City Girls

See for Yourself

Episode 3 : boys and toys

For our third sex talk we met at Il Cantinori on 10th Street. Just as we started, Chris Cuomo, Mario's son, sat down behind us. I gave him a once-over and he was so buff-Italian-hunk I had to dab my face with Pellegrino in order to chill. A few minutes later Stockard Channing (a.k.a. Rizzo from Grease--the original slutty bad girl) walked in. The girls and I squealed and did a quiet rendition of There Are Worse Things I Could Do. Then we got down to business. This chat focused on the rules of dating: men and their quirks, sex on the first date and the proverbial favorite-- how big is too big?

Gloria: Have you ever had the experience where you think, Usually I don't fuck on the first date, but this is going so well. He's not going to hold this against me. You feel like he respects you, so you make this one exception and he never calls you again?

Flo: Just went through it, baby. And it went right down the toilet.

Gloria: And you were willing to do it because you were so convinced it wasn't going to make him lose respect for you.

Barbara: That, or the other one, which is, I know it's not going anywhere, it seems like a hot moment. Why not take advantage of it?

Flo: I never take advantage of that.

Gloria: Why not?

Flo: Because you can do it with yourself [moans of disbelief all around the table].

Flo: What?

Gloria: Come on! There's a difference.

Flo: There is a difference. You're right. But I never just do it to do it.

Pepper: This new guy asked me to play with myself. I had to wonder what to do. When you're with a guy and he asks you to masturbate in front of him----

Gloria: I don't need him to ask.

Flo: I don't either. That's the only way I can get off.

Gloria: Are you saying you can't have an orgasm from fucking?

Flo: I have to touch my clit, or he has to touch my clit, or a vibrator has to touch it.

Pepper: There's a difference between him touching it and you touching it.

Flo: Actually, I can't have an orgasm if he's touching it. It's either me or a vibrator. It's the only way I'll have an orgasm.

Pepper: I always come when I'm on top.

Flo: Without any clitoral stimulation?

Gloria: What is it that you're doing on top?

Pepper: Knitting. What do you mean what am I doing?

Gloria: What angle is your body at?

Pepper: My hands are near his face----

Barbara: And you rub your pubic bone and clit on his pubic bone.

Pepper: It's so orgasmic. That's what you do.

Barbara: Intercourse makes me come almost every single time, no matter what.

Flo: [Sadly] Oh.

Barbara: I'm just a very orgasmic-from-intercourse girl. Which may be why I favor it over other things, like toys.

Gloria: I know this girl whose boyfriend once tied her hands and feet, blindfolded her, plugged her up with a vibrator and left her in the apartment for an hour. She was really into it.

Pepper: Where'd he go? What did he do for that hour? Go to Barnes and Noble? Pay his bills?

Flo: I was with a guy who was into bondage. It was a volatile relationship, edged by danger. I was scared of him a little bit. It was a really unhealthy relationship. He was very much into tying me up and leaving me there, or tying me in new positions, all sorts of apparatuses----

Gloria: Do you consider it a dark chapter in your life?

Flo: Yes, very much so.

Pepper: I've never had any sexual experience that involved apparatuses.

Flo: I have to say that any fetish besides a shit fetish gets me off. I know that it gets the man off, and to know that the man is going after what he wants to get pleasure, that gets me off.

Barbara: I find that to be troubling from a psychoanalytic perspective.

Gloria: You always wonder, Why is he into the garter? Did his mother----

Barbara: I have a girlfriend who had a long relationship with her boyfriend and they had a box of toys. Their whole sex life involved things they had bought at this sex shop on 14th Street.

Gloria: Do you think that stuff is healthy?

Barbara: Not when you're with someone for two years and every time you have sex you reach into a box of toys. I found it odd. And in fact she wasn't that attracted to him and they had a dysfunctional relationship. What about just holding each other? It seemed like the paraphernalia was covering up a lack.

Gloria: What if you can have great, toy-filled sex with a guy who happens to be totally annoying? How much can you endure in the interest of sustaining hot sex?

Pepper: If he's annoying, how can you have good sex?

Gloria: You've never been intensely attracted to someone who was also really annoying?

Pepper: I can more easily forgive (continued on page 160) City Girls (continued from page 135) someone I hate than someone who annoys me. I can have sex with someone who's gotten under my skin --

Gloria: Really?

