms made a tidy profit on the three of us. It’s the first time I experienced being completely satisfied and quenched, not only physically, but emotionally, too. Ah, but all good things wear out, especially when two men are vying for the same heart.

  While it lasted, it turned both men into performance kings, even if hearts were being shattered at the cruelty of sharing someone you wanted all to yourself. I’d warned David off ages before Mike showed up, so it wasn’t my fault his ego thought he could win me over. I’d been in a constant state of crazy about men for a long time, but they were never going to be my life’s work, so “male suitors beware” was my mantra. I shared it with every single man I dated in one way or another. It was like waving a red flag at a prized bull.

  Truman Capote’s words from Breakfast at Tiffany’s also come to mind. Holly’s warning is a lesson from her own life. “Never love a wild thing. …You can’t give your heart to a wild thing: The more you do, the stronger they get.” I wasn’t close to Capote’s Holly, but I definitely recognized the dangers of falling in love with “a wild thing.” I craved the attention and adoration of these two men and others who came before, especially sexually, all the while knowing I was only passing through, even if the guys were clueless. I was a wild thing, in many ways still am.

  It’s difficult to explain, but the thing that attracts women to bad boys inhabits the same space. That scoundrel who is starving for love and drinks it up, but isn’t able to return it, only makes the woman loving him even more determined. He keeps drinking until he finally is satiated by the thing all humans require, connection and validation, until he’s ready to start a new adventure. When he hits bottom again, he’ll find solace again. Oddly enough, I didn’t have a smidgeon of guilt about bedding Mike and David at the same time, which actually surprised me. It was so unlike me, what I’d been told. I found myself happier than I’d ever been, and I’d never known such expansive liberation.

  Don’t get me wrong. I never took strangers to bed, because one-night stands weren’t for me, though I know many women who delight in them. Well, maybe a couple of times, but I was a serial monogamist, minus a few casual flings. They were all in a stream of mostly fabulous bachelors to me, even when they acted like jerks, because I wasn’t looking for a husband. I liked the connection when I was having sex with the same man regularly, knowing him with his guard down. I just wanted to be able to end it and dash, once it got too comfy and we started the expectations game and making plans I couldn’t fulfill.

  I’d warned every man I’d dated, including Brian, the one I briefly married after college, who knew me my whole life and should have known better, that I wasn’t the marrying kind. On the other hand, I had no problem using the marriage card when it benefited me, either dishonestly playing it when it suited the moment and my mood, or using it to scare a guy off and change the dynamic. I’d even ask for marriage at the most inopportune moments, but only because I knew the request would be denied. I never asked a question of a man I didn’t already know the answer to.

  It’s positively predictable how your average bachelor reacts when the woman he’s smitten with proclaims she’s not interested in marriage. But invariably, at some point he starts expecting things, because he’s got time invested. People never took me seriously in the first place, because how could any woman, especially an artist whose finances are unpredictable, say no to a constant breadwinner? Why any man couldn’t see me coming is beyond me, because I was a man’s mirror image in many ways, especially when it came to guarding my freedom.

  The thing about romantic love is that it’s a yearning to connect and has absolutely nothing to do with whether a union is smart, will make you happy, or has any hopes of lasting through your first combustible orgasm, if he can even get you off or cares to. It’s often romantic yearning that’s misinterpreted as love, which leads to all sorts of drama and real life madness, sometimes on the wings of unrequited infatuation that hits men hard.

  My passionate triangle ended with me choosing Mike, who happened to be one of the hottest chefs in Beverly Hills at the time, a man whose sexual ego was centered around himself and his glorious anatomy. Any promises he would make about giving me the world were consummated in bed, then quickly forgotten. As long as the sex was frequent, I could enjoy it, squeezing out an orgasm myself, because I was on my own due to his cluelessness about women. He was worthless to anyone but himself, something I never once saw when David was in the picture, too. It made me immediately second-guess the guy I’d picked, because David was everything a girl could want, loyal, loving and generous. Unfortunately, a true partnership with him wasn’t possible, because he never really got who I was. That didn’t stop him from being there for me at one of the worst times of my life, long after we broke up, something I’ll never forget or be able to repay.

  Once Mike had me all to himself, he became as emotionally insecure and volatile as I was restless and artistically flailing. The immense manhood he brought to bed with him was his gift to me, or so he thought. He also delighted in exhibiting his penis to whomever he could whenever the moment presented itself, which I’d heard from several people who’d witnessed his exhibitionism. His penis was who he was, and he let it hang in all its meaty glory in at least one locker room. Eventually, even that failed him in our relationship.

  One evening Mike came home late from work, then wound down with a cocktail. I walked into the bedroom wearing a black bustier, garter, hose, push-up bra and high heels, telling him to take his clothes off and lie down. He did as he was told, smiling.

  So good, so far.

