Can't Afford Free

Photo credit: Fred Guenther

As I sat in the corner two-seater of the Q train, under the refreshing air conditioner blast, two men boarded the train at DeKalb Ave. I went back to my reading until one of the men  began to fill the car with the sounds of his accordion. Girl you look so sharp every time you pass in dem pum pum shorts It was an unconscious distraction as I sang along to the familiar melody in my head.


My phone rang indicating I had a text message. I joined many of the other straphangers in checking our phones while we had service above ground. Halfway across the bridge, I decided to put away my book; I was getting off at the next stop.

Casual Sex Is Still Dead

Nowadays when I have sex, I do a lot of thinking afterwards. I’ve come to realize it’s a sign of growth. Early on in my sexual life, I had an on-to-the-next-one mentality. I rarely looked back. The sex itself was the beginning and the end of the experience with that person. If I had hooked up with a friend, we remained friends but that didn’t mean we remained sexual partners.

Last year, I wrote The Death of Casual Sex and yes, it’s still dead. The older something gets the deader it gets; makes sense, no? Let me explain.

Half-Assed Ode To Technology

If you know me personally, you know how I feel about chat, IM's, text messages etc. It's fine to share small bits of information quickly but I believe if that is your primary or only means of communication, you're hiding from something, using that as a crutch. You tell yourself, oh I talked to her yesterday, or he said this to me... Really? Did you really talk? Did all those lol's when you didn't even crack a smile or were rolling your eyes get your point across? How many times have you had a "fight" over text cause someone mistook what you "said"?

The Death of Casual Sex

In the 10 or so years I’ve had a sex life, I’ve been with a fair number of dudes. Ya’ll don’t need an actual number but it’s less than 100 and enough to learn from. And as a yougin, it was always fun, carefree and casual. But in this day and age, is sex really casual anymore? Do people actually want casual sex?


I genuinely liked a few of the guys along the way, so I let them in. And that’s the way it should be. Get to know him. Make sure he respects me and doesn’t treat me like a game. We can play all the games and use all the toys we want when the time is right, but to get to that level of intimacy and comfort you have to like someone, know someone or just click instantly.


I’m getting up in years. I still have the supple, taut body of a 28 year old, but I think my spirit is 62. Experiences and past lives. I’ve been lucky and survived all my sexual adventures; the goal being to let them in without them leaving anything behind. But I’ve learned from every experience. I was cool with the idea of "friends with benefits", but you gotta be friends, duh. I was fine with never calling someone again and sometimes got annoyed if they called me (don’t dare text me the morning after). If I did talk to them or see them again and they start spewing phrases like, “When can I see you again?”, “You bring me joy”, “I really like you”, I would question whether this guy ever had sex before!


For me, the time between each romp has grown. I still twitch and get irritable if I enter states of celibacy longer than 2 weeks but it’s more important for me to actually want to be with him instead of just being horny. It all boils down to having a connection. All this damn texting limits connecting and people use it as a buffer; they hide behind it. Then they get upset or hurt when all they get in return is a text after having sex, or what they thought was a connection, with someone. Folks jump from partner to partner because they want to connect with someone. The further we get from each other and only rely on text messages or IM to communicate, the more we crave true human interaction. We end up in bed together at super speed, with an orgasm (hopefully), yet still left unsatisfied.


You’re thinking of someone right now. Call them. Schedule a hug.