Life, love, lust and lunacies from the Sage of Topanga

I was flipping through an AARP Magazine the other day when I was stopped by a full-page ad that featured the photograph of a man who appeared to be licking the neck of his giddy female companion. An overline in red said, “Sex. It’s Never Too Late to Learn Something New.”

I turned the pages back to the cover to be certain I was looking at a magazine for pleasant old people and not some erotic journal that catered to the terminally horny, which is to say guys who walk around with their flies half zippered and women who just recently discovered the visual qualities of their mammary glands.

What intrigued me about the ad, in addition to the guy licking the woman’s neck, is that it was selling videos featuring 26 sexual positions demonstrated by “real people,” which I guess would exclude actors, in scenes that “leave nothing to the imagination.”

Wow.

“What’re you looking at?” my wife Cinelli said walking unexpectedly into the room.

I turned the page quickly and said, “Oh, a piece on some, uh, educational forums being offered in San Antonio.” It was on the back side of the sex ad page.

“You’re going to Texas?” she asked.

“Well, no, not right away but you never know.”

“Are you sweating?”

“No, I mean, yes, I don’t know why.”

“Does reading about Texas make you nervous?”

I couldn’t think of a good answer so she just shrugged and left the room, leaving me to ponder the 26 positions.

I can recall maybe two or three I’ve known about. The rest, I guess, hadn’t been invented during the time of my intense interest. They were probably still in the hypothetical stage in a dingy Berkley lab where the sex microbe was first isolated in 1962 by an unfrocked U.C. professor who specialized in female reproductive organs.

The AARP is generally oriented toward people over 50 and the idea that oldsters might try a position that requires athletic skills they no longer possess is frightening. A man of 80, for instance, attempting a particularly difficult position runs the risk of falling off his partner and breaking a hip, or, even more humiliating, suffering a muscle cramp and not being able to climb off without assistance. I can hear him cry, “Help, I’m on my girlfriend and can’t get off!”

Unwilling to buy the videos, I am left to my own erotic fantasies to imagine what the 26 positions must be like. I envision Number 8, for instance, to be the Bat Position, involving a man and woman doing it while dressed in black and hanging upside down from the ceiling flapping their arms. Eating insects and mice would be optional.

Number 14 might be the Bicycle Position, during which both participants pump their legs wildly while shouting French obscenities, fantasy-playing that they’re competing in the Tour de France. This requires a high degree of coordination to prevent legs from becoming entangled and collisions occurring.

For advanced couples, there is Position Number 21 that requires the presence not only of the primary duo, but also of a steel worker, two nuns, three dancers and a duck. One of the nuns drops into a fetal position, the duck is tossed into the air and…

“So that’s why you were sweating.”

Oh, oh.

Cinelli had wandered into the room again and was glancing at the ad next to me on the desk. “’Better Sex for a Lifetime,’” she read aloud. “’A visual encyclopedia of stimulating sexual fun!’” She turned to me: “Taking a little trip down memory lane are we?” then whispered, “Just don’t expect me to do it under water. You can’t hold your breath that long. Maybe while space jumping? Or spelunking in the Grand Canyon? I’ll think about it.” She winked and left the room.

I can visualize all kinds of possibilities, some of which would be outlawed in the Bible Belt but not in New York or California where whimsical notions of new wave sexual behavior continue to be explored. Just recently, a supermarket tabloid reported that Lindsay Lohan and an unidentified male companion were arrested while naked and engaging in erotic activity in the middle of the Hollywood Freeway. They were cited for creating a traffic hazard and sentenced to 30 days of community service in a shop that sold adult toys.

Sex is dirty, as Woody Allen once remarked, only if it’s done right. I see nothing wrong with two lonely, and possibly sleazy, old people getting together for consensual pleasures while watching a how-to video. One often finds want ads in many of the dirtier senior journals such as, “Wanted, filthy woman over 50 to enjoy grubby sex with a retired CPA from Wisconsin.”

What I can’t quite visualize, even with my distorted sense of wonder, is what Position Number 26 might entail being the Ultimate Entanglement of two people in heat. I hope that it has something to do with clowns and tumblers and perhaps balloons for the grandchildren, so that even if it doesn’t work out it can at least be fun.

It makes me sweat just thinking about it.

Golly, I no longer subscribe to the AARP magazine but maybe I should. After all, at 83 years of age, I am always on the lookout for new knowledge. But wait, I am unmarried, uncommitted to anyone, so maybe the 26 positions are just another bit of knowledge I don’t really need. Thanks for the joy of laughter.

Heh, does a nervous chuckle, a recognition of how one might find themselves unexpectedly sweating and looking over their shoulder indicate an admission of sorts? My better half (Diane) is in no way a warden but somtimes….

