Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Contents
1. Guy s a shitheel from the old school R Shut up and that how she says how he even called her she gets the call right as she s smearing the last drib of perfume on her zone and gets her hair all sprayed out in directions like they do to haul ass to the airport it rings and it s this guy and there s all this hiss and sta tic on the phone and she says he says how he s calling from the sky is how romantically he puts it calling her inflight on the flight on that little inflight phone you re supposed to slide your card through out of the back of the seat in front of you and saying how A The markup on those things go six bucks a minute it s a racket and all the sur charges rated out of the region you re flying over right then with a double spread if the region _they say adjoins at the grid s desig R But that s not the point do you want to hear this how the point s this girl says she gets there early in the gate area greeting area and already with some of the waterworks already from love and violins of commitment finally and trust and stands she says all joy and trusting like a pathetic fool she says while it gets in final ly the flight and we and they all start herding all in their big rush out the jetway thing and he s not in the first wave out and he s not in the sec ond wave how they come out in these little waves clumps like the thing s taking some kind2. FOLIO 43 of almost shit you know how A Jesus I ought to the amount of fucking times spend on jetw R And says like a pathetic a total fool her faith never faltering she kept peering gazing over the octoweave rope maroon octoweave with that nice faux velvet finish the rope of the area over at the side during all the hugging and everybody meeting or going off to Baggage and every time expecting this guy in the next wave out clump and then the next and next and like that waiting A Poor little muttski R That then at the end there I come off the last off as usual and nobody else after except the crew pulling their little neat identical little bags those neat little bags that always bug me somehow and that s it I m the last and she A So you re explaining it wasn t you that she s screaming and hitting the floor it s just that you re the last of them off and you re not this shitheel guy The bastard even must of faked that call the static if you run your Remington it makes static that ll sound like a R And I m telling you you never saw any body so the word heartbroken you think it s just words blah blah but then you see this girl with her hand knocking herself in the head for being such a fool crying so hard she can t mostly breathe and all that business like that hugging 44 HARPER S MAGAZINE OCTOBER 1998 herself and rocki
3. but very very few Those who wish to go go The confinement is very abstract The thongs are black satin mail order You would Photograph by Barnaby Hall Photonica be surprised As they comply with each request command utter little phrases of positive rein forcement such as for instance Good and That s a good girl I tell them that the knots are double slips and will tighten automatically if they struggle or resist In fact they are not In fact there is no such thing as a double slip knot The crucial moment occurs when they lie nude before me bound tightly at wrists and ankles to the bed s four posts Unknown to them the bedposts are decorative and not at all sturdy and could no doubt be snapped by a determined effort to free themselves say You are now entirely in my power Recall that she is nude and bound to the bedposts spread eagled I am standing unclothed at the foot of the bed I then consciously alter the expression on my face and ask Are you frightened Depending on their own demeanor here 1 sometimes alter this to Aren t you frightened This is the crucial moment This is the moment of truth The entire ritual perhaps ceremony would be better more evocative because we of course the whole thing from proposal onward is about cere mony and the climax is the subjects response to this prompt To Are you frightened What is required is a twin acknowledgment She is to acknowledge that s
4. s media culture K The point being that this is what makes it so difficult when for example you re sexually interested in one to figure out what she really wants from a male E It s a total mess You can go nuts trying to figure out what tack to take She might go for it she might not Today s woman s a total crap shoot It s like trying to figure out a Zen koan Where what they want s concerned you pretty much have to just shut your eyes and leap K I disagree E I meant metaphorically K I disagree that it s impossible to deduce what it is they really want E I don t think I said impossible K Though I do agree that in today s post feminist era it s unprecedentedly difficult and takes some serious deductive firepower and imagination E mean if it were really literally impossi ble then where would we be as a species K And I do agree that you can t necessar ily go just by what they say they want E Because are they only saying it because they think they re supposed to K My position is that actually most of the time you can figure out what they want I mean almost logically deduce it if you re willing to make the effort to understand them and to understand the impossible situation they re in E But you can t just go by what they say is the big thing K There I d h
5. these are the ones whom have not at all misjudged As their heads are thrown back but their eyes are on me fixed looking at me f f gazing and so on with all the intensity one associates with someone trying to decide whether or not they can f f trust you With f f trust now connoting a great many different possible things whether you are having them on whether you are serious but are pretending to have them on in order to forestall embarrass ment should they be outraged or disgusted or whether you are in earnest but mean the pro posal abstractly as a hypothetical question such as f f What would you do with a million dollars meant to elicit psychological informa tion about their p ersonality in possible deliber ation as to a fourth date And so on and so forth Or rather whether it is in fact a serious proposal Even as they are looking at you because they are trying to read you To size you up as you have apparently sized them up as the proposal appears to imply This is why I always propose it in a blunt undisguised way abjuring wit or segue or preparation or coloratura in the pronunciation of the contractual possibility I want to communicate to them as best I can that the proposal is serious and concrete That am opening my own consciousness up to them and to the possibility of rejection or even dis gust This is why I answer their intense gaze with a bland gaze of my own and say nothing to
6. and nothing else If anything they amplify the sounds inside bullhorns on end You hear it all The balsam makes the odors worse by sweetening them The toes of dress shoes defiled along the row of spaces beneath the doors The stalls full after lunch A long rectangular box of shoes Some tapping Some of them humming speaking aloud to themselves forgetting they are not alone The flatus and tussis and meaty splats Defecation egestion extrusion dejection purgation void ance The unmistakable rumble of the toilet paper dispensers The occasional click of nail clippers or depilatory scissors Effluence Emission Orduration micturition transuda tion emiction feculence catharsis so many synonyms why What are we trying to say to ourselves in so many ways Qe The olfactory clash of different men s colognes deodorants hair tonic mustache wax The rich smell of the foreign and unbathed Some of the stalls shoes touching their mate hesitantly tentatively as if sniffing it The damp lisp of buttocks shifting on padded seats The tiny pulse of each bowl s pool The little dottles that survive flushing The urinals ceaseless purl and trickle The indole stink of putrefied food the eccrine tang to the jackets the uremic breeze that follows each flush Men who flush toilets with their feet Men who will touch fixtures only with tis sue Men who trail paper out of the stalls their own comet s tai
