I know Nothing About Sex. (Or Nothing I Recall.)
Judith Hannah Weiss was 56 when her new brain arrived.
I began working in media when I was in my 20s and magazine covers were painted on caves. Back then, we didn’t chip, swipe, text, post, Insta, or need to prove we were human. We also didn’t have sex, friends, or girls. Correction, we didn’t have Friends, Girls, or Tinder, which invented sex in 2012.
Women did not “get” breast cancer then, because we couldn’t say “breast” in media, though you could show them in men’s magazines. Correction, you had to show them in men’s magazines. In fact, some thought the real competition in men’s magazines was to see which one could put the hugest, most naked breast beneath its logo.
But it wasn’t as easy as that. Men’s magazines also told you what to do if you were lost at sea; broke down in the desert; stuck in the woods. How to survive a twister; what to do if the ice gives way; how to make sure you won’t blow up a joint; how to check your swing for testicular cancer; how to have great adventures—by land, air, sea, and bed. A few things to save your life, a few to endanger it, a few to make it huge.
There were lots of magazines I never worked for. These included Playboy, Playgirl, Penthouse, and Cosmo, except — not often — when I did, subbing for someone else who was missing in action or drunk. In that case, he or she paid me to write for them and Cosmo paid him/her. Then I was hit by a drunk with a truck. The good news is I survived. The bad news was brain damage.
I knew very little about sex, especially Cosmo-type sex, but gave good headline. I mean I gave good headlines and cover lines, too, like: “7 Best Orgasm Tricks in the World,” “5 Naked, Naughty Strokes Plus Thong,” “How to Lose Weight in Bed,” “First, Take Off His Pants, Then Satisfy the Craving He Won’t Admit to You.”
Cosmo belonged to Helen Girlie, I mean Helen Gurley Brown, I mean Hearst, but really to Helen. Every cover had two big boobs on one blonde girl. Helen’s husband, David Brown, who produced blockbuster films like Jaws, ghostwrote some of Cosmo’s cover lines. He also encouraged Helen to write books. These include the bestselling Sex and the Single Girl, which confused, I mean connected, broccoli almondine with betting on horses and bedding hot guys.
I knew very little about sex, especially Cosmo-type sex, but gave good headline. I mean I gave good headlines and cover lines, too, like: “7 Best Orgasm Tricks in the World,” “5 Naked, Naughty Strokes Plus Thong,” “How to Lose Weight in Bed,” “First, Take Off His Pants, Then Satisfy the Craving He Won’t Admit to You.”
By the way, of the billions of species that have lived and died since life began on Earth, only one created media. That required humans — and about 4,000,000,000 years. All other living things hit upon relatively simple solutions and managed to procreate without assistance from broadcast or print.
Cosmo began in 1886 as a family magazine covering home and family — and featuring articles by writers such as Mark Twain — before transitioning in the 1970s under legendary editrix Brown to become the sexy “Cosmo” it became. Currently led by editor-in-chief Willa Bennett, the magazine enjoys its status as a pop-culture go-to source for information on topics like sex, sex, sex, and sex.
There were lots of magazines I never worked for. These included Playboy, Playgirl, Penthouse, and Cosmo, except — not often — when I did, subbing for someone else who was missing in action or drunk. In that case, he or she paid me to write for them and Cosmo paid him/her. Then I was hit by a drunk with a truck. The good news is I survived. The bad news was brain damage.
All made to feel even more urgent through underlining, tilted angles, and tinted boxes with tips like: *50 things guys wish you knew *4 signs he’s craving you. *What to do when your hoo-ha’s burning *Don’t use this common cure that’s not. And promises like, “If your marriage is good, this trick will make it better. If it’s not, this may save it.” The soundtrack would range from moaning to panting.
The heat in my bedroom was turned down a few decades ago, during the Carter administration. Or the Clinton Administration. I get seas confused. I mean “c’s.” I imagined wonderful men who didn’t touch my face, kids who didn’t climb on my lap, moms who didn’t rock me to sleep, dads who had arms to hug and legs to walk, which means they were not my dad. I became a nun, as in none or almost nun. Sex minus love — and being loved — didn’t appeal to me. Still doesn’t.
A few years back, I met my first blue-pilled beau. He was old and improved, or so he thought, and hot to trot. E.D. pills did not cause him to want sex every hour or two. But they enabled him to want sex twenty minutes after whenever he popped two, not one. I didn’t know about the pills at first, only that my partner bragged about his prowess, which didn’t exist, and his perseverance, which did.
Recently physicists at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory said they were able to sustain a nuclear fusion reaction for one-billionth of a second. Which is about how long I dated him. That said, old age and sex are not incompatible, according to 1.2 psychiatrists who interviewed 1.4 people and concluded that 54% of them still had sex. Actually, most married people of any age do still have intercourse from six times a year to three times a week.
