Never Sunny In Philadelphia

Don't Make Me RSVP

2007-06-12T22:29:00.000-07:00

The Wedding Rules.

This week NSIP goes interactive and is asking your help in making a funny, yet very important list. I generally dislike weddings. I think that the focus is supposed to be on the bride and groom, yet they're hustling around to accomplish so many things that they never really get to enjoy "their day."

Everyone shares their joy while only concerned about the speed of the bartenders at the open bar, the quality of the food and if they gave enough for the gift.

So, and please add your own, the rules at which you don't have to invite me to your wedding just because you feel strangely obligated. Yes, I channeled my inner-Jeff Foxworthy (I didn't even know i HAD an inner-Jeff Foxworthy) for this one, so bear with me:

• If the last time we saw each other in person, one of us was doing a keg stand, don’t bother sending me an invite to your wedding.
• If I don’t know the name of your fiancé, don’t bother sending me an invite to your wedding.
• If I have to call a friend to find out whose wedding invite I just got because I only know you by a nickname you earned running through the streets of Boston naked one night...
• If the invitation has either of my names misspelled...
• If instead of sending the invite to me and a guest, you send it to me and the woman I broke up with three years ago...
• If you’re having it on any holiday weekend and I have to fly to your wedding…
• If you used public records to get my mailing address because you didn't even have my email address...
(editor's note: I looked up my own personal records just to see how easy it would be to find my address and personal information. It's scary how easy it is to get a lot of information on someone)...
• If we used to hook up and you're sending me the invite to show me that you found a guy to marry you, don't send me an invite. I didn't want to marry you in the first place when you asked (repeatedly) or it'd be my name on the inside of the invite, not the outside.
• If you call to get my address and ask where my now 25-year old sister is going to school (happened within the last week)…
• Also, for my female friends, a complaint I’ve heard often: Don’t invite women solely to ask them to be your bridesmaid if you know they really don’t like you very much. Having more bridesmaids doesn’t make you any more popular. You’re not in high school anymore.
• If you don't own a suit, yet decide your wedding has to be black tie, forcing me to rent a tux…
• If there’s going to be a note in the save-the-date telling me where you’re registered…
• If you weren't going to invite me but then your parents told you "It's the right thing to do." If your parents had to beg you to invite me, I don't want to be there. Don't send me an invite.
• If there's any chance one of you won't be actually making it down the aisle (see above photo)...
• And finally, courtesy of one of my friends in NJ: If the day before you got engaged , your friends all sat you down and told you they can't stand the bitch you're about to propose to...

…and now yours, please.

The Good Girl Conundrum

2007-06-12T22:26:00.000-07:00

“I’m a good girl, I don’t do that,” she said.

Instantly, my body tensed tighter than Burt Reynold’s face.

In the 1950’s, when socks, not skirts, rode up above the knee and the family gathered around the living room television set to hear a woman yelling for Beaver, “I’m a good girl” was an acceptable response to just about any sexual suggestion.

“We can’t go parking, I’m a good girl.”

"Oh, I would never do THAT, I’m a good girl."

“Two men is my minimum, I’m a good girl.”

OK, so maybe that last one was more 1969 than ‘59, but the echoes of the past are starting to haunt the vernacular again.

Problem is, the statement is as hollow as a politician’s promise. Nobody is a good girl anymore. And that’s a wonderful thing.

“I’m a good girl” was perfect for an era when women were expected to be subservient to their husbands; where a women’s entire employment spectrum consisted of teacher and nurse. Women didn’t just sign a pledge in 8th grade to get extra credit in Health class, they actually kept their virginity until marriage.

“I’m a good girl” was the best way to tell men to keep looking.

Now it’s an excuse not to be adventurous, to close down avenues before they’re even opened, adhering to some social norm that has long since passed.

You’ve never heard anything fun precede, “I’m a good girl.”

“Of course I’ve had threesomes, I’m a good girl.”

“Bondage is my favorite, I’m a good girl.”

“I fuck better than Paris Hilton, I'm every girl."

Sorry, had to get a Paris joke in here. Somewhere there’s a lowest common denominator still waiting to laugh.

But the phrase really has robbed otherwise bold women of a lot of enjoyment and the chance to find out who they really are.