7. by the rope looking in peering gazing in down the jetway thing there as she sees it s me as I m looking at her as I come out because it s emptied out except for her our eyes meet and all that business like that there and what does she she up and goes down on her knees drops crying and with the waterworks and all that business hitting slapping the carpet and scratching at gouging little tufts and fibers out of the cheap ass product they buy where the low polymer glue starts the backing separating almost right away and ends up tripling their twenty quarter M and R costs as sure don t have to tell you and all bent over slapping and gouging at the product with the nails bent over so you can you know just about see her tits Totally hysterical and with the waterworks and all like that there A Another cheery welcome to Dayton for your fucking cold calls we re pleased to wel R No but the story it turns out the story when I you know go over to say are you okay is anything the matter and like that and get a bet ter shot of I have to tell you some pretty fuck ing incredible tits under this like tight little top like leotard top thing under this coat she s all down and bent over in and like bitchslapping herself in the head and still doing manual field stresses on this gate area product where she says this guy that she was in love with and all that business there that said he was in love with her
8. poultry or professional brood man agement I use the metaphors only to con vey the apparent ineffability of my intu ition about prospective players in the f f game propose Nor please also note do I so much as touch them or in any way flirt with them before the third date Nor on that third date do I launch myself at them or move toward them in any way as I hit them with the proposal I propose it blunt ly but unthreateningly from my end of a four and a half foot ottoman I do not force myself on them in any way I am not a Lothario know what the contract is about and it is not about seduction conquest intercourse or algo lagnia What it is about is my desire symbolical ly to work out certain internal complexes con sequent to my rather irregular childhood rela tions with my mother and twin sister It is not f f S and M and I am not a f f sadist and I am not interested in subjects who wish to be f f hurt My sister and I are fraternal twins by the way and now in adulthood look scarcely anything alike What I am about when I sud denly inquire 4 propos nothing whether might take them into the other room and tie them up is describable at least in part in the phrase of Marchesani and Van Slyke s theory of masochistic symbolism as proposing a contractu al scenario no f f The crucial factor here is that am every bit as interested in the contract as in the scenario Hence the blunt formality
9. them Never a word of complaint Impassive The sort of man who stands in one place all day Sometimes the very soles of the shoes visible under there in the stalls of vom iting men The word vomit The mere word a tip with The inaudible thank you to the reg ulars Sometimes a name All those solids tum bling out of all those large soft warm fat moist white anuses flexing Imagine To attend so much passage To see men of substance at their most elemental His career A career man Qa Because he brought his work home The face he wore in the men s room He couldn t take it off His skull conformed to fit it D I despise him you re wondering feel disgust contempt for any man who d stand effaced in that miasma and dispense towels for coins This expression or rather lack of expression Attendant and no more Alert but absent His face Beyond reserved As if forever conserving himself Men being ill in a room with acoustics All the mortal sound he stood in every day Try to imag ine The soft expletives of constipated men men with colitis ileus irritable bowel lientery dyspepsia diverticulitis ulcers bloody flux Men with colostomies handing him the bag to dispose of An equerry of the human Hearing without hearing Seeing only need The slight nod that in men s rooms is acknowledgment and deferral at once The ghastly metastasized odors of continental breakfasts and business dinners A dou
10. thus perpetuated the species E Natural selection favored the ones who found mates instead of going out hunting mean how many cave paintings of female hunters do you ever see K Historically we should probably note that once the quote unquote weak female has mated and bred she shows an often spectacular sense of responsibility where her offspring are concerned It s not that females have no capac ity for responsibility That s not what I m talk ing about E They do make great moms K What we re talking about here is single adult preprimipara females their genetic slash historical capacity for autonomy for as it were self responsibility in their dealings with males E Evolution has bred it out of them Look at the magazines Look at romance novels K What today s woman wants in short is a male with both the passionate sensitivity and th logical firepower to discern that all her pro nouncements about autonomy are actually des perate cries in the wilderness of the double bind E They all want it They just can t say it K Putting you today s interested male in the paradoxical role of almost their therapist or priest E They want absolution K When they say I am my own person I do not need a man I am responsible for my own sexuality they are actually telling you pre 56 HARPER
11. too except he was already engaged from priorly when they meet and fall vehemently in love so there s all this back and forth and storm and drag business like that and I m lending the ear to her standing there but finally she says but _ finally the guy gets off the fence and finally says how he s surrendering to his love for this girl here with the tits and commits to her and says how he s going to go and tell this other girl in Tulsa where the guy lives that he s engaged to about this girl here and break it off in Tulsa and finally surrender and commit to this hysterical girl with the tits that loves him more than life herself and felt a merger of souls with him and all that violin business like that and felt like finally for chrissakes after all the one track shitheels she d got the runaround from she finally she felt like here at last she s met a guy she could trust and love and merge souls with the sort of violins and hearts and fi A And blah blah blah R Blah and says off the guy goes flying back to Tulsa to finally break the engagement off with the prior girl like he committed he would and then fly right back to the arms of this girl standing with the Kleenex with the tits in Dayton here in the gate area with the water works crying out her eyes to yours truly aw A Oh like we can t see this coming R Fuck you and that he puts his hand over hi
12. Bo eee I O Brief interviews HIDEOUS by David Foster Wallace B I 16 Rhode Island Bureau of Corrections Department of Rehabilitation Sex Offender Treatment Supervision Office Pawtucket RI m like thirteen it s my birthday and we go to a like renowned Italian place in Cranston to celebrate I m from Cranston My big sister is there also who always wears a mood ring that s always brown I get the spinach manicotti Genovese which my dad he always says it s real good here But then he doesn t order it But I do The wait er brings it out in this little like metal skillet thing steaming all over the place He puts it down in front of me on a little like stand up trivet thing on the tablecloth The tablecloth s white This is a story to answer your question The waiter says to me to be cautious and wait a little bit with this dish because it s hot and the skillet thing is real hot so please be very cau tious My dad gets the pappardelle with sausage and mushrooms and a side of baby calamari My _ big sister tried a suicide attempt and always has _ to wear long sleeves my mom makes her And I take and like reach out one hand and touch the skillet thing to see if it s really so hot It burns my hand and I yank it back and then sit there holding my hand out for my mom to look at She s concerned But my dad he s been watch ing the whole thing while he s eating