Last week I was channel surfing late at night and hit upon that lady that has the has filled the gap left by Dr. Ruth where sex education is concerned. Diane walks into the kitchen just as the TV host was holding up a large “toy.” What /are/ you watching???? “Oh nothing, just surfing” I said quickly changing channels. Truth be told, I would have lingered and were it warmer, I might have perspired some.

This was a good month for magazines. Diane is a subscriber to Reminisce, a magazine where people share their experiences from the 20’s through the 50’s and she stumbled upon a story about two boys in 1944 on the last day of school complete with a class picture. Just so happened that one of the boys (Frederick Inman) was a dear old friend of mine and the article led to the boys getting back in touch after 60 plus years.

What are the odds?

In what’s left of human society, it’s not surprising that things of the moment are worshipped by all age groups. I realize sex was invented by the baby bummers, and they have yet to get over their own “creativeness”! But, if older folks haven’t learned all the the silly ways to do sex by now, they might as well forget it.

Our sick world desperately seeks as many pretend-feel-good activities as it can, to cover up its failures and insecurities - and sex is one of them. Forty percent of last year’s births were to unwed females, and guess who has to foot the bill for those children - the taxpayer, that’s who - by providing schools, jobs and welfare. It seems as though the taxpayer has to bail out everybody else these days. Only, there aren’t as many taxpayers as there used to be!

If sex is the primary way people connect these days, whatever their age, eventually we will all be a bunch of loners who connect only through our machines - and sex is nothing more than a machine. I guess heart, soul, and mind has become passe.

… shouting French obscenities !!!
Are we alone in the world being talkative !
But I am sure that demonstrating 26 positions would let me mute.

Thank you for your lovely articles

PS : is Cinelli a ceramist too ?

Eveline

I’ve always loved your humor. You set a perfect picture…but, I think Position Number 26 might involve a monstrous motor home, a hydraulic chair lift and a whole lot of Astroglide!

Al your sense of humor is beyond belief. It all rings true to those of us that have been there and done that. And are now in the Golden Years. Happy your daughter is doing better. Please keep on writing.

Sigh! I always told my daughters… ‘Sex is sex is sex… (it has no mentality) Enjoy it while you can’. I really had no idea what I was talking about!

Signed: Filthy-Woman-Over-70 looking for comfort and cuddles (in all the wrong places I guess). Yea! Martini time!

I didn’t want the blog to end….I wanted you to explain all of the 26 positions! I sit an await more musings, Mr. Martinez. You make the world a better place! Glad your daughter is doing better. I LOVED Cinelli’s blog also…keep ‘em coming…

I let my hair down during the “sexual revolution” that I later renamed “the sorta-safe-sex-heydays,” when sexual transmitted diseases were treatable but abortions were illegal. Now abortions are legal and STDs are life-threatening. Since our 80s are now our 60s, lusty couples can still perform Position #8, but maybe not as prolonged or as often. Also, our RAMs are limited, so our recall has diminished. Spare thoughts of sex have been replaced by “Where did I leave my reading glasses?”
Thanks for your humorous trip down memory lane.

Since our 80s are now our 60s, lusty couples can still perform Position #8, but maybe not as prolonged or as often. Also, our RAMs are limited, so our recall has diminished. Spare thoughts of sex have been replaced by “Where did I leave my reading glasses?”
Thanks for your humorous trip down memory lane.

Ha, ha, may I have permission to post this on the Facebook, you are so so hilarious. I kept laughing. Your blog is the best expectorant there is! I could not help laugh while my chest ached from congested phlegm. Oh my gosh, this is really good writing!

What lovely humor on a warm evening. Here in the Central Valley it is already 90s weather and sitting quietly at the computer is a great antidote to going outside. I wonder if you really know how much pleasure you give to so many people with your subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtlel) humor…speaking for one of them, thanks so much. After reading, I had to look for my latest AARP magazine and wonder how I had missed that ad…I guess at 90 the word sex doesn’t jump off the page any more.

Al! So nice to see that I can read you online. We had corresponded twice when I lived in Tustin. I am now in Columbus, Ohio because the cost of living in CA was to much for me.
Take care Devil Dog!

I think 25 may have something to do with a hammock between two shady maple trees .

If you’ve ever had muscle spasms or muscle cramps, you know they can be extremely painful. In some cases, a muscle may spasm so forcefully that it results in a bruise on the skin. Most muscle spasms and cramps are involuntary contractions of a muscle. A serious muscle spasm doesn’t release on its own and requires manual stretching to help relax and lengthen the shortened muscle. Spasms and cramps can be mild or extremely painful. While they can happen to any skeletal muscle, they are most common in the legs and feet and muscles that cross two joints (the calf muscle, for example). `

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