Pepper: But I can't have sex with someone who has an annoying habit, like guys who say, "We're not in Kansas anymore" in any situation for any reason. Or "I'm just calling to say howdy."

Flo: I say howdy.

Pepper: Right, but you're a Southerner. It's OK. And you're not a guy. And I forgive you. I'm judgmental. I can be attracted to an asshole, but

Gloria: You can't be attracted to someone who says howdy. Your woody goes down.

Barbara: Depends on how lonely I am.

Flo: What's interesting is, how much are you willing to withstand to keep a relationship going? I dated this European guy who was perfect--in the sense that he was 38, he had his own company that he was about to take public and he had a Jeep Cherokee.

Every weekend we would go out to the Hamptons and look at property for him to build a house on, but on the way, in the car, we had nothing to talk about. I overlooked it and continued dating him. It really bothered me dial we didn't communicate well, but I always hoped he would learn to, because his other attributes--financial, and physical and sexual--were so strong. I also overlooked that foul, foul piece of skin hanging off his penis, even though it was difficult for me.

Barbara: OK, this is the point at which I'm out.

Gloria: Why?

Barbara: No conversation and the skin on the dick?

Gloria: [To Flo] Are you saying you never had anything to talk about with this guy? Or only once in a while?

Flo: Once in a while.

Barbara: Just when you're in the car.

Gloria: Everybody has times like that. Those are the times you just shut up and have sex.

Barbara: Not if you're in the car.

Gloria: [To Flo] Were you looking for marriage?

Flo: Who isn't? I mean, I'm 34.

Gloria: If I were more marriage-oriented it would make me less forgiving of momentary silence and uncircumcised dicks, not more.

Flo: I'm just the opposite. I'm more forgiving--not compromising, but I'm trying not to be so nitpicky.

Gloria: What do you guys think about extreme nickname use? I was once with this guy who called me a certain nickname all the time, even during sex, and it really started to bother me. One night I said, "I want you to call me by my real name more often."

Flo: What did he say?

Pepper: Did he know your name? Maybe he forgot it.

Gloria: He took it in, and he did try to change, but from that time on he would say my name in a semimocking way, like, "I'm only doing this to make you happy."

Pepper: I once had an ex-boyfriend call me by a term of endearment. It was die most horrible thing that I've ever been called.

Flo: What was it?

Pepper: He called me Chunky Monkey. I was like, "OK, that's going to stop. Right now."

Flo: He called you Chunky Monkey? What an asshole.

Pepper: You know, like the Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

Flo: That is so rude!

Gloria: [To Flo] Can we get an update on Mr. Shaved?

Flo: I've forgotten who it was.

Barbara: The guy who shaved his balls and you had an airstrip?

Flo: It was not meant to be. And the airstrip is gone and I'm back to the Dorito now.

Pepper: It's so funny because we go for such different men.

Flo: [To Barbara] I think you and I probably go for the same kind of men. [Barbara shakes her head no.] You don't think that's true?

Barbara: I've never gone out with the kind of guy I imagine you're going out with. Mine are always kind of weird. Not successful, no breeding.

Flo: I love the weird. Weird is good. But you can't marry a weird one.

Gloria: What do you look for in a guy, though?

Flo: I love a man who has a lot of feminine characteristics.

Gloria: Like what?

Pepper: He listens? He asks questions?

Flo: He bends over and takes it like a man! [Silence] I'm teasing!

Gloria: I'm not into that feminine thing. I go out with macho men.

Flo: I love a man who's dabbled with or kissed other men.

Barbara: I do too, actually.

Gloria: Really? No! [Lifts turtleneck up over her face]

Flo: Look at Gloria! The turtleneck goes right up!

Pepper: That's a turnoff.

Flo: That's hot.

Gloria: You would go out with a guy who's taken a dick up the ass?

Pepper: I couldn't even have a conversation, I'd be out the door so fast.

Barbara: I have a line that I draw. I like it if they've fooled around or hooked up, but if they've actually taken it----

Flo: Me, too.

Pepper: You guys are insane! The thought of a man kissing another man is a turnoff! I'm insecure to begin with. So if I think I'm competing against other women and men, I can't handle it.