13. S MAGAZINE OCTOBER 1998 cisely what they want you to make them forget E They want to be rescued K They want you on one level whole heartedly to agree and respect what they re say ing and on another deeper level to recognize that it s all complete horseshit and to gallop in on your white charger and overwhelm them with passion just as males have been doing since time immemorial E That s why you can t take what they say at face value or it ll drive you nuts K Basically it s all still an elaborate semi otic code with the new postmodern semions of autonomy and responsibility replacing the old premodern semions of chivalry and courtship E I really do have to see a man about a prancing pony K The only way not to get lost in the code is to approach the whole issue logically What is she really saying E No doesn t mean yes but it doesn t mean no either K I mean the capacity for logic is what distinguished us from animals to begin with E Which no offense but logic s not exactly a woman s strong suit K Although if the whole sexual situation is illogical it hardly makes sense to blame today s woman for being weak on logic or for giving off a constant barrage of paradoxical signals E In other words they re not responsible for not being responsible K s saying K Tm sa
14. ave to agree What modern feminists slash postfeminists will say they want 54 HARPER S MAGAZINE OCTOBER 1998 K That she s expected to be both sexually liberated and autonomous and assertive and yet at the same time she s still conscious of the old respectable girl versus slut dichotomy and knows that some girls still let themselves be used sexually out of a basic lack of self respect and she still recoils at the idea of ever being seen as this kind of pathetic roundheel sort of woman E Plus remember the postfeminist girl now knows that the male sexual paradigm and the female s are fundamentally different K Mars and Venus E Right exactly and she knows that as a woman she s naturally programmed to be more high minded and long term about sex and to be thinking more in relationship terms than just fucking terms so if she just immediately breaks down and fucks you she s on some level still get ting taken advantage of she thinks K This of course is because today s post feminist era is also today s postmodern era in which supposedly everybody now knows every thing about what s really going on underneath all the semiotic codes and cultural conventions and everybody supposedly knows what para digms everybody is operating out of and so we re all as individuals held to be far more responsible for our sexuality since everything we do is now unprecedentedly c
15. being consciously insincere in all their talk about autonomy Just as I don t think they re strictly to blame for the terrible bind they ve found themselves in Though deep down I do have to agree that women are histor FOLIO 55 ically ill equipped for taking genuine responsi bility for themselves a E I don t suppose either of you saw where the Little Wranglers room was in this place K I don t mean that in any kind of just another Neanderthal male grad student putting down women because he s too inse cure to countenance their sexual subjectivity way And I d go to the wall to defend them against scorn or culpability for a situation that is clearly not their fault E Because it s getting to be time to answer nature s page if you know what mean K I mean even looking at the evolution ary aspect you have to agree that a certain lack of autonomy slash responsibility was an obvi ous genetic advantage as far as primitive human females went since a weak sense of autonomy would drive a primitive female toward a primi tive male to provide food and protection E While your more autonomous butch type female would be out hunting on her own actually competing with the males for food K But the point is that it was the less self sufficient less autonomous females who found mates and bred E And raised offspring K And
16. ble shift when he could Food on the table a roof children to educate His arch es would swell from the standing His bare feet were blancmanges He showered thrice daily and scrubbed himself raw but the job still fol lowed him Never a word The door tells the whole story MEN I haven t seen him since 1978 and I know he s still there all in white standing Averting his eyes to preserve their dignity But his own His own five senses What are those three monkeys names His task is to stand there as if he were not there Not really There s a trick to it A special nothing you look at Q I didn t learn it in a men s room I can tell you that ee Imagine not existing until a man needs you Being there and yet not there A willed translu cence Provisionally there contingently there The old saw Lives to serve His career Breadwinner Every morning up at six kiss us all goodbye a piece of toast for the bus He could eat for real on his break A bellman would go to the deli The pressure produced by pressure The rich belches of expense account lunches The mirrors remains of sebum and pus and sneezed detritus Twenty eight no nine years at the same station The grave nod he d receive 46 HARPER S MAGAZINE OCTOBER 1998 for some ordeal to come Q T own nothing white Not one white thing I can tell you that much I eliminate in silence or not at all I tip I never fo
17. chicks to keep and which are cocks The cocks are to be allowed to perish Hen hen cock cock hen and so on and so forth This is apparently in Australia The profession And they are nearly always right Correct The fowl de termined to be hens do in fact grow up to be hens and return the poultry farmer s investment What the chicken sexer cannot do however is explain how he knows The sex It s apparently of ten a patrilineal profession handed down from fa ther to son Australia New Zealand Have him hold up a new hatched chick a young cock shall we say and ask him how he can tell that it is a cock and the professional chicken sexer will ap parently shrug his shoulders and say Looks like a cock to me Doubtless adding mate much the way you or I would add my friend or sir gt ae _ This is the aptest analogy I can summon to explain it Some mysterious sixth sense per Photograph by Jen Fong Photonica I haps Not that I m right 100 percent of the time But you would be surprised We will be on the ottoman having a drink enjoying some music light conversation This is now on the third date together late in the evening after dinner and perhaps a film or a bit of dancing I do very much like to dance We are not seated close together on the ottoman Usually I am at one end and she at the other Though it is only _a four and a half foot ottoman It s not a
18. d nor my father was ever involved in poultry in any way My father until his stroke was a low level executive in the insurance industry Though of course the term f f chicken was often used in our subdivision by the children with whom played and acted out various primitive rituals of socialization to describe a weak cowardly individual an individual whose will could eas HARPER S MAGAZINE OCTOBER 1998 ily be bent to the purposes of others Unconsciously may perhaps employ poultry metaphors in describing the contractual rituals as a symbolic way of asserting my own power over those who paradoxically autonomously agree to submit With little other fanfare we will proceed into the other room to the bed am very excited My manner has now changed somewhat to a more commanding authorita tive demeanor But not creepy and not threat ening Some subjects have professed to see it as f f menacing but I can assure you no menace is intended What is being communicated now is a certain authoritative command based sole ly on contractual experience as I inform the subject that I am going to no f f instruct her I radiate an expertise that may I admit to some one of a particular psychological makeup appear menacing All but the most hardened fowl begin asking me what it is I want them to do I on the other hand very deliberately exclude the word f f want and its analogues from my instructions am not about e
