Random Thoughts - Business and Sex

The other night I went out for drinks with my friend Tyrone. After the hour-long banter about music, books, Battlestar Galactica, magic and chicks, he managed to mention in earnest that he has a thing for prostitutes. “I really like them,” he said. “They’re so down to earth. The conversation afterwards is always so interesting.”

Ever the one to find connections in the world, I noted that Tyrone is the third person I’ve known who is a practicing john, and like my other two friends, he is a capable and dedicated businessman. The other two were both brokers, one in steel, the other in petroleum. They differed from Tyrone in that they were both substance abusers and full of self-loathing. Still, I wondered privately if the Adam Smith school of thought somehow lent itself to solicitation.

It’s always dangerous to draw conclusions based on anecdotal evidence. After all, in poker, it’s not too extraordinary to get three of a kind in anything. So, why even remark on it? Well, possibly, because it feels like there’s a correlation. Three johns who are also three hardcore business guys. A successful player in the business world doesn’t simply stumble into the job like one does for, say, a delivery driver or motivational speaker. No, it’s a vocation. It’s a career that takes a certain kind of person, one who thinks and sees the world in a very specific way.

For the adept capitalist, any human interaction is an avenue for commerce and exchange. Casual meetings, weddings, introductions, chance encounters –whatever—they are all legitimate opportunities to feel the ground and swap business cards. Inane banter is gregariously embraced as a vital preliminary to the bonhomie necessary to conduct trade.

Standing on the outside, witnessing these interactions, I can almost see the gears turning behind the rigid smiles as both parties size each other up, asking themselves, What does he or she have that I want? What does he or she want from me? How valuable would this relationship be to me? Yet, where I once suffered a nauseating and visible distaste for such pragmatic calculation, I now tend to think that this is not unlike any interaction between strangers, though most of us tend to perform such calculations on a purely subconscious level. And for that reason, when savvy players are on their game, it’s almost refreshingly pure and honest, if not artless.

As my friend Tyrone says, “Nobody does it better than Americans. The French, they have rules about not talking shop with their cousins or whatever. But that’s why the French suck at business.”

It’s not to say that all who embed themselves into the world of business are insincere and superficial. Perhaps only the majority of them are. My three whoremongering friends, for example, adapt their manner to whomever they are talking to. They’re superficial only part of the time, when it’s to some advantage. But obviously they can be genuine and introspective enough to make the kind of confessions that they’ve made to me, someone who has nothing to offer in business but who also happens to enjoy thought-provoking dialogue.

To get to the point: When, in a person’s perception and attitude, any conceivable human interaction is reduced to the bottom line of economics, certain romantic notions like “true love” and “selfless giving” are regarded as unprofitable. Or so it seems to me. Time is money, and the effort spent in wooing a potential sexual partner must be weighed against the benefits to be incurred. If a romantic interest cannot bring money, connections, aesthetics or consolation to a partnership, but only sex, then the most profitable and efficient course toward orgasm must –and can only be—through a quick and efficient means of monetary exchange. No fuss, no muss. Not only is prostitution a major time saver, it’s good for business.

Me, I make no judgements other than on the art inherent in ritual. I have no moral qualms with most anything that anybody does. Despite my own personal tendency to gravitate toward the romantic means of getting laid, I don’t begrudge anybody who hasn’t time for such tomfoolery. After all, if we were all the same, it would be a pretty boring world. And I don’t suppose that all businessmen (emphasis on men) are the same. Still, I wonder what statistical data a study would bring.

Technology - Clonosexual

My friend Anastazio has some wierd ideas. Over coffee the other day, he was rifling through the paper and came across an article about the world’s second racehorse to be cloned. He snapped the paper loudly with his fingers and tossed it onto the next table.

“Let me ask you something. Do you masturbate?”

“Of course not,” I assured him.

“Well, I do. A lot. Let me tell you.”

“No thanks. What’s that got to do with a cloned racehorse?”

“It has everything to do with it, my friend. I’ll ask you something else: Why does a dog lick his balls?”

“I don’t know. To get the shit taste out of his mouth?”