  I walked over to the bed, sat and swiveled over to where he was, then straddled him fully, a vision of black silk before him. The foreplay began. It was going well. We were both into it and having a blast. One thing led to another, then he flipped me over, panties flew off, and in he came, but it was all happening way too fast. It was over for him before I could even begin to make sure I was taken care of, too, and when I suggested I was close but hadn’t been satisfied, he flew into a rage and stormed out of the room screaming at the top of his lungs.

  You see, he thought being inside me was enough. That his large penis would slay my appetite, never knowing or even considering what an orgasm was for me, which I knew must mean he didn’t have a clue or didn’t care where my clitoris was or how a woman was quenched in the first place. It wasn’t the first time I’d experienced this with him, which is why I planned the maximum effort in black silk in the first place.

  Why are some of the most well endowed cocksmen so incapable of finding a woman’s G-spot, let alone caring that it’s the doorway to our euphoria? That’s easy. There are still some men out there uninterested or just plain clueless about how to get a woman off. Some men just don’t understand how much sex matters to us.

  Feminists they are not, because the good men
I’ve enjoyed make sure their women are pleasured first and don’t demand missionary every night. Any man who doesn’t understand that a woman on top can experience double the pleasure is having sex with too many compliant women.

  One fling I will never forget came out of the blue when I was single and ran into an old flame from way back. Jake and I had always had a thing for each other, but never acted on it. It was time. We’d have lustful sex together whenever he’d blow through Los Angeles, and our friendship just kept getting deeper. Phone calls would follow, but we both wanted nothing more from each other. One particular encounter we had happened during what would be the hottest and sexiest car ride either of us had ever experienced. I was driving south on the 405 freeway in broad daylight, our hands playing physical flute with one another’s bodies, while I tried to keep my eyes open, controlling myself as best as I could. It was the most delicious sexual encounter I ever had fully clothed. Strike that, because it rocketed above some of the times I’d been naked with a man. Jake and I went our separate ways and later even reminisced once about how hot we’d been together, even if we weren’t a relationship match. Pure lust is underrated.

  Approximately one-third of the U.S. population — 102 million people eighteen years and older — are unmarried, according to the U.S. Census numbers released in September 2012, which included me for most of my adult life. Of those, 53% are women, which translates to eighty-nine unmarried men for every hundred unmarried women. Seventeen million seniors over age sixty-five make up 16% of unmarried people. People living alone comprise 28% of unmarried individuals, up from 17% in 1970.

  Single-person households continue to grow, with cohabitation and other living arrangements supplanting traditional choices, though family, however it’s defined, will always be valued. According to Pew Social Trends from November 2012, “In 2011, there were an estimated 36.4 newlyweds per thousand unmarried or newly married adults ages eighteen and older. This compares with an estimated new-marriage rate of 37.4 in 2010 and 41.4 in 2008.” According to a 2010 Pew Research Center poll done in conjunction with Time magazine, “in 1960, more than two-thirds (68%) of all twenty-somethings were married. In 2008, just 26% were.”

  This is a good thing, because the surer you are about yourself and your own life, the better chance you have of finding your equal, then making it last.

  It used to be that friendship was the number one component in a relationship, with companionship intensely important, too. This was the refrain throughout the twentieth century and before, when husbands had affairs easily and were excused for them often, while women remained faithful, because society didn’t give them an option except being ostracized.

  I’ve never disagreed about the importance of friendship or companionship, though I’ve rejected that they’re more important than sexual intimacy. I’ve always known, because of my own life and the many people with whom I’ve spoken, that sex is equally important, more than is usually mentioned in the modern partnership, with intimacy being the essential element. It’s the oasis that allows two people to navigate life’s stressful landscape. Nakedness is the path where intimacy builds. Both people in a relationship have to be willing to change and adapt, even experiment, as time goes by and routine sets in. But friendship alone isn’t enough to hold a partnership together today. We’re now outliving our relationships, which often happens at or near mid-life, when mortality comes into view and we need to feel younger. A hot sex life can revive a friendship between two people, but a lazy friendship that ignores or loses its lustfulness is hard to rekindle.

  It’s also much easier for the guy to get in and get off than it is to patiently excite his partner until she’s either close before he makes love to her, or completely satisfied when they’re both finished. It’s another reason why porn is popular, but also why sex in marriage languishes. He finds pleasing her to be work, and she knows it; or he wants it quick, and she can’t be satisfied that way so she fakes it. It’s not friendship that’s missing, it’s intimacy — the conversation about how to do each other well. It’s making the delicious event of physical pleasure enjoyed, which can’t happen in a marriage that’s weighted down in sexual separateness. Couples need to frolic, which begins with intimacy, getting naked with each other in every respect, the game shifting as life does, too.