The woman who uttered the words at my apartment a few nights ago is a cop. I had known her for about an hour. But I liked her immediately. Easy-going demeanor, didn’t take herself too seriously and offered to take me on a ride-along. (No, that's not a euphemism. Actually in the car. Sweet.).

She carries a gun. And an asp. (I asked what happened to the baton. Apparently, gay men were purposely running stop signs in L.A). She’s dealt with drunks, thieves and on numerous occasions, handcuffed a man against a wall.

So why won’t she do it against a bedroom wall?

“I’m a good girl,” she said.

“No you’re not,” I replied. “You’re a pussy.

“Having fun in bed doesn’t make you not a good girl. Going to the bar, picking up six guys, taking them all home and letting them have their way with you makes you not a good girl. Yes, you're probably someone I should get to know better and I think we'd have a lot of fun, but you're the exact opposite of a good girl.

“Is the girl pierced all over the place? Inked up like Tommy Lee? Has boots four times as long as her skirts? That’s a bad girl. Guys who want those girls know we want those girls. We’re not going for the good girl. You don’t hold our interest.

“’I’m a good girl’ is a crutch you hobble on through what you mistakenly call a sex life because you’re scared: What if you try something new and like it? Do you have to re-evaluate who you are? What happens if you end up going down a road where you find new fetishes and untapped desires? Are you betraying your family name?

“Of course not. You don’t go to jail. You’re still you. Only you get to enjoy your life a whole hell of a lot more.

“Why would you tie yourself to a standard that nobody takes seriously? To a refrain that has never drawn the positive praise of any man born after Pong was invented?

“Live your life. You have a boyfriend. Open your eyes to the possibility of all the other tremendous things you can do with him in bed. What happens in your bedroom is between you and whoever is in there with you. You don't owe anyone else an explanation. Being true to yourself behind closed doors doesn’t make you a bad girl, but it does make you a much better girlfriend.”

It was a long, impassioned rant.

There was silence.

I had now known this lady officer for an hour and eight minutes. I have pot in my apartment. I’m going to jail.

Fuck.

She took a sip of her cocktail. Looked slowly up at me, shook her head to the side, took a deep breath.

“You’re right,” she said.

First thought in my head: I'm not going to jail! I'm not going to jail! (come on, sing it with me).

She had never thought about it that way. I think most people that use the phrase don’t. She agreed to buy, and actually use, her first vibrator before the end of the year – baby steps, people. She vowed to try new things that she admittedly had fantasized about, but never acted on.

Most importantly, she promised not to use the phrase anymore

She’s a cop who puts her life on the line every day. It doesn’t matter what she does in her private life, she’s the definition of a good girl.

She doesn't have to pretend to be one.

(Postscript: After agreeing to be more adventurous, she read the NSIP post about the swing. She asked my friend and I to put it up so she could see what it was about. After two minutes in it – clothed, non-sexual category of swinging – she asked me to send her the website where she could get one. Who knows, my friend might just turn out to be a very good girl.)

Men Are From Mars, But When Did They Lose Their Penis?

2007-05-31T11:17:00.000-07:00

My friend Kim (Kim) is currently dating a guy we'll call Scott, because, well, everyone else does. They went on a couple of dates, had the standard within-a-month sex. Everything was copasetic. But 10 days after their first roll in the sheets, Scott sat Kim (Kim) down and asked the dreaded question: Where do we stand?

As Kim (Kim) relayed the story, she said: "He wanted to DTR."

I hit the tivo and back her up for a second. DTR? Sure, I've seen a lot of relationships hit the DNR stage. But DTR? Never heard of it.

"Determine the relationship," Kim (Kim) said.

I was stunned. When did DTR become a known term? And much more importantly, when did men start deciding they needed to label a relationship in less time than a pitcher spends on the DL for a blister?

The best relationships I know all stem from letting everything evolve. Relationships should be organic. They take time to develop, time for each person to learn enough about the other to decide if you really like them or just like being naked with them.

Even Kim (Kim) was shocked by the question. Pleased, certainly, as he's a really nice guy. But a guy asking to DTR ought to raise a a huge red flag in the back of any woman's mind. Wouldn't that be the first step to overwhelming possessiveness, insecurity and well, just damn strange behavior?

More importantly, it begs the question: When did men stop being men and start being women?

This isn't The Crying Game, it's a crying shame.