19. d will tighten automatically if they struggle but in fact there is no such thing as a double slip knot 53 feminists and won t respect you and won t call you again if you fuck around K Do but don t A double bind E A paradox Damned either way The media perpetuates it K You can imagine the load of internal stress all this dumps on their psyches E Come a long way baby my ass K That s why so many of them are nuts E Out of their minds with internal stress K It s not even really their fault is mutuality and respect of their individual autonomy If sex is going to happen they ll say it has to be by mutual consensus and desire between two autonomous equals who are each equally responsible for their own sexuality and its expression E That s almost word for word what Dy ve heard them say K And it s total horseshit E They all sure have the empowerment lingo down pat that s for sure K You can easily see what horseshit it is if you start by recognizing the Y impossible double bind we ve already discussed he bigger the feminist the E It s not all that hard more grateful and dependent she s at going to be after you ve ridden in on your white charger E Who wouldn t be nuts with that kind of mess of contradictions laid on them all the time in today
20. em back to the apartment It is important to understand that for there even to be a third date there must exist some sort of palpable affinity between us something by which I can sense that they will go along Perhaps go along flexion of upraised fingers to signify tone quotes is not a fortuitous phrase for it mean per haps flexion of upraised fingers to signify tone quotes play Meaning join me in the contract and subsequent activity Q Nor can I explain how I sense this mys terious affinity This sense that a willing ness to go along would not be out of the question Someone once told me of an Australian profession known as flexion of upraised fingers chicken sexing in a Bear with me a moment now Chicken sexing Since hens have a far greater commercial value than males cocks roosters it is apparently vital to determine the sex of a newly hatched chick In order to know whether to expend capital on raising it or not you see A cock is nearly worth less apparently on the open market The sex characteristics of newly hatched chicks howev er are entirely internal and it is impossible with the naked eye to tell whether a given chick is a hen or a cock This is what I have been told at any rate A professional chicken sexer however can nevertheless tell The sex He can go through a brood of freshly hatched chicks examining each one entirely by eye and tell the poultry farmer which
21. embellish or complicate or color or interrupt the processing of their own internal psychic reaction I force them to acknowledge to them selves that both and the proposal are in dead ly earnest Q But again please note I am in no way aggres sive or threatening about it This is what I meant by f f bland gaze 1 do not propose it in a creepy or lascivious way and I do not appear in any way eager or hesitant or conflicted Nor aggressive or threatening This is crucial You re doubtless aware from your own experience that one s natural unconscious reaction when someone s body language suggests a withdrawal or leaning away from him is automatically to lean forward or in as a way to compensate and preserve the origi nal spatial relation I consciously avoid this reflex This is extremely important One does not nervously shift or lean or lick one s lips or straighten one s tie while a proposal like this is sinking in I once on a third date found myself with one of those annoy ing isolated jumping muscles or twitches in my scalp which seized on and off through out the evening and on the ottoman made it appear that was raising and lowering one eyebrow in a rapid and lascivious way which in the psychically charged aftermath of the sudden proposal simply torpedoed the whole thing And this subject was by no stretch of the imagination a cock this was a hen or I ve never inspected a hen yet one involu
22. ere this is not how I operate Laughter No my dear you have nothing to fear from me Q But of course you are My own mother was by all accounts a magnificent individual but of somewhat shall we say uneven temperament Erratic and uneven in her domestic and day to day affairs Erratic in her dealings with of her two twin children most specifically me This has bequeathed me certain psychological com lt plexes having to do with power and perhaps trust The regularity of the acquiescence is near ly astounding As the shoulders come up and her overall posture becomes more erect the head is thrown back as well such that she is now sitting up very straight and appears almost to be withdrawing from the conversational space still on the ottoman but withdrawing as far as she possibly can within the strictures of that space This apparent withdrawal while i gain please note that do not possess or pretend to possess specialized knowledge about poultry or professional brood management FOLIO 49 intended to communicate shock and surprise and thus that she is most decidedly not the sort of person to whom the possibility ever of being invited to permit someone to tie her up would ever even occur actually signifies a profound ambivalence A finger flexion conflict By which I mean that a possibility which had hith erto existed only internally potentially abstractly as a part of the subject s unc
23. h of the annoying pedantic jargon I use to describe the rituals also derives from my mother who far more than did our kindly but repressed and somewhat castrated father mod eled speech and behavior for us as children My mother possessed a sustained f f Master s Degree in Clinical Social Work one of the first conferred upon a female diagnostician in the upper Midwest My sister is a housewife and mother and aspires to be nothing more at least not consciously For example f f ottoman was Mummy s term for both the sofa and the twin love seats in our living room My own apart ment s sofa has a back and arms and is of course technically a sofa or couch but I seem unconsciously to insist on referring to it as an ottoman This is an unconscious habit seem unable to modify In fact I have ceased trying Some complexes are better accepted and sim ply yielded to rather than struggling against the imago by sheer force of will Mummy who was of course after all you are aware someone whose profession involved keeping persons confined and probing and testing them and breaking them and bending them to the will of what the state authorities deemed mental health quite hopelessly broke my own will early on I have accepted this and reached an accord with it and have erected complex struc tures in which to come symbolically to terms with it and redeem it That is what this is about Neither my sister s husban
24. have I put it very gracefully What would render you and I for example going to my apartment and entering into some contrac tual activity that included my Ging you up true play is that it would be entirely different from my somehow luring you home and once there launching myself at you and overpowering you and tying you up There would be no play in that The play is in your freely and auton omously submitting to being tied up The pur pose of the contractual nature of masochistic or f f bonded play I propose she accepts I pro pose something further she accepts is to for malize the power structure Ritualize it The f f play is the submission to bondage the giv ing up of power to another but the f f con tract the f f rules as it were of the game the contract ensures that all abdications of power are freely chosen In other words an assertion that one is secure enough in one s concept of one s own personal power to ritual istically give up that power to another per son in this example me who will then pro ceed to take off your slacks and sweater and underthings and tie your wrists and ankles to my antiqu bedposts with satin thongs I am of course for the purposes of this conversation merely using you as an example Do not think that I am actually proposing any contractual possibility with you I scarcely know you Not to mention the amount of context and expla nation I am granting you h
