3% of women

How 'nice shoes' turned into a mans plea for me to deliver a message

It was a Wednesday afternoon and I decided to pop into a coffee shop off Abbott Kinney in Venice. Crowded with people working on their laptops, I was hopeful that I would be able to drop into work mode alongside them and flesh out, once and for all, my column about Porn and anal bleaching. 

I opened my laptop with my coffee and started organizing my thoughts. No sooner did my fingers start to tippity-type, when a man wearing terminator-like sun glasses and a  windbreaker went walking by only to stop mid-swing to say, whoa… ‘nice shoes.’ 

He pulled his glasses over the bridge of his nose and stared down at them, then looked at me.  

My shoes, an Adidas Gucci Clog, had been getting all sorts of attention throughout the day and I had warmly - okay quite graciously - accepted all the gushing as if I were personally responsible for making them.

the Adidas Gucci Clogs that stop everyone

However fast these moments may seem, when a man out of nowhere starts talking to me, I tend to have momentary Matrix-like glitches where, life in action, slows almost to a stop. 

Do I say thank you or just smile? 

A ‘thank you’ might invite a conversation. 

A smile might invite more. 

None of which I had time for as I was intent on working. 

I had to check my bias. Just because it was coming from a man in a coffee shop wearing a windbreaker and terminator glasses didn’t mean I couldn’t pause and be polite.

So I dropped my guard and said thank you… with a smile. 

Perhaps this serves as a lesson learned to never combine the two but, alas I might have missed out on a 20 minute deep dive into the worries and concerns of a comedy writer post the #metoo movement (this deserves its own column) into his obsession for anal sex and the Porn industry being to blame for normalizing it in his eyes.

How, you might be wondering, in the hell?!?! Same, dear reader, same. But it will be quite obvious because his next question led to my next answer and just like that, I learned that only 3% of women want anal sex.

Who knew? No one… until now. 

When he asked what I was doing that day in the coffee shop I answered ‘working’. A subtle attempt to hint that I was busy, please keep moving…

‘On what?’ He asked as he looked at my laptop.

Photo by Cookie the Pom on Unsplash

Now, I know for sure I said ‘on my column…’ and I’m more than positive I said ‘I talk and write about dating sex and relationships’ when he asked what kind of column, but I don’t believe I mentioned ‘Porn’ or ‘Butts’. Which is why this conversation in many ways seems serendipitous. Kismet!

A sign, if you will, that maybe I should listen and heed his advice because he went straight into what I was writing about. Albeit, from a very different position.

‘There’s something you need to tell your audience. Especially, the men.’ He said as he sat down on the bench next to me, pushed his glasses up into his hair. He leaned back with his legs kicked out and crossed and looked at me with an expression that was serious, almost urgent.

‘Porn is distorting mens views on sexuality and what women want. We are being lied to. Women in real life don’t actually want anal sex.’

those were his words...

‘Here’s what I think; Porn has set men up with an unrealistic expectation that all women want anal and they don’t. I’ve calculated that only about 3% of women do. For years I’ve been trying to teach women how to and what to do and I now know they have to want it for themselves. And most won’t want it after the first time. It’s usually then, or shortly thereafter, the relationship ends. After we have anal. You know, I think they are uneasy about having sex and it not being in their natural sex organ.’

I interrupted him. ‘I think it’s interesting that you’re referring to the vagina as being a natural sex organ. It would imply that the anus is not a natural place to have sex. Or that some sex organs are more natural than others. Which is what Freud and other puritanical conditioning would have you believe. Maybe that is where some of your desire stems from. That it’s ‘bad’ and a place you shouldn’t go.’ 

‘Maybe… he said. One morning when I was sleeping, he said as leaned his head on the back of the bench and looked up at the ceiling,  I woke up to a woman riding my dick and it was in her ass. I had one eye closed because I was afraid if she knew I was awake she would stop. I couldn’t believe it. It was like a sea creature was attached to my dick. This beautiful Italian woman, like a suction cup, was just riding me. After that it opened my mind. I saw sex, all types and women differently. She had wanted it and I was able to let go of the idea that I should want other women to want it. I’m working with a therapist now.’

I wondered if he arrived at this epiphany or conclusion from the help of the therapist or if the moment of self discovery truly came to him when the sea creature was suctioned on his dick. 

Photo by Janayara Machado on Unsplash

I couldn't get his words ‘sea creature attached to my dick’ out of my mind. At this point in the conversation I wanted more than anything to hit record because I have never heard someone so casually, and vividly describe sex to me. 

He went on, ‘That’s how I’ve figured out that only 3% of women want anal.’ 

I guess it doesn’t matter how he got there so long as he arrived. 

‘Hey, he said. I feel like you and I could keep this going. You’re like gasoline and I have this spark. You could turn this into a fire.’

I wondered if he thought I was part of the 3% of women who wanted anal.

I couldn’t help but laugh. Not at him, but the situation. Perhaps my work as a person who talks and writes about sex so openly has distorted the view of who I am.

‘No my friend, I said. But I am going to spread your message like wildfire. That if a woman wants it, she will tell you. That Porn is distorting mens views of women and sex. That therapy is a great outlet for men to unpack and work out their very natural and normal sexual desires; to give you a more accurate lens that is separate from the over-sexualized, sexist and misogynistic one Porn has created.

And while a 100% of women will fall for ‘nice shoes’, only 3% of them will go for a line like ‘gasoline on fire.’