Has our dating culture done a complete flip flop since the turn of the century. I meet women every day who aren't aiming to get married. They aren't even looking for a one-man lifestyle. They go to their female friends for emotional discussions, have a group of friends to hit the bars and go out with on the weekends and keep a boy toy on the side for sex.

Other than one friend who recently told me she'd like to meet a guy, settle down and have 3.5 kids (she's an overachiever) within the next couple years, most women I talk to now are thriving without a steady man in their life.

On the flip side, Scott, while the first guy I've ever heard ask to have boundaries put on himself, isn't the first guy I've heard dying to settle down. The refrain: "Dating sucks, I just wish I could find the right woman and be done with it" has echoed through my ears more often lately than Lindsay Lohan enters rehab.

For years, women complained they couldn't find a good man who wasn't married or gay. Or in the case of certain New Jersey politicians and Tom Cruise -- both married and gay.

Has the time come where women just gave up looking? Has that forced men to do the searching and inevitably lock up any good woman they get into bed, taking them off the market as soon as possible?

Sorry that I have more questions than answers here, but I'm certain that a decade ago, if a woman asked a man to DTR within 10 days of sex. The guy would be OTD.

Out the door.

Now? Now the dating scene apparently just got a lot harder and more confusing.

Great.

Swinging In The Rain

2007-05-22T21:22:00.001-07:00

(Editor's Note: For my readers -- and you must know who you are, because I certainly don't, NSIP will be regularly updated on Tuesday evenings. There may be the occasional update should, oh, say, a midweek orgy break out or if my softball team turns a triple play, but otherwise, let's just say we're Tuesday people.)*

I hate to name drop, so instead I'll name place. I have a friend Jon** who is, by any stretch of anyone's definition, famous and wealthy.

He has flown private jets to exotic places I can only dream of seeing; sat alongside political leaders, movie stars, superstar athletes and once a heroin-addicted single mother of six, but that's neither here nor there. Yet it was a simple $225 device that forced his eyes open wider than Pam Anderson's clam.

I showed him the greatest sex toy ever made: The Sex Swing Stand and accompanying swing.

I haven't met a woman over the age of 21 who can't recall the episode of Sex and the City when Samantha ends up in the sex swing. Her rent-a-penis for the evening convinced her to get in. It was wacky. It was wild. It was wonderful.

They fell.

They did it wrong.

They forgot the stand. The swing screwed into a beam in the ceiling or doorway is a fascinating taboo and a tad crazy, but it's an empty pleasure. It's 7-3 NFL game, an all-masturbation porn, Scientology messages delivered by anyone other than Tom Cruise. No, to really fulfill the tremendous possibilities, you need the stand.

Yes, you can fit it in your apartment. Well, most of you can. You need about six feet by six feet of floor space and a ceiling eight-feet high, standard height for most rooms. It assembles with an Allen wrench (comes in the box) and although it's easier to put together with two people, it has certainly been put up solo. When you take it apart, it can be stored under you bed, in your closet on top of your fridge should you strangely choose that location (No, this isn’t an infomercial. Yet.). The swing supports up to 350 pounds, so everyone can enjoy.

You put the stand up, hook the swing in and change your sex life.

It's better than any dildo. More versatile than any vibrator. Hotter than any lingerie.***

Women, imagine a device that makes your man want to go down on you for hours; that gives you the closest thing you can get to being gravity free for less than seven figures; that allows you such significantly better hip movement than the bed does, that you will be slightly disappointed by good bed head.

Men, imagine a device that keeps your neck from hurting, eases the pressure on your jaw, opens your woman's legs as wide as you could ever want them, allowing you better access and erasing all concerns that you might lose your ears should you hit the right spot. A device that allows you to move a woman 360 degrees with your face buried between her thighs; that allows you to push, pull, tug, slide, shift and angle your woman in most any sexual geometric position you can fathom and some that even though you can't, she can.

Plus, you can turn it into a great workout.

And it's comfortable. I once came home and found my female roommate, fully clothed, slowly moving back and forth like a pendulum, reading a book.

On my most recent adventure in the swing, one which I'll be thinking about for months to come, I added a small yoga ball to the fun. The woman in the swing is not only a great receiver, but is also very flexible, a great combination for the swing.****

Sitting on the yoga ball, I was able to move in small circles, pulling her closer to me as I rolled back on the ball, then following her body as I would gently push her away. Faster than cab drivers speed past people in Harlem, she was lost in the movements of the swing and my mouth.