25. he is wholly in my power at this moment And she must also say she trusts me She must acknowledge that she is not afraid I will betray or abuse the power I ve been ceded The excitement is at its absolute peak during this interchange reaching a sustained climax which persists for exactly as long as it takes me to extract these assurances from her Q Pardon me aQ Tve Eusi told you I weep It is then that I weep Have you been paying even the slight est attention slouched there I lie down beside them and weep and explain to them the psy chological origins of the game and the needs it serves in me I open my innermost psyche to them and beg compassion Rare is the subject who is not deeply deeply moved They comfort me as best they can sateet as they are by the bonds I ve made Q Whether it ends in actual intercourse depends Its unpredictable There s simply no way to tell e os Sometimes one just has to go with the mood B I 28 Ypsilanti MI Simultaneous What does today s woman want That s the big one E Lagree It s the big one all right It s the what do you call K Or put another way what do today s women think they want versus what do they really deep down want E Or what do they think they re supposed to want Q K From a male E From a guy K Sexually E In ter
26. his cala mati and he s almost choking with laughter at me touching the skillet There s this thing with his lip when he laughs My sister always puts her hands over her ears Boy that s a whole little character study of you right there he laughs Big red loud laugh My hand is red also B I 14 St Davids PA ts cost me every sexual relationship I ever had I don t know why do it I m not a political person I don t consider myself I m not one of these America First read the newspaper will Buchanan get the nod people IIl be doing it with some girl it doesn t matter who It s when I start to come That it happens I m not a Democrat I don t even vote I freaked out about it one time and called a radio show about it a doctor on the radio anonymously and he diagnosed it as the uncontrolled yelling of involuntary words or phrases frequently insulting or scatological which is coprolalia is the official term Except when I start to come and always start yelling it it s not insulting it s not obscene it s always the same thing and it s always so weird but I don t think insulting I think it s just weird And uncontrolled It s like it comes out the same way _the spooge comes out it feels like that I don t David Foster Wallace is a contributing editor of Harper s Magazine His second collection of short stories will be published by Little Br
27. icable betrayal by a hitherto trusted authority figure and so on and so forth This interval of shocked silence is one during which entire psychological maps are being redrawn and during this interval any ges ture or affect on the subject s part will reveal a great deal more about her than any amount of banal conversation or even clinical experimen tation ever would Reveal Q I meant woman or young woman not f f subject per se 50 HARPER S MAGAZINE OCTOBER 1998 The true cocks the rare ones I have mis judged will yield the briefest of these shocked pauses They will smile politely or even laugh and then will decline the proposal in very direct and forthright terms No harm no foul Laughter No pun intended f f cock foul These subjects internal psychological maps have ample room for the possibility of being tied up and they freely consider it and freely reject it They are simply not interested I have no problem with this with discovering I ve mistaken a cock for a hen Again I am not interested in forcing or cajoling or persuading any one against her will I am cer tainly not going to beg her That is not what this is about I know what this is about The and force is not what this is about The oth ers the long weighted high voltage pause the postural and affective shock whether they acquiesce or become offended outraged these are the true hens players
28. ims and then lets out a timeless sigh you know he s not aware of This was his environment Six days a week he stood there Saturdays a double shift The needles and nails quality of urine into water The unseen rustle of newspapers on bare laps The odors aQ Top rated historic hotel in the state The finest lobby the single finest men s room between the two coasts surely Marble shipped from Italy Stall doors of seasoned cherry Since 1969 he s stood there Rococo fixtures and scal loped basins Opulent and echoing A large opulent echoing room for men of business sub stantial men men with places to go and people to see The odors Don t ask about the odors The difference between some men s odors the sameness in all men s odors All sounds ampli Photograph by Tom Maday Photonica fied by tile and Florentine stone The moans of the prostatic The hiss of the sinks The ripping extractions of deep lying phlegm the plosive and porcelain splat The sounds of fine shoes on dolomite flooring The inguinal rumbles The hellacious ripping explosions of gas and the sound of stuff hitting the water Half atomized by pressures brought to bear Solid liquid gas All the odors Odor as environment All day Nine hours a day Standing there in Good Humor white All sounds magnified reverberat ing slightly Men coming in men going out Eight stalls six urinals sixteen sinks Do the math What were the
29. ir position on the ottoman so as suddenly to straighten their posture this is an uncon scious gesture designed to com municate strength and autono my to assert that they alone have the power to decide how to respond to the proposal It stems from an insecure fear that something ostensibly weak or pliable in their charac ter might have led me to view them as candi dates for sustained f f domination or bondage People s psychological dynamics are fascinat ing that a subject s first unconscious concern is what it might be about her that might prompt such a proposal might lead a man to think such a thing might be possible Reflexively con cerned in other words about their self presen tation You would almost have to be there in the room with us to appreciate the very very complex and fascinating dynamics that accom pany this charged silence In point of fact in its naked assertion of personal power the sudden improvement in posture in fact communicates a clear desire to submit To accept To play In other words any assertion of f f power signi fies in this charged context a hen In the heav ily stylized formalism of f f masochistic play you see the ritual is contracted and organized in such a way that the apparent inequality in power is in fact fully empowered and autonomous aQ Thank you This shows me you really are attending That you are an acute and assertive listener Nor
30. l the paper lodged in their anus Anus The word anus The anuses of the well to do ranging above the bowls water flexing puckering distending Soft faces squeezed tight in effort Old men who require all kinds of ghastly help lowering and arrang ing another man s shanks wiping another man Silent wordless impassive Whisking the shoulders of another man shaking off another man removing a pubic hair from the pleat of another man s slacks For coins The sign says it all Men who tip men who do not tip The effacement cannot be too complete or they forget he is there when it comes time to tip The trick of his demeanor is to appear only provisionally there to exist all and only if needed Aid without intrusion Service with out servant No man wants to know another man can smell him Millionaires who do not tip Natty men who splatter the bowls and tip a nickel Heirs who steal towels Tycoons who pick their noses with their thumb Phi lanthropists who throw cigar butts on the floor Self made men who spit in the sink Wildly rich men who do not flush and without a thought leave it to someone else to flush swear kid never but you have never seen anything like this heartbreak on this girl with the tits and I start telling her she s right the guy s a shit FOLIO 45 because this is literally what they are used to the old saw Would you do this at home He bleached his work clothes himself ironed
