Auntie Blatch’s unzipping rules
As it is with all things, it’s the old show Seinfeld that leads the way, then and now and forever more.
It was in 1994 that the episode first aired.
Jerry had set up Elaine with a pal, Phil Totola. The next day, Jerry asked how it had gone. “Sooo,” he said. “How was your date?” Elaine smiled. “Interesting. Oh yeah.” “Why, what happened?” “Let’s see,” said Elaine, “how shall I put this?" “He took it out.” “He what?” “He took,” said Elaine, polishing her glasses and deliberately huffing once per lens, “it out.” “He took what out?” “It,” said Elaine. Thus, almost 24 years before the world learned that taking it out was apparently a widespread practice, did Seinfeld tackle the subject and without the modern sledgehammer too.
Naturally, the story made the rounds of the cast. ( This was not a show about nothing, but rather one about everything.)
When Jerry told George, George said wonderingly, and not without some admiration, “I spend so much t i me t r ying to get t heir clothes off, I never thought of taking mine off.”
Kramer, who as regular viewers knew was unreasonably attached to his privates and deeply concerned about their welfare, replied, “Maybe it needed some air. You know, sometimes they need air. They can’t breathe in there. It’s inhuman!”
This brings me, of course, to the first of Auntie Blatch’s Rules of Modern Sexual Conduct for Men: Do not take it out unbidden. From time to time, you may be asked to take it out. It’s a big old world and some of us on this side quite like them, and if we also like you, we may ask. I myself have asked. But therein lies the key: If a woman wants to see it, she will ask. If she does not ask, do not assume she is shy and secretly wants you to take it out. Do not assume she will be pleasantly surprised by its magnificence or that in any way she will find this a winning trait.
Under no circumstances, in other words, should you take it out unless asked. Do not allow it to be photog r a phed, even bi dden. First, there is the hard truth that while you may be terribly photogenic, it rarely is, especially disembodied. In my own view, invariably it looks best when it arrives with your well- worn mug at the other end.
But more i mportant, while you may indeed be asked to send a woman its picture — I am reliably informed that there are an astonishing number of such pictures out there and that a lot of women ask for them and in exchange send pictures of their bits — do not yield.
No good has ever come of this. I have written stories about a man who dopily sent a picture of it to a woman who several times specifically asked him for this; the second he pressed send, he was done. I have read more stories about other men.
I realize this flies in the face of the au courant notion that women never lie, or act with bad motives or are sometimes just plain batshit crazy.
But some of us do, do and are. And it can be quite t ricky to separate wheat f rom chaff, especially when blinded and deafened by lust. So make a vow: I will not send a picture of it to anyone, ever. Courtship, Geraldo Rivera to the contrary, is what happens before a relationship starts, and therefore doesn’t include taking it out, mauling a woman in the bathroom ( or anywhere else), ass-pinching, etc. There may be room for all of the aforementioned in a relationship, wherein whatever works for two consenting adults is their business. Courtship might include flirting, sexual innuendo, bad jokes and puns, a bottle of wine, dancing and other quasi- incidental consensual touching. What it doesn’t include are poppers ( in Rivera’s presumed “courtship” of the great Bette Midler, he all egedly broke some poppers under her nose prior to groping her in the loo) or any other drug forcibly or surreptitiously administered with the idea of reducing resistance. The idea of sex or flirting surely is to make your partner mad with desire, not rendered comatose and insensate. Do not walk around naked in the office or any place that is an office substitute like a hotel room. Do not greet a work colleague in your birthday suit. In fact, probably it’s safest to simply remove the word “naked” from your office vocabulary. Do not have a shag on your desk. Back to Seinfeld.
George Costanza once had (consensual) sex with the office cleaning lady on his desk at a publishing company.
She regretted it the next day, so he gave her a gift, hoping for her silence. It was a cashmere sweater he’d bought on sale and had given to Elaine as a thank you for getting him the job ( she loved it until she noticed it had a red dot and was damaged). Well, the cleaning lady loved it too, and launched into a happy little rhapsody about cashmere.
Then she t oo noticed the red dot, and smartly reported George to the boss.
“It’s come to my attention,” the boss said later, “that you and the cleaning woman had sex on your desk in your office.”
“Who said that?” George asked. “She did,” said the boss. “Was that wrong?” George asked. “Should I not have done that?”
And that’s how just about every single issue of 2017 was rolled up in a few minutes in a couple of aged Seinfeld episodes.
( Reminder: Don’t take it out unbidden.)
IF A WOMAN WANTS TO SEE IT, SHE WILL ASK. — BLATCHFORD IF A WOMAN WANTS TO SEE IT, SHE WILL ASK.