At one point, I was able to do a back bend on the ball, pull her ankles down so that her body was tilted toward me and was able to go up on her, pushing my tongue against her from underneath her at an angle I can only describe as a trapeze artist hanging on for dear life after missing a catch with no net below.

It was amazing. For me. Though I think she was enjoying herself too.

Getting rid of the ball, I walked her around in a slow full circle, without ever taking my mouth off her body. We freestyled the rest of the afternoon, moving and shifting in as many pain-free directions as possible.

I'm not going to tell you how many times she came, but I do know that if she derived half as much pleasure from it as I did, it'll be in her mind a while.*****

I'd like to take credit for having the skills, but frankly, I can't. I can't produce those results on a bed, a couch, and although I came close once on a ferris wheel, it still isn't the same. Good head is Jessica Alba. Great head is Eva Mendes. Angelina Jolie is the swing-in-a-stand head.

And if it does that for head, wait until you see what it does for sex.

Trust NSIP on this one, make the sex swing and stand your next big sex toy purchase. First you'll thank god, loudly and often, but then you'll thank me.

------------------------------------NSIP---------------------------------------------

*Yeah, feel free to enjoy that irony.
**Maybe his real name.
***This will end up a NSIP post at some point, but why do so few women buy the right lingerie for their bodies? (Note to most recent wearer of lingerie in my apartment -- this has nothing to do with you.)
****Women who don't know how to receive post. Check back shortly.
*****No, really, I'm not going to tell you.

Butt It's All About Color

2007-05-14T14:03:00.000-07:00

Forget slave reparations, the lack of blacks in baseball, the irrelevancy of Jesse Jackson Sharpton -- (two men have morphed into the same ridiculous person). Stop discussing Imus, hip-hop music’s impact on suburban white culture and whether or not mandatory minimum jail sentences are racist (they are). No, the real dividing line, racial issue in our country can best be summed up by one of the great lyricists of our time:

"Oh my god. Becky, look at her butt, it's so big" -- the venerable Sir Mix-a-lot

I've always enjoyed athletic women over stick figures, curves over bones. But two incidents in my recent past (which will be defined as any time in the last decade, thus keeping me from getting in trouble from anyone who may wonder if they were dating me at the times these stories happened), had me thinking about booty.

First, I made the drastic, change earth's-axis mistake of telling a middle class white girl from New York that she didn't have a big ass. In fact, I said, it's actually kind of flat. Now this young woman has wonderful curves everywhere else -- shapely hips, large beautiful breasts and is just very womanly. But I would have been better off calling her ugly than telling her that she was a good 20 pounds away from having a, wait, let me go to urbandictionary.com: a badonkadonk.

She was livid. But what would have happened in reverse? How happy would she have been if I mentioned her ass was growing faster than John McCain changes positions?

The second relevant portion of this story comes from the time I hooked up with a rather large girl (Insert old joke here: What has a fat girl got in common with a moped? They are both fun to ride until your friends see you!)

Now if having a large ass is something to take pride in -- and we'll get to that argument later -- then this girl was very, very proud. In fact, without thinking, at one point, in the middle of a sloppy, drunk session of bad sex, I stopped things in their tracks when I actually uttered the words "back that big ass up."

"OH NO YOU DID NOT. YOU FUCKING CRAZY?" howls my friend Jay.

Jayson and D are my boys from Hawthorne. (if you're not familiar with that area, think an upgraded Compton, but built on the same flavor). They're black. They’re creative. They are both opinionated and vibrantly funny. We can always talk about everything black and white in very honest ways.

But when Jay heard I told a white girl to back that big ass up, he definitely had to add his .02. He went on a passionate, superlative-filled, eyes-glazed-over-in-admiration rant about the wonders of asses so large they need blinkers so the girl can safely turn around.

At that point I had to help a crying Jay off the floor, as he was in a fit of hysterics. But it raised the bigger question:

Why can't a white guy admire a white girl with a big ass and say so?

It's an accepted fact in our culture that black men love big asses. On a black woman, a white woman, a Hispanic woman, a hippo -- so long as there are two very large globes attached to a spinal column, it almost doesn't matter what the rest of the body looks like.