31. lly freaked out and just condescending down to me and pretending they understand and those are the ones where actually I actually end up almost getting pissed off and don t even feel embarrassed not calling them or totally avoiding them the ones that say I think I could love you anyway B I 3 Trenton NJ Overheard R So I m last off again as usual and all that business like that there A Yes just wait and relax in your seat be the last off why everybody right away all the time has to get up the minute it stops and cram into the aisle so you just stand there with your 42 HARPER S MAGAZINE OCTOBER 1998 bags all crammed in pouring sweat in the aisle for five minutes just to be the R Just wait and finally coming out of the jetway thing and out into the you know gate area greeting areas as usual thinking I ll just get a cab out to A Still but always depressing on these cold calls to come out into the gate greeting area and see every body getting met and with the squeals and the hugs and limo guys holding up all the names on cardboard that aren t your name and the R Just shut it for one fucking second will you because listen to this because except it s mostly emptied out by the time I get out there A The people by that juncture are most ly all dispersed you re saying R Except for over there s this one girl left over
32. ms of the old mating dance K Whether it sounds Neanderthal or not I m still going to argue it s the big one Because _ now the whole question today s become such a mess E You can say that again K Because now the modern woman has an unprecedented amount of contradictory stuff laid on her about what it is she s supposed to want and how she s expected to conduct herself sexually E The modern woman s a mess of contra dictions that they lay on themselves that drives them nuts K It s what R it so difficult to know what tes want Difficult but not impossible E Like take your classic Madonna versus whore contradiction Good girl versus slut The girl you respect and take home to meet Mom versus the girl you just fuck K Yet lets not forget that overlaid atop this is the new feminist slash postfeminist expectation that women are sexual agents too just as men are That it s okay to be sexual that it s okay to whistle at a man s ass and be aggres sive and go after what you want That it s okay to fuck around That for today s woman it s almost mandatory to fuck around E With still underneath the old respectable girl versus slut thing It s okay to fuck around if you re a feminist but it s also not okay to fuck around because most guys aren t FOLIO tell them that the knots are double slips an
33. ng and slapping the shit out of the table so bad you have to lift the coffee off to keep it from knocking over and how men are shits and don t trust them all her friends said and she finally she met one she thinks she can finally trust to really give in and surrender and commit to do the right thing and they re right she s a fool men are just shit A Men mostly are shit you re right heh heh R And I m basically I m standing there holding coffee I don t even it s too late I don t want even decaf I m lending the ear and my heart I got to say it my heart going out a lit tle bit to this girl for this heartbreak I swear kid never but you have never seen anything like this heartbreak on this girl with the tits and I start telling her how she s right the guy s a shit and don t even deserve and how it s true most guys are shit and how my heart s going out and all like that A Heh heh So then what hap pened R Heh heh A Heh heh heh R You really got to ask A You bastard You shitheel R Well you know how it is I mean what are you going to do A You shitheel R Well you know B I 4 2 Peoria Heights IL T he soft plopping sounds The slight gassy sounds The little involuntary grunts The special sigh of an older man at a urinal the way he establishes himself there and sets his feet and a
34. ntary twitch in one eyebrow decapitated the whole possibility such that the subject not only left in such a frenzy of conflicted disgust that she forgot her purse and never returned for the purse but refused even to return telephone messages in which I phoned several times and offered simply to return the purse to her at some neutral public location The disappointment nevertheless drove home a valuable lesson as to just how del icate a period of internal processing and cartog raphy this post proposal moment can be My mother s problem was that toward me her eldest child the elder of the twins significant ly her nurturing instincts ran to rather erratic extremes of as it were f f hot and cold She could at one moment be very very very warm and maternal and then in the flash of an instant would become angry with me over some real or imagined trifle and would completely withdraw her affection She became cold and rejecting rebuffing any attempts as a small child on my part to receive reassurance and nurture some times sending me alone to my bedroom and refusing to let me out for some rigidly specified period while my twin sister continued to enjoy unconfined freedom of movement about the house and also continued to receive warmth and maternal affection Then after the rigid period Photograph by Rieder amp Walsh Photonica of confinement was over I mean to say the pre cise instant my f f time out was comple
35. olution is to realize that today s women are in an impossible situation in terms of what their perceived sexual responsibilities are E I can bring home the bacon mm mm mm mm fry it up in a pan mm mm mm mm K And that as such they re naturally going to want what any human being faced with two irresolvably conflicting sets of responsibili ties is going to want Meaning that what they re really going to want is some way out of these responsibilities E An escape hatch K Psychologically parc E A back door K Hence the timeless importance of pas sion E They want to be both sei ih is and passionate K No what they want is to experience a passion so huge overwhelming powerful and irresistible that it obliterates any guilt or ten sion or culpability they might feel about betray ing their perceived responsibilities E In other words what they want from a guy is passion K They want to be swept off their feet Blown away Carried off on the wings of The logical conflict between their responsibilities can t be resolved but their postmodern aware ness of this conflict can be E Escaped Denied K Meaning that deep down they want a man who s going to be so overwhelmingly pas sionate and powerful that they ll feel that they Photograph by Brad Wilson Photonica have no choice that this thing i
36. onscious fantasies or repressed wishes has now suddenly been externalized and given conscious weight always propose it in a blunt undisguised way abjuring wit or segue or preparation or coloratura in the pronunciation of the contract made f f real as an actual possibility Hence the fascinating irony that body language intended to convey shock does indeed convey shock but a very different sort of shock indeed Namely the abreactive shock of repressed wish es bursting their strictures and penetrating con sciousness but from an xternal source from a concrete other who is also male and a partner in the mating ritual and thus always ripe for trans ference The phrase no f f sink in is thus far more appropriate than you might originally have imagined Such penetration of course requires time only when there is f f resistance Or for example doubtless you know the hoary clich f f I can t believe my ears Consider its import Q My own experience indicates that the clich does not mean sustained f f I can t believe that this possibility now exists in my consciousness but rather something more along the lines of sus tained and increasingly annoying f f 1 cannot believe that this possibility is now origmating from a point external to my consciousness It is the same sort of shock the several second delay in inter nalizing or processing which accompanies sud den bad news or a sudden inexpl
37. onscious and informed E While at the same time she s still under this incredible biological pressure to find a mate and settle down and nest and breed for instance go read this thing The Rules and try to explain its popularity any other way K The point being that women today are now expected to be responsible both to moder nity and to history E Not to mention sheer biology K Biology s already included in the range of what I mean by history E So you re using history more in a Foucaultvian sense K I m talking about history being a set of conscious intentional human responses to a whole range of forces of which biology and evo lution are a part E The point is it s an intolerable burden on women K The real point is that in fact they re just logically incompatible these two responsi bilities E Even if modernity itself i is a historical phenomenon Foucault would say K I m just pointing out that nobody can honor two logically incompatible sets of per ceived responsibilities This has nothing to do with history this is pure logic E Personally I blame the media K So what s the solution E Schizophrenic media discourse exem plified by like for example Cosmo on one hand be liberated on the other make sure you get a husband K The s