Not long ago, we landed a spacecraft on a comet, found a way to mass-produce pancreatic cells, sequenced the first spider genomes, birthed the world’s first baby from a womb transplant, and powered buses with poop. Those are real stories that really happened. So are (and excuse my inventive headline writing here): “Man Hammers 38 Nails with His Head in Pursuit of World Record,” and “Maker of Durex Condoms Also Owns Baby Food Brand.”
I watched the World Trade Center go up. Then I watched it blow up. I’m getting old. I remember when we made time to write entire words and even whole sentences. We were taught there were three dimensions: height, width, and depth, like a shoebox. But there are four when you count time. Clocks imply that time ticks predictably forward, which is not true. It trips, slips, stops.
A few years back, I met my first blue-pilled beau. He was old and improved, or so he thought, and hot to trot. E.D. pills did not cause him to want sex every hour or two. But they enabled him to want sex twenty minutes after whenever he popped two, not one. I didn’t know about the pills at first, only that my partner bragged about his prowess, which didn’t exist, and his perseverance, which did.
The Time-Life fountains dissolve into snowflakes. I enter a revolving door at age 23 and come out at 56. It is 6:30 on a winter evening in the ’80s, say, then 8:30am on a sweet spring morning in the ’90s. New York comes back to me in flashes, like everything else. Chanel №5, my mom, my mom wearing pearls, the lights of Rockefeller Plaza. Walking home, mauve sky, June, among people in event-ing clothes, I mean evening clothes.
As of a minute ago, what I knew about Syrian rebels could have fit on the head of a pin. Now it could fit on two. I knew even less about banana genes and couldn’t compare them to humans or chimps. Now I can. 98% of the genes that comprise a human are also in a chimp. 60% of the genes that comprise a human are also in a banana. 50% of your genes are shared with your kids. Go figure.
I just woke up and I’m already faced with my first big choice. Should I click: “cop on beat is a bot,” or “catfish finds love on the internet,” or “Nike says Tiger played with own balls”? We didn’t used to have headlines like that. Hell, you couldn’t even enable your cookies or freeze your eggs and make a baby later.
Oatmeal boxes didn’t announce they contained “real oats.” Foods didn’t trumpet, “farm-fresh, farmhouse, farm-to-table, foraged, humane, grass-fed, hand-cut, hand-selected, heirloom, all-natural, lightly sweetened, high in fiber, free range, small-batch, sustainable, pan-Asian, micro, re-imagined, local, private-label, craft, CSA, or non-GMO,” and unlike museums, weren’t curated. A “curated” selection of cheese means cheese someone managed to get on a plate. If it’s also “hand-selected,” someone placed it on a plate with their hands — the perfect appendage for curating cheese.
Shift happens. In my first life, I was a freelance writer. I survived icons and editors known for bodyguards and body counts, not to mention, killer comments, delivered while dressed to kill. Even a Devil-Wears-Prada, or two. Media creates suspense, expense, offense, nonsense, plus how to survive the apocalypse, but nothing in case of a drunk with a truck. Things fit together perfectly. Each word, each line, each image, each block of space and time. You can snap together cities, robots, rockets, model planes, and model brains like Lego blocks and keep them together as long as you like.
Say you could “slice” time into vertical units, like 24 hours, or 1 week or 1 year. Let’s take 1 unit of 24 hours. On that day: A volcano spews lava all over Iceland. Transatlantic air travel is canceled as a result Mrs. Evangeline Harris bakes the world’s tallest cake or thinks she has. Media covers the cake.
Shift happens. In my first life, I was a freelance writer. I survived icons and editors known for bodyguards and body counts, not to mention, killer comments, delivered while dressed to kill. Even a Devil-Wears-Prada, or two. Media creates suspense, expense, offense, nonsense, plus how to survive the apocalypse, but nothing in case of a drunk with a truck.
On another day: Japan has an earthquake. Japan has a nuclear meltdown. The world holds its breath. World leaders opine in measured, useless rhetoric. Little Johnny hits a home run for the first time. Susie gets her first period. Svetlana’s mom is killed in Kyiv. A sinkhole 20 feet wide swallows Jeff Bush, as he sleeps in Seffner, Florida, inhaling Jeff and his bedroom, too.
What does this mean? If you’re Susie, you are scared. If you’re Miyako in Japan, your children are missing. If you’re Jeff, you’re dead. If you’re Svetlana, you’re sobbing. If you’re little Johnny, it’s a great day.
I’m getting old. I imagine my last day on Earth. I see my child with my heart. I feel her in my arms as she was when she was one or two. Then I see us in Nantucket. Near the pond we loved, feeding mama ducks and babies. Then shoreside, holding hands. Warm waves under feet. That was then. This is now. I am nothing. I am no one. But once I was her mom.
Check out all of Judith Hannah Weiss’s Oldster essays.
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I am honored by you. Deep bow. Rhymes with now.
Thank you!