“Maybe that, too. But the other reason: Because he can.”

“What the fuck are you going on about?”

This began a long conversation in which I –under protest—became educated to a variety of Anastazio’s masturbation fantasies. However, the apropo scenario began as no fantasy at all before quickly transforming itself into an ominous dilemma. Anastazio had been trying to perform acts on himself that only a lithe gymnast could even comprehend when it suddenly dawned on him that if he could somehow duplicate himself, he would accomplish all that he desired … and more.

After that, his doppleganger became a frequent and familiar actor in his private sock hops. He wondered if perhaps he was discovering a latent homosexuality, so he switched to other fantasies which he once tried out of curiosity –all fizzling out with the same, uninspiring results. No, he was certain: It had to be himself.

“Do you think it’s just vanity?”

"Probably."

“That would make me homosexual in it’s most literal sense, wouldn’t it? ‘Sex with the same,’ right? You can't get anymore same than that.”

“I guess. But there’s a long tradition holding rights to the term. Probably you’d have to come up with a whole new word. Like, ‘Clonosexual.’”

It was with a blend of excitement and shame that he ended these ethereal trysts with the overwhelming recognition that he was an anteclonal deviant, and he wondered if he was not more of a pathetic lecher than a sexual prophet and vanguard.

“You know, it could really be very awkward. I mean, imagine if I made a clone of myself for other reasons, like I needed a kidney or something. Sure, it would enter my head. But imagine if, when face to face, I realized it wasn’t what I wanted, that it was just too weird. You know? Still, he would know what I was thinking. So we’d be standing there, in the hospital or whatever, looking at each other. He’d probably say, right there in front of the doctor and everything, ‘I know what you’re thinking.’" He gulped. "What am I supposed to do with that?”

“More than likely, your clone would be a baby at first. And it would have to grow up, like a normal human.”

“Great. So now we’re talking statutory rape. I guess incest, too. Maybe. Do clones even have rights?”

“Well, technically, there are no human clones. So, for the moment …”

Anastazio leaned back and lost himself in thought. After a few minutes, he wagged a finger at me. “You won’t tell anybody about this conversation.”

“Of course not,” I assured him.

Cinema - I Am a Sex Addict

The autobiographical docu-drama, I Am a Sex Addict, has a lot of merits, despite Caveh Zahedi’s painfully self-conscious presence in front of the camera. His manner has been compared to Woody Allen, but I would agree with that in only an abstract way. The self-effacing honesty is reminiscent of the Wood-man, but not nearly so irritating nor contrived. Yet, lacking Allen’s budget, it stands out as amateurish and requires the intent acceptance of a serious Indie aficionado to see it for what it is: A refreshing breath of truth, tinged with the kind of humour that makes you squirm in your seat, thinking, I’ve done something like that before. Or, I could have done something like that.

The tale follows Caveh’s spiral from prostitute fantasy to prostitute fetish, ending up on the ashes of two destroyed marriages and a number of failed relationships. After finally finding salvation in the basement of a Methodist church, sitting in the circle of a male-only sex addict’s meeting, Caveh embraces his epiphany and ends the film on a hopeful note: The tearful wedding ceremony of his third marriage. It’s from the dressing room of the church, just before the ceremony, that Caveh narrates a large portion of his story.

All in all, I’d say it’s a film worth seeing, though I found it easy to divide my viewing into two evenings. It doesn’t necessarily provide any insight into the world of whore-mongering, except maybe by making it look surprisingly normal, as if it were similar to a pentient for singing show tunes in the car. Caveh’s bug-eyed discomfort probably bespeaks his true reticence to expose the emotional misery that he intimates but never expresses convincingly. Indeed, the only time he doesn’t seem too uncomfortable is when receiving numerous simulated (?) blow jobs on camera, which makes one wonder if he’s merely substituted prostitutes with struggling actresses in the pursuit of his jollies.

On the surface it seems that this whole venture has been not much more than a therapy process for him. But combined with a mesmerizing score by Hilary Soldati and quirky animations by Bob Sabiston, the humour and originality make for an interesting voyeuristic experience.