38. own next April FOLIO 41 know what it s about and I can t help it Q Victory for the Forces of Democratic Freedom Only way louder As in really shout ing it Uncontrollably I m not even thinking it until it comes out and I hear it Victory for the les the ones that ll act all understanding like they don t care and it s okay and it doesn t matter that embarrass me the worst Forces of Democratic Freedom Only louder than that VICTORY Q Well it totally freaks them out what do you think And I just about rollover and die of the embarrassment don t ever know what to say What do you say if you just shouted Victory for the Forces of Democratic Freedom right when you came Q It wouldn t be so embarrassing if it wasn t so totally fucking weird If I had any clue about what it was about You know Qs God now I m embarrassed as hell Q But all there is is the once That s what I mean about it costing I can tell how bad it freaks them out and I get embarrassed and never call them again Even if I try to explain And it s the ones that ll act all understanding like they don t care and it s okay and they understand and it doesn t matter that embarrass me the worst because it s so fucking weird to yell Victory for the Forces of Democratic Freedom when you re shooting off that I can always tell they re tota
39. rget that someone is there Yes and do I admire the fortitude of this humblest of working men The stoicism The Old World grit To stand there all those years never one sick day serving Or do despise him you re wondering feel disgust contempt for any man who d stand effaced in that miasma and dispense towels for coins Q a 1 a What were the two choices again B I 30 Drury UT 4 have to admit it was a big reason for marrying her thinking I wasn t likely going to do better than this because of the way she had a good body even after she d hada kid Trim and good and good legs she d had a kid but wasn t all blown out and veiny and sagged It probably sounds shal low but it s the truth I d always had this major dread of marrying some good looking woman and then we have a kid and it blows her body out but I still have to have sex with her because this is who I ve signed on to have sex with the whole rest of my life This probably sounds awful but in her case it was like she was pre tested the kid didn t blow her body out so I knew she d be a good bet to sign on and have kids with and still try to have sex Does that sound shallow Tell me what you think Or does the real truth about this sort of thing always sound shallow you know every body s real reasons What do you think How does it sound B I 48 Appleton WI T t is on the third date that I will invite th
40. s bigger than both of them that they can forget there s even such a thing as postfeminist responsibilities E Deep down they want to be irresponsi ble K I suppose in a way I agree though I don t think they can really be faulted for it because I don t think it s conscious E It dwells as a Lacanian cry in the infan tile unconscious the lingo would say K I mean it s understandable isn t it The more these logically incompatible responsibili ties are forced on today s females the stronger their unconscious desire for an overwhelmingly powerful passionate male who can render the whole double bind irrelevant by so totally over whelming them with passion that they can allow themselves to believe they couldn t help it that the sex wasn t a matter of conscious choice that they can be held responsible for that ultimately if anyone was responsible it was the male E Which explains why the bigger the so called feminist the more she ll hang on you and follow you around after you sleep with her K Tm not sure I d go along with that E But it follows that the bigger the femi nist the more grateful and dependent she s going to be after you ve ridden in on your white charger and relieved her of responsibility K What I disagree with is E s scornful use of so called I just don t think that today s feminists are
41. s heart and all like that there and swears he s coming back to her and he ll be on that plane there with the flight number and time and she swears she ll be thete with the tits to meet him and how she tells all her friends she s finally in love the real thing and how he s breaking it off and coming right back and she cleans up her place for him to stay there when he comes back and gets her hair done up all big with spray like they do and dribbles perfume on her you know zones and all that business like the usual story and puts on her best pink jeans did I mention she s got on these pink jeans and heels that say fuck me in like numerous major world languages A Heh heh _ R By this juncture now we re in that lit tle coffee shop thing just in from the USAir gates that shitty one with no chairs that you have to with your shitty two dollar coffee stand up at the tables with your sample case and bag and all your shit on the low end tile not even thermoset of the floor they got that s already starting to curl at the grout and keep handing her Kleenexes and lend the ear and all that business there after she vacuums out the car and even replaces the little freshener thing hanging _ off the rearview and hauls ass to be on time to Photograph by W Calabrese Photonica the airport to meet the flight number this so called trustable guy swore on his fucking moth er s life he d be on A
42. ted Mummy would open the door and embrace me warmly and blot my tears away with her sleeve and would claim that all was forgiven all was well again This flood of reassurance and nurture would once again seduce me into f f trusting her and revering her and ceding emotional power to her rendering me vulnerable to devas tation all over again whenever she might choose again to turn cold and look at me as if I were some sort of laboratory specimen she d never seen before This cycle played itself out repeatedly throughout our childhood relation I am afraid Q Yes accentuated by the fact that she was by vocation a professional clinician a psychiatric caseworker who administered tests and diag nostic exercises at a sanitarium in the neigh boring town A career she recommenced the moment my sister and entered the school sys tem as barely toddlers My mother s imago all but rules my adult psychological life I am aware forcing me again and again to propose and negotiate contracted rituals where power is freely given and taken and submission ritual ized and control ceded and then returned of my own free will Laughter Of the subject s rather Will It is also my mother s legacy that I know precisely what my interest in carefully FOLIO 51 52 gauging a subject and on the third evening sud denly proposing that she allow me to immobi lize her with satin restraints is derives comes from Muc
43. terri bly long piece of furniture However the point is that we are not in a posture of particular inti macy Very casual and so on A great deal of complex body language is involved and has taken place over all the prior time spent in one another s company which I will not bore you by attempting to go into So then When sense the moment is right on the ottoman comfort able with drinks perhaps some Ligeti on the audio system I will say without any dis cernible context or lead in that you could point _ to as such How would you feel about my tying _ you up Those nine words Just so Some rebuff me on the spot But it is a small percentage Very small Perhaps shockingly small I will know whether it s going to happen the moment I ask I can nearly always tell Again I cannot fully explain how There will always be a moment of complete silence heavy You are of course aware that social silences have varied textures and they communicate a great deal This silence will occur whether I m to be _ rebuffed or not whether I have been incorrect about the flexion of upraised fingers to signify tone quotes hen or not Her silence and the weight of it a perfectly natural reaction to such a shift in the texture of a hitherto casual conversation And it brings to a sudden head all the fomantic tensions and cues and body lan guage of the first three dates Initial or early stage dates are fantasticall
