The Love Goddess Blog

Sexual Gossip: Please, Don't Tell Me!

     A woman I met at a party--call her Wendy--turned to me, after I said that she seemed happy with her new date, and said, "He's cute. But he has a penis the size of my PINKY."

    Goodness. What does a goddess say to that? Was I to press for more details ("Awesome. And is that working for you?") or to give the kind of advice she seemed to want ("Well, I'd just shoot the guy.")?

     If a goddess spoke that way of a god and he got heavenly wind of it she'd be turned into a tree fast as you can say "pinky" and she'd wish for all eternity that she'd have shut up.

     And what was I to do when the cute man returned with her drink: Stare at his crotch?

      Really, ladies. We all do our share of sexual gossiping. But ethically, don't you owe more to your date than to another guest you just met? What if Mr. Pinky said to the guy at the bar, "She's okay, I guess, but she's flat."

     Loose talk about a lover is not only tacky, but it can so backfire. Talking about your sex life, as a goddess friend of mine found out after loose talk about her romps with Bacchus, can actually turn others on….and then, pinky or no,  send them straight into bed with your supposedly useless date.

     Some people talk too much to get reassurance("Don't worry so much about the sex. Worry about his kindness"). Others, to feel in control, or to convey a sense that they're not as invested in the relationship as they appear. Others, merely to be cute. But watch: Because such confidences are usually rooted in fear, they both undermine the man AND the confidante. That would be you.  If she says those things about a lover, what will she say next about you?

   And what if she ends up marrying Mr. Pinky? How will she feel about having every woman staring at her husband? Can't you see the thought bubbles: Did she mean when erect? Or flaccid?

    And another thing. Wendy knows she said too much, right? She knows I was uncomfortable. So guess who I became to her? The Goddess Who Knows Too Much. And people get uncomfortable with people they blabbed to and, humiliated at last, doom them--as Wendy doomed me--to the ranks of the people they embarrassed themselves in front of an need to avoid.

     Keep quiet about your lover. So you and your friends can look one another--and, more to the point, him--in the eye.   

    TLG

ON THE IDEA OF "FINANCIAL INFIDELITY"

The New York Times today reports a list of "money disorders" burgeoning as we find ourselves reeling from the economic news. Overspending is rampant, but so, apparently, are other "problem financial behaviors," like, it says here, underspending (hoarding, as if we were in a depression); serial borrowing (we all know what that is), financial enabling (giving too much money to adult kids, who are then not motivated to make their own), and so forth. People from all over the monetary map have these problems--including Wynona Judd, who used to buy, she claims, too many cars and Harleys, but now has her verhicle issues under control . But here's what struck me, since of course I'm always fascinated by new data about love: A "problem financial behavior" psychologists have named "financial infidelity"--or "cheating on a spouse by spending and lying about it."

 

Please. By that definition, we're all harlots. Ragingly unfaithful Jezebels. Unless you're married to a guy who knows--really knows-- retail, what woman in her right mind tells her spouse, over a nice roast chicken dinner, "Darling, guess what? The Prada bag I had my eye on was reduced to eleven hundred, but I didn't succumb; instead I spent a mere four hundred at Coach," as though the guy wouldn't still fall face-first into that chicken. Because most men don't see the $400 as a good deal, assuming as they do that handbags cost what they did in the 80s (that is, if they ever even thought about it) and that pretty much any purse in the galaxy could be had for less than, oh, a hundred bucks. Does a man who hasn't bought a shirt for himself since college know what a nice dress shirt costs? A tie? (I tear off tags when I buy my husband clothes, egregious cheat that I am, because otherwise he wouldn't wear it and I would have to live with someone who walks around in tattered stuff from eons ago--and I do mean eons ago.) How about announcing to him what a sweet little pair of women's boots (not designer, even) for Fall cost?  Or a moisturizer, for that matter?

 

I mean look, the idea of hundreds of dollars on clothing and cosmetics repels us all….but men emphatically don't get the maintenance thing--and never have. So why talk about any of it if you can afford (literally) not to?  If you must confess, perhaps do what a friend of mine does: "I report exactly half of what the item costs--which is just what it should cost!" so that her lover can rest happily in the world of shoulds in which he resides and has no desire to depart.

       Discretion, in retail as in love, isn't deceit. So don't call this "infidelity," please. Which psychological problem is worse: Hiding the price of certain things, or causing a nervous breakdown?  I rest my case.  --TLG