Flo: I'm going to have to educate you. You know what I do? When we're having sex I ask him about it, try to get him to talk about it, and I try to encourage him to tell me about it because it really, really turns me on.

Barbara: My boyfriend has this friend who I just met who is also really cute. The friend used to have a crush on my boyfriend and tried to get him to fool around with him----

Gloria: The friend is gay?

Barbara: The friend's totally straight.

Pepper: If they're fooling around with men, they're not straight.

Flo: You're homophobic.

Pepper: I'm not.

Gloria: You are.

Barbara: So it never happened, but the thought of the two of them fooling around has been fantasy fodder for me ever since he told me the story. I found the whole thing totally adorable and now I fantasize about having a foursome with the guy and his girlfriend.

Flo: Have you ever fooled around with a girl?

Pepper: Never.

Gloria: Never? I have.

Barbara: Me, too.

Flo: I haven't.

Gloria: [Holding thumb to nose and wiggling fingers at Flo and Pepper] Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah! We're bi-curious!

Pepper: I wouldn't be against that, but I haven't tried it.

Gloria: If I had a boyfriend who was too femmy, I wouldn't want to be seen with him.

Barbara: When I'm with a guy I think about how happy we look, not what he looks like. I think in some weird narcissistic way that we look sort of enviable: "Look how into me he is, look how happy we are, look how those people see how much he loves me." If I'm one of those other people and I see a couple like that, I feel jealous. It has nothing to do with the way he looks, unless he's really short.

Flo: Short turns me off, too.

Barbara: I need to feel smaller.

Pepper: I need someone's arm around me. I don't like to weigh more than him.

Gloria: Considering that each of my breasts weighs 15 pounds, I have a lot of trouble.

Flo: I kind of want to overpower the man. That's something I'm working on in therapy, by the way. It's a control thing.

Gloria: [To Pepper] Are you in therapy? [Pepper nods.]

Gloria: [To Barbara] Are you? [Barbara nods, too.]

Gloria: We're all in therapy.

Barbara: [Sarcastically] Four New York women all in therapy? My God.

Pepper: My therapist is on maternity leave!

Barbara: What? She's not allowed to have her own life!

Pepper: I'm going insane. I was like, "Are you kidding me? You're having a child? What about me? What am I going to do? I need you." I asked if I could come to the hospital.

Flo: Have you seen the movie with Bill Murray?

Pepper:What About Bob? Yeah, I know, I'm Bob.

Gloria: When I'm at my shrink's, I talk about guys 90 percent of the time. I wonder what guys talk about with their shrinks----

Flo: Penis size. They're obsessed.

Barbara: Size matters so much more to them than it does to us. Like with breasts. We worry about our breast size way more than they care.

Gloria: I'll bet more than 90 percent of men have measured their penises.

Flo: I don't like a short staff, like a Coke can. Just regular. I don't like 'em too big and I don't like 'em too long.

Barbara: I only think about it if it's really little or really huge.

Pepper: I had someone once who was like a kielbasa.

Flo: What's a kielbasa?

Pepper: A sausage.

Barbara: You haven't seen those things? They're huge.

Pepper: It was so horrible. He got undressed and I just about passed out. I don't need that. It's too much for me. You know how if you get food poisoning from mayonnaise, you can never eat mayonnaise again? That's how I feel about huge dicks. I had that painful experience, and now it's like every time I see a huge----

Gloria: It's Pavlovian. I don't look at penises all that often, though.

Barbara: I love looking at them. I think they're totally adorable.

Pepper: I'm looking for----

Barbara: Germs.

Pepper: Exactly. I'm looking for sores.

Flo: My favorite thing is grabbing it by the base, when it's hard, not soft, and going, "Oh my God. Look how big this is and look how it curves to the left. It's fabulous! This thing is God!" And I love to touch the balls.

Barbara: Move 'em both around, try to switch 'em?

Gloria: What was that toy in the Seventies--Kerbangers?

Barbara: I squeeze the head and make the little hole talk.

Flo: I do that, too. [Pretending to squeeze a penis with her hand, putting on a high-pitched voice] "Hello, my name is Bob and I am a penis."

Barbara: But for some reason they always speak Spanish.

Gloria: "Yo quiero Taco Bell."

What do I look for in a guy ? I love the weird. Weird is good. But you can't marry a weird one.