44. the mix of aggression and decorum in my pro posal They took her in after she suffered a series of small but not life threatening strokes cerebral events and simply could no longer get around well enough to live on her own She refused even to consider institutional care This was not even a possibility so far as she was con cerned My sister of course came immediately to the rescue Mummy now has her own room while my sister s two children must now share Photograph by Barnaby Hall Photonica one The room is on the first floor to prevent her having to negotiate the staircase which is steep and uncarpeted I have to tell you I know precisely what the whole thing is about Q It is easy to know there on the ottoman that it is going to happen That I have gauged the affinity correctly Ligeti whose work you are doubtless aware is abstract nearly to the point of atonality provides the ideal atmos phere in which to propose the contractual sce nario Over 85 percent of the time the subject accepts There is no f f predatory thrill at the subject s f f acquiescence because it is not a matter of acquiescence at all Not at all I will ask how they feel about the idea of my tying them up There will be a dense and heavily charged silence a gathering voltage in the air above the ottoman In that voltage the question dwells until it has comme on dit f f sunk in They will in most cases abruptly change the
45. vely as early as the first date whether they are if you will f f ripe for the proposal To tie them up And that is just how I put it I do not dress it up or attempt to make it seem any more sustained f f romantic or exotic than that Now as to the rebuffs The rebuffs are very rarely hostile very rarely and then only if the subject in question really in fact does wish to play but is conflicted or emotionally unequipped to accept this wish and so must use hostility to the proposal as a means of assuring herself that no such wish or affinity exists This is sometimes known as f f aversion coding It is very easy to discern and HARPER S MAGAZINE OCTOBER 1998 decipher and as such it is nearly impossible to take the hostility personally The rare subjects about whom I ve simply been incorrect on the other hand are often amused or sometimes curious and thus interrogative but in all events in the end they simply decline the proposal in clear and forthright terms These are the cocks I have mistaken for hens It happens As of my last reckoning I have been rebuffed just over 15 percent of the time On the third date This figure is actually a bit high because it includes the hostile hysterical or affronted rebuffs which do not result at least in my opinion which do not result from my misjudging a f f cock Q Again please note that I do not possess or pretend to possess specialized knowledge about
46. xpress ing wishes or asking or pleading or persuading here I inform them That is not what this is about We are now in my bedroom which is small and dominated by a king sized Edwardian style four poster bed The bed itself which appears enormous and deceptively stur dy might communicate a certain menace con ceivably in view of the contract we have entered into I always phrase it as no f f This is what you are to do You are to do such and such and so on and so forth I tell them how to stand and when to turn and how to look at me Articles of clothing are to be removed in a cer tain very particular order Q Yes but the order is less important than that there is an order and that they comply Underthings are always last I am intensely but unconventionally excited My manner is brusque and commanding but not menacing It is no nonsense Some appear nervous some affect to appear nervous A few roll their eyes or make small dry jokes to reassure themselves that they are merely f f playing along They are to fold their clothes and place them at the foot of the bed and to recline and lie supine and to erase all vestige of affect or expression from their face as I remove my own clothing Qa Sometimes sometimes not The excite ment is intense but not specifically genital My own undressing has been matter of fact Neither ceremonial nor hurried I radiate com mand A few chicken out part of the way through
47. y rich from a psycho logical standpoint Doubtless you are aware of this Any sort of courtship ritual game of sizing one another up gauging There is afterward always that eight beat silence They must allow FOLIO 47 48 the question to finger flexion sink in This was an expression of my mother s by the way To let such and such finger flexion sink in and as it happens it is nearly perfect as a descriptor of what occurs Q Aliye and kicking She lives with my sister and her husband and their two small children Very much alive Nor do rest assured that I do not delude myself that the low percentage of rebuffs is due to any overwhelming allure on my part This is not how an activity like this works In fact it is one reason why propose the possi bility in such a bold and apparently graceless way withhold any attempt at charm or assua sion Because I know full well that their response to the proposal depends on factors internal to them Some will wish to play A few will not That is all there is to it The only real finger flexion talent profess is the ability to gauge them screen them so that by the such that a preponderance of the third dates are if you will finger flexion hens rather than finger flexion cocks I use these avian tropes as metaphors not in any way to characterize the subjects but rather to emphasize my own unan alyzable ability to know intuiti
48. y thinking Its what he stands in In the sonic center Where the shine stand used to be In the crafted space between the end of the sinks and the start of _ the stalls The space designed for him to stand The vortex Just outside the long mirror s frame by the sinks a continuous sink of Florentine marble sixteen scalloped basins leaves of gold foil around the fixtures mirror of good Danish plate In which men of substance drag material out of the corners of their eyes and squeeze their pores blow their nose in the sinks and walk off without rinsing He stood all day with his towels and small cases of personal size toi _letries A trace of balsam in the three vents whisper The vents threnody is inaudible unless the room is empty He stands there when it s empty too This is his occupation this is his career Dressed all in white like a masseur Plain white Hanes T and white pants and ten nis shoes he had to throw out if so much as a spot He takes their cases and topcoats guards them remembers without asking whose is whose Speaking as little as possible in all those acoustics Appearing at men s elbows to hand them towels An impassivity that is efface ment This is my father s career Q The stalls fine doors end a foot from the floor why is this Why this tradition Is it descended from animals stalls Is the word stall related to stable Fine stalls that afford some visual privacy
49. ying it s tricky and difficult but that if you use your head it s not impossible E Because think about it if it was really impossible where would the species be K Life always finds a way B I 51 Fort Dodge IA r4 always think What if I can t Then I always think Oh shit don t think that Because thinking about it can make it happen Not like it s happened that often But I get scared about it We all do Anybody tells you they don t they re full of it They re scared it might happen Then I always think I wouldn t even be worried about it if she wasn t here Then I get pissed off It s like I think she s expecting something That if she wasn t lying there expecting it and wondering and like evaluating it wouldn t have even occurred to me Then I get almost kind of pissed off I ll get so pissed off I ll stop even giving a shit about can I or not It s like I want to show her up It s like Okay bitch you asked for it Then everything goes fine a
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