Thomas Wictor

Apparently this ad is real.

Susie and Nate: Hot to trot…Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control. My health insurance covers the pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the covers.

But how could anyone resist you, Susie? Nate’s already yours. See how he’s playing pocket pool? That’s you, girlfriend! He’s on fai-yai-yai-er! There won’t be time to get him between the covers. He’s going to throw you down right there in front of the photographer and ravish you eighty-seven ways from Sunday.

They hired you, Susie, because you’ve got that Miley Cyrus vibe, and she’s the hottest woman who ever lived. Nate is quite smug about landing you; he’s already clutching possessively at your right ovary. But I’m totally…flaccid.

It’s not Susie’s fault. The culture has passed me by. I’m not into veneers or dentures or whatever she has in her mouth. And the “WOWEE!” expression on her Miley-face tells me that she’s a giant dork. That means she’ll be a dork in bed. She’ll engage in some cheap, monkey-see-monkey-do TV-performance that’ll be too frenetic, too sleazy, or too baby-doll. At any rate she’ll be lousy because she’ll be in her own little world, putting on a show for an invisible audience.

That ad would sicken the photographer Neil Zlozower. “Nobody in photography knows what they’re doing anymore,” he told me. “They always publish photos that show really ugly shit, like multiple chins.” Susie’s got three chins that I can see. That’s what happens when you make someone open her mouth wide enough to cram a baseball into it.

If you cover up her gaping mouth, her eyes are really flinty. She looks mean, like she wants to kill you. And what’s wrong with her left forearm? It has a long lizard sack hanging down from the underside. Why has such a young person lost all the elasticity in her skin? What have they done to her?

Wait, you say! Even bad sex is still pretty good!

No it’s not. Bad sex is bad. Sex with dorks and weirdos is depressing. We all know it. Nobody looks back on sex with a dork or weirdo and thinks, It was still pretty good.

What you think is, Christ, that was horrible. I don’t ever want to see her again. When she made all those gross noises and expressions, the only thing that saved me was Audrey Hepburn in a cowboy hat.

Don’t believe me? Well, the kids are taking Viagra. They call it “recreational use,” but that’s a lie. Recreation is fun. If you were having fun, you wouldn’t need a boost. The kids are wearing themselves out, imagination-wise. They’re already jaded, so they need a chemical propper-upper to get the job done.

I’m fifty-one years old, and I’ve never had That Problem. It’s not because I’m priapic or a magnificent stallion; I just rationed myself. To keep from burning out, I deliberately avoided debauchery. I’ve had a single one-night stand in my entire life. It was with an Australian woman in Tokyo. We worked at the same school, and our rendezvous took place a week after I was hired. Later, I learned her nickname: The Welcoming Committee.

It was a really cruddy encounter. Though she was attractive, there was a compulsive, ritualized quality to her behavior that night. Getting together with me had nothing whatsoever to do with me, even though at that time, I was at the peak of my physical beauty.

In 1986 my experience in dalliances was extremely limited, but I knew what I liked and what I didn’t. One-night stands were not for me, regardless of how many I might have. Hooking up, friends with benefits, and eff-buddies were just not my thing. The impersonality turned me off. Using and being used was creepy.

This isn’t to say that people shouldn’t hook up. What consenting adults do is their business, not mine. I don’t happen to think there’s a moral component to casual sex. But there’s certainly a psychological component, and now it seems clear that there’s a physiological component, since so many young men need a little extra oomph.

For me, sex without emotion was boring. It was no different than doing calisthenics. There was just no real surprise or mystery after the first three or four times. It was the emotional aspect that made the skyrockets go off. Communication is incredibly erotic for me. Intelligence and humor are irresistible.

If I’m going to take the trouble to go out with someone, talk to her for hours, drive her home, get undressed, and have a workout, the experience has to be worth all the effort. Poor dorky, thumbs-up, dentured Susie in the ad above would just never provide an acceptable return on my investment.

A man a year older than I am said he felt really bad about himself because teenage girls no longer look at him.

“Are you still looking at teenage girls?” I wanted to ask. “Why?”

I have nothing against teenage girls; they’re just too goddamn young for me. My current physical ideal is the Danish actress Iben Hjejle, who’s forty-two.

I know absolutely nothing about her; we’re just talking appearance. To me, mature and tousled women are extremely attractive. I’d love to wrestle with her, go hiking, and box. Let me tell you, there’s nothing like boxing with a woman. I don’t mean actually beating each other to a pulp; shadow boxing, I should say. With gloves, head protection, and mouth guards. Very light contact, if at all. Try it. You’ll be blown away. When a woman trusts you enough to box with you, there’s no limit to the intimacy.

Note to the feds: Thanks but no thanks. If you want this old man to sign up, try and lure me in with women closer to my age. Promise me that they’ll be funny, intelligent, interesting, empathetic, lighthearted, and willing to wrestle and box.

A lack of dentures would help too. And next time you create an ad, let me proofread it for you, okay?

The pill doesn’t protect you from STDs, condoms and common sense do that.

Correct punctuation is as follows:

The pill doesn’t protect you from STDs, condoms, and common sense, do that?

Yes, that don’t. But I do got insurance. I has gotten it long time. One father done pay. Him now am not pay. Me are pay plenty self.