My Sexual Oscars

Here you are, basking in the heat of summer, skimming your Playboy and keeping one eye on the talent that strolls by your perch, talent that smells of coconut oil and something else--yes, that's it, the faint but unmistakable aroma of quim, glorious quim, moist quim, quivering quim. What a remarkable fragrance fresh quim projects, a combination of sea salt and jungle mud and crushed violets. As a famous poet almost wrote, "Oh, to be in Quimland now that August's here!"

The word quim seems to have been banished from our language. But is it not time for us to resurrect it and bring it back into circulation? Are we not manly men, vigorous and unafraid? Will we not employ the words we love without fear or shame, and to hell with those puritans who would censor us?

Gentlemen, it is lucky for us that women don't really know how we think. If someone were to invent a camera that could videotape male brain waves and convert them into pictures, we would all be toast within the first few seconds. Because men are definitely three-track monsters. We are able to watch the girls go by, read a magazine and--all at the same time--remember the glories of quim past.

What is it about quim that we remember specifically? Don't play naive pool boy with me, fella. We remember, in exquisite detail, each stroke and taste and touch and smell of quim, from our earliest experiences with it to time present. This is the secret we do not wish to share with womenfolk: For most of us, every day is filled with warm and happy memories.

I submit that a man produces a perpetual Oscars show of sexuality in his mind's eye, and does so continually. So here are the Oscars I would bestow to the only quim that ever mattered to me--the women who starred with me in our own private X-rated screenplays. (FYI, the names have been changed, but the scents linger on.)

For the Best Kisser in My Preteen Years: An Oscar to Jenny, a tan and compact nymph in Florida who smelled like a freshly squeezed lemon and used to sneak out to the boat dock with me in the evenings for necking and experimentation. We were 11 years old, precocious kids who knew more about sex than the adults in our lives thought we did. To her credit, Jenny even managed to cry during our final hours together, and I like to assume she remembers me with fondness, just as I remember her.

For the Toughest Broad in Junior High Who Had the Most Bounteous Chest on Chicago's South Side: An Oscar to Marilyn, queen of my dreams, a young woman who could chew out a gang member in salty language, then turn to me and almost smother me in her ginger-spice flesh. With her breasts covering my ears, I didn't really care what she was saying. Wherever she is now and whatever she's doing, I want her to know I loved her dearly, and I was not a superficial punk so infatuated with her cleavage that I couldn't think straight (was I?).

For the High School Senior Who Rattled My Cage When She Showed Me That Some Girls Like to Be Spanked: A golden Oscar to Jensen, a dark, thin, vibrant beauty who stopped me suddenly one summer evening as we were walking out of a movie, pulled me into an alley and said, without warning, "Slap me. Slap me hard." To this day, that episode remains one of the most startling moments of my life. After some protestation, I gave her a gentle slap on her face. "Harder," she said. I could not do that, so she turned around, raised her skirt, stuck out her butt and said, "Ok, then spank me." I managed to do that without much hesitation, and, Ok, I admit it: I really enjoyed it! But her tendencies toward S&M freaked me out, and I eventually had to stop dating her. Still, she was responsive and exciting--and often smelled of chocolate and coffee and almonds--and I miss her.

For the Wondrous Wench in College Who Preferred Blow Jobs to Intercourse and Was Oral Beyond Measure: An Oscar to a woman I'll call Chamomile, because that is what she smelled like. A junior librarian on another campus, she liked to visit me in my campus library and blow my stack in the stacks. Her oral technique was out of this world and her commitment to my pleasure was total. But I grew somewhat anxious with our routine, because she rarely let me explore her body. It was frustrating to me, since I'm a 50-50 kind of guy, so things petered to a halt, if you know what I mean.

For the Best Massage Parlor Technique in the Orient: An Oscar to Michiko, an elfin creature on the island of Okinawa who smelled of salt and soy sauce and who gave me, a confused and frightened Marine, the longest, most sensual baths in my history, pouring pans of warm water over me, then rubbing me with ice cubes, dragging me into a steam bath and sauna, laughing all the while as she manipulated my spine like it was a piano keyboard and cooed like a mourning dove. Arigato, Michiko, and thanks for the special sushi. You are often in my thoughts.

For the Strawberry Girl Who Will Laugh When She Reads This and Then Pretend She's Offended: An Oscar to my own true love, a woman I call the Beav, who accepts my past sexual explorations around the globe with equanimity but who also likes to kid me about them by saying, "So how many little Ahmets and Toshiros and Pierres and Günthers and Raouls are running around the world with your DNA?"

"Oh, honey," I always say, smiling, "perish the thought. You know I was a virgin and I saved myself for you." But if the Beav ever gets tough with me and demands an honest answer to her question about how many kids I have in different time zones and hemispheres, I'll tell her the quim made me do it. And that's no lie.