  In marriage, compartmentalization can become critical to longevity; you just cordon off what’s not working and get down to it. But after sex, emotional fissures can often disappear. The physical communion of satisfying sex can vanquish a lot of demon scenarios playing in your head. Sex is incredibly important, because an orgasm is like a release-valve in your system. The rush of endorphins and contagion of physical reactions make you feel like a new person. Satisfaction doesn’t have to be a one-moment event either, with many women multi-orgasmic, even if they don’t know it yet.

  Teaching a man what makes your body sing is part of it. Does it ever occur to you to guide your guy to wait until you’ve had an orgasm before he’s pleased himself? Real sexual technique takes communication, even discipline, which is always a fun thing to bring into a relationship and also tells you where you stand with him and how he’s going to react over time. Tapping the multiple orgasm is a delicious journey for couples. You don’t have to experience it every time, but it’s lovely to work towards and, oh, what a mood booster for both of you! Toys can really help. Learning to be multi-orgasmic can start in private, if it’s not easy for a woman.

  The men I dated all looked good on paper. Magazines said it. Television preached it, and so did movies. The church lecture was non-stop and always began with the money he made. Pick a man gainfully employed, good-looking if you can, and healthy, someone who’d make a good father. On and on it went. The case being made had nothing to do with a man understanding what it was like to be with a feminist, let alone an artist looking to change her corner of the world. Not to worry, I’m the one who would adapt.

  What most of these relationships had in common was that when I got comfortable with our dynamic and started getting sexually assertive, the men retreated. I won’t say their manhood retracted like the head of a tortoise, but most were slow in identifying the woman I was and exactly whom they’d worked so hard to get into their bed.

  Isn’t that just like some men? They rise to the challenge of the chase, but once they’ve dragged their hot feminist back to their man-cave, it’s over. It’s done. They just can’t live up to what it takes to make her happy, which goes way beyond money, because she’s making her own. The strong, sexy, confident girl all of a sudden becomes too much trouble.

  But even when relationships don’t work, we’re sometimes drawn back in or kept entangled. So what draws women back again and again? Is it the challenge of fixing the unworkable, or something else? Is it the money and lifestyle we can have when we couple and cohabitate? The men I’d been dating afforded me a different lifestyle by living with them. Two incomes, one house can do that. My finances were under control, if paltry by comparison, but I’d never been searching for a man to pay my bills.

  It was Mike who drove himself to distraction and into a rage more than once, because he couldn’t satisfy me, though he didn’t even really try. His uncontrollable temper brought mutual friends to our door one night. He’d gotten so unhinged that I’d become frightened, not a first in my life. But that didn’t stop me from returning again and again, much to everyone’s horror and disbelief. Was I insane?

  Why I chose to seek out and run to a modern form of the traditional relationship, with Jeffrey rescuing me from Mike, seemed as inevitable as it was obvious. It was Brian redux, without the marriage, though that was clearly what Jeffrey wanted and assumed I did, too. It’s also why getting him to agree to live with me was such an ordeal.

  It was also romantic love to the rescue, at least at the beginning, before I found Jeffrey’s porn. I was living in that movie script about a girl who’d been wronged and saved by a man on a white horse. It was also why I married Brian and became a quickie
divorce statistic along with so many others in the 1970s. Escaping a tough life for a place that was never in my plans and wouldn’t make me happy if it had been. You can’t run away from yourself. Well, people do it all the time, but it never works out well or makes them happy.

  The combustibility of Mike led me to the calm certainty of Jeffrey, who was ready to show me a good time, with no worries about anything. That is, up until our nights of clubbing and great times would end in sleep and no sex, which was always teased but never seemed to materialize. So, instead of Mike, who was all about himself and his cluelessness about where my clitoris was, now I had a hunky, hot man who was great with foreplay, but refused to have sex with me. It was a monogamous relationship filled with frustration.

  This went on and on for three years, with his pornography finally the last straw that set me free, though even after I learned of it, I endured for well over a year. I finally had a hot one-night affair, dragging myself home in the wee hours, lying to him that anything had happened, because at that point it hardly mattered. It was over.

  Maybe it was all of these events combined, or maybe it was losing to the porn paper dolls that finally did it. I was dying to ask every question, which led me to my first phone sex actress gig on the cusp of the 1990s, not long after Jeffrey and I broke up. It lasted a single weekend.

  The first night I was a complete wreck. I felt so dirty about it, imagining in my mind that these strangers would be in the room with me. I was still the beauty queen from Missouri who didn’t do things like this. I was acting as if I was going to actually have to touch the strangers I’d be talking to on the phone. Every light in my apartment was on. I had even rented cheerful videos to keep running while I talked on the phone, muting the sound so that I could just look at happy, bouncing Disney pictures on the screen as I sunk into the seamy world of phone sex.

  Because I’m trained vocally and have a sultry speaking voice, the phone sex outfit had assigned me to start on the most popular late-night shift. I’d answered an ad and been interviewed out of some girl’s home, getting all the paperwork and instructions, as well as getting the once-over from her.