A black man can get with either of the two white women described above, or multitudes of other women, and do nothing but spend an afternoon talking about how large her ass is. How it doesn't fit into her jeans. How he needs to send a search-and-rescue team in after her thong. He could actually take out a graphing calculator to confirm his estimates that if you got behind this girl at the wrong angle, she could cause a whole new kind of lunar eclipse.

And the white girl will blush, be flattered and even more so, turned on. If it’s D or Jay saying these things, hand them a bottle of water and a 12-pack of condoms, because they have a long night ahead of them.

Now, let's flip the script. If a white guy -- oh, I don't know, say me -- does the exact same thing, not only is he not getting laid, but he probably has to spend the gross national product of Papua New Guinea on flowers just to spend the night on the couch.

Why, in a day and age where a black man might be president, where a mixed-race shortstop owns New York and where the most famous black woman in the world keeps a white man on the stand-by for photo ops (oh, come on, Steadman is more white than than I am), can't it be accepted knowledge that some white men can not only like large asses, but go searching for them? When those men speak about big asses, shouldn't it be a compliment, not an insult?

Now the truth is, I'd rather have a medium sized ass on an athletic girl. But I certainly have seen large asses on some very sexy, very curvy women and can appreciate and enjoy them.

But unless we can get to the point where all races can talk about asses equally, I’m going to have to weigh what I say carefully. Otherwise, I'll just have to send all the women I meet with badonkadonks to Jay before I even open my mouth.

On second thought, that may work out best for everyone.

Reach out and touch someone

2007-05-08T22:13:00.000-07:00

There are but two types of booty calls.
1. The person whose phone you wouldn't consider calling until long after Cinderella has turned into a pumpkin. Usually a few drinks were a precursor to the decision to dial. The sex is easy -- really easy -- and expectations are zero.

2. Then there's the scheduled in booty call. Usually busy, employed people who either don't want to be bothered with the daily hassles and requirements of being in a relationship or people who like a little something on the side. They know which nights they have open and schedule the booty call in to fill those voids in the calendar.

(Editor's note: Don't mistake a friend with benefits for a booty call. If you would never introduce the person you're having sex with to your friends out of shame or embarrassment, s/he's a booty call.

If your sex buddy knows the names of your siblings and could probably get in touch with your parents easily if need be: s/he's a friend with benefits.)

Recently, I met a woman who would definitely be classified as a booty call. The likelihood that she would ever enter my life save for two hours once every few weeks was zero. She's nice in the way that makes me cynical. Too forward without having the basis of experience required for her to be that in-your-face. But she was open about her sexuality, seemingly very secure with herself and she mentioned she was looking for a booty call. The first two are what made the light go off in my head when she mentioned the third.

I accept that I can be a whore who doesn't expect anyone to leave anything on the nightstand.

As my dating standards have gone up, and my friends with benefits standards have gone way up, my have-a-local-booty-call-on-the-side standards plummeted. Going weeks without getting laid will do that to me.

I acknowledge it's pathetic; you agree to move on. Deal?

So we set up our first hookup. Time. Day. Location. She lives 2 miles away. She didn't need a boy scout to get to my apartment.

Thirty minutes go by.

I send a text.

No response.

An hour goes by, I sent a second text.

After two and a half hours, I get a text back. "Sorry. Fell asleep. Will talk 2 u soon. Will make it up 2 u."

Yes, she's 23. I get that. But even in a generation where entire paragraphs can be texted e e cummings-style in 11 letters, text shorthand is still a pet peeve of mine. Twice in one text? Nails-on-a-chalkboard annoying. Add that to the sleeping through our business appointment -- which, basically is what a booty call is, and this is not turning out to be a good connection.

Two days later I get a text telling me she needs to make it up to me. We agree that she'll come over the following night.

Late the next morning, I get a call. She tells me that she's got a major project due at work and she needs to cancel. But that she'll call me the following week and we'll get together.

No, we won't.

When you enter into a booty call relationship, you have got to be reliable. You're only there for one thing. If you can't deliver that, you're just not needed. It's cruel honesty, but isn't that simply Booty Call 101? Doesn't everyone pick up an understanding of rules of the arrangement freshman year of college? Isn't it the standard next lesson after walk of shame.

Guess not.

Oh well. Probably a blessing in disguise. Maybe this is a good catalyst to start raising my booty call standards.

Maybe.