The L-Word - 1/14/10

Welcome back for Yay-term! Personal story time: the Sunday night before the last week of class, my dear significant other and I were relieving a little academic stress in the classic cowgirl position, and I misjudged the distance from my head to the wall behind his bed, seriously slamming my skull into it. Hello, Porter Hospital.

Oh, I have a concussion? It’s cool — it’s not like I have any exams or anything. The stars I saw in this little incident are not the ones most people hope for when doing the deed, but aside from the killer headache, I would still call it a win.

My screwing screw-up got me thinking, though — how often does over eagerness to hit the sweet spot cause injury like that? I’ve definitely acquired interesting bruises and a fair amount of rug burn, most of it caused because sex isn’t always the graceful act it’s chalked up to be.

I used to worry that my lack of poise in the bedroom meant I was doing it wrong (if you’ve been a loyal reader of my column, you’ll notice that worry has been a theme), particularly when my history is peppered with events like an attempt to emulate the hot hand-on-sweaty-window action in Titanic that resulted in cracking the rear windshield of a guy friend’s car.

I’ve come to the conclusion, however, that sex is a lot more fun if I can laugh at myself, and there is so often so much to laugh at.

First of all, the next time you’re nose to nose with someone, take a second to chuckle at how ridiculous a person looks that close. Seeing someone from that position is a little like looking through a fish-eye lens, making the nose and eyes bulge out and everything else look disproportionately small.

That close, my depth perception also tends to be a bit off and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone in for a gentle smooch only to smash my nose into somebody’s cheekbone. Too eager, again.

Pardon me if this makes me immature, but I tend to giggle during intense movie make-out scenes when it sounds like the microphone has been shoved down the lead actor’s throat and all sorts of lip-smacking and tongue-slurping can be heard over the soaring soundtrack.

Sex and all of its preludes are replete with bizarre noises, generally wet and squelchy ones. Honestly, if you take a step out of the heat of the moment, sex sounds a little bit like plunging a toilet. But don’t dwell on that for too long.

Besides the symphony of bodily noises going on, our most carnal act tends to inspire some vocal sounds as well, and as anyone who’s ever had an active sinkmate can attest, the “oohs” and “ahs” of afternoon delights are unmistakable and unlike any other noises we humans usually make — another vote for the strangeness of sex, though I find those guttural sounds quite appealing.

Forced sexy sounds crack me up, however. I’ve never been one for phone sex because that hoarse and breathy, barely-above-a-whisper voice we seem to be preprogrammed to use just makes me laugh instead of making me randy.

Seriously. Tell someone you want to kiss their lips off in your sexiest voice and see if you’re not amused.

Sex can be spiritual or urgently passionate or serious or sacred or pristine — I’ve certainly experienced those kinds of intimate connection and whew, boy! are they something — but it’s also one of the strangest, silliest and occasionally grossest things that we do as humans, and I think it should be appreciated as such.

Laughter in the sack is a joyous acceptance, even celebration, of the many quirks to getting naked and invading each other’s personal space, and so this J-Term, my silly reader, I hope that your excess of free time is full of much giggling.