This was where we had a cat for some forgotten reason stay with us for a brief period of time only have it escape out of a crack in the upstairs window launching itself off the ledge. Surprisingly it survived a 3 flight fall.
It was also the year that Beta and VHS machines appeared, long before DVD. The idea of recording a movie or television channel while at work and then coming home to watch it was fantastic. My friend Miles had a job at the first video store. Maureen was on call overnight in Pediatrics . I was off. Paul was an artist and set his own hours.
“I can bring the videos, ‘. Said Miles.
“I’ve got the new machine,” I said.
“Alright I’ll bring the booze,” said my brother Outlaw Paul.
Three guys , three videos, a night with out the girls. Miles brought a porn with three stewardesses, a western war movie with horses and sabres , and a horror movie. Over the years I’ve used this night as a ‘test’ to show women rarely know what men would do on such an occasion. Men collectively agree that their nights would likely go about the same.
The horror movie was watched with in about 10 minutes. The fast forward allowed us to skip through all the middle parts and go slow on the gruesome.
The same occurred with the porn. Less than 10 minutes. Mostly fast forward. Another realization.
‘Slow down here, she’s gorgeous.” Said Miles. Paul and I looked at him.
“You think she’s beautiful.?” I asked Miles astonished.
The movie had begun with the three girls together then broke off into three girls in three separate rooms. It turned out Miles liked the short buxom black haired girl, while Paul like thed skinny tall blond and I naturally liked the only really attractive one, the voluptuous red head. It was a realization that our tastes were all distinctly different. The face on the blond was not at all attractive to me whereas Paul loved her. This lead to an in depth discussion of physical attraction leading to the realization that Paul liked long legs, Miles liked short brunettes and I had superior taste.
We drank a bottle of wine and moved on to the next.
We watched the war movie beginning to end sometimes back spacing and re watching the Calvary charge. We all loved the Beta machine. Beta was highly superior to VHS but due to marketting VHS would win the competition.
After the second bottle of wine it seemed like a good idea to go skinny dipping in our private condo pool. Nobody else had bathing suits and it wasn’t part of the planned evening.
Our condo entrance was a shared vestibule which had a locked front door and then the individual entrances to our individual condos came off there. Two condos to a vestubule. The pool itself was locked. We climbed the fence. We didn’t consider it at the time but it was still before midnight. A hot summer night.
Lots of laughter and fun. Diving and cannon balling. I learned that some of our new neighbours took notice. I was enjoying the wealth and priviledge of actually making money as a GP and resident so had these apparently major ‘adult’ achievements , the elegant condo, the classy neighbourhood, the private pool, and home movies.
I forgot my keys.
Our somewhat aloof neighbours were returning from the symphony, gown, jewelry cold white princess and not amused black suited male neighbour.
“I’m sorry we went for a swim and forgot the keys”. Thank God I’d met the neighbour once before because stark naked with my hands covering my privates I had no ID or wish to reach for it. Three guys standing naked with our privates covered with our hands waited for our neighbour to open the vestibule door.
I’d left my door unlocked. We’d literally run naked down the stairs out the door and into the pool . I’d simply forgotten about the locking outer door.
We laughed a lot. The guys got taxis home. Maureen arrived back the next day having spent the night on call.
“Our neighbour told me she had to let you into the apartment. You were all drunk and naked.” She was angry.
I thought the whole thing very funny. From a guys point of view it had been a great night. We couldn’t imagine women appreciating a good time. The girls were trying so hard to be adults and becoming matronly while my friends and I were working hard and playing hard.
The real problem was that there were no children. Maureen kept putting off having children. Marriage was an institution for children. My friends who became fathers overnight became these ‘adults’ the girls liked but us guys without kids continued to be wild and crazy. Our wives didn’t like us but other girls did, Funny that.
My brother and sister in law were rocketed into adulthood with the birth of my first nephew. It was wonderful to see their joy. My close friends were pediatricians because I’d done so much Pediatrics in the country and up north. Maureen was a junior resident and together we had tremendous support from a tremendous university pediatric department. My nephew needed a pediatrician.
They’d eventually go to Toronto where a pediatrician friend worked there as well. I’d spend lots of hours talking to my brother on the phone listening to the pride in his voice from having an incredible son , a loving wife and being a father. Adell was wonderful. Maureen was wonderful too. It was just an all round difficult time but it all went well despite the concerns. It taught me too how difficult it must be for those who don’t know and don’t have friends and family in medicine. I appreciated becoming an uncle though it really didn’t hit me till the second son came. They were totally immersed in being parents and my brother overnight had no time for frivolity. Work, family and fatherhood. He was completely involved.
Meanwhile I was working all the time and whenever I got time off especially with Maureen it was ‘fun’ time ‘date night’. I loved to go dancing. She loved to eat in fine restaurants. We’d often go out to dinner and dance places. I’d begin to get resentments because all she wanted to do was eat in fine restaurants. So there was never a pizza or Macdonald’s but always a demand /desire to go out and spend $100 on a fancy meal. I was working three jobs to save for a house, and pay for her clothing and eating out. I liked a ‘date night’ but not this every night eating out at a fancy restaurant business. Then she’d complain all the time about there not being enough money and I’d take on more work.
When we bought the house I had savings from the years of GP, plus was getting paid for trips to the north and had a psychotherapy office built into my basement when we bought the house. I would also moonlight through my residency doing locums in charge of the detox when the head was away. God works in mysterious ways.
I was seeing a few patients a week for psychotherapy and the extra money that Maureen demanded. She was a princess with high maintenance tastes back then and blamed me always for bills, Meanwhile I was the one making the lions’ share of money and doing ledgers and accounting. My parents and brother had always managed finances well while her alcoholic family had major financial issues compared to the solid financial management of my family. I just maintained what I learned and after divorces pay the tens of thousands of dollars of debt my ex’s created.
I enjoyed spending money on tools, trips , and things like the Beta machine, tv’s stereo’s and living well, with even money for holidays but I worked extra to meet these obligations. I enjoyed the accounting back then, budgeting and ledgers. I’d later run businesses that made millions over time and always maintain the basic accounting processes. I”d learned at home from my mother and brother. My brother Ron had had filing cabinets as a teen and kept records like a librarian accountant. My wife had no such training or skills but complained always about my spending money and how there was never enough money. It was a repeat of her home but I wasn’t like any of the men in her family.
I remember thinking that I was always being criticized ‘as if’ and that she was constantly ‘catatrophic’ so that it seemed that I might as well be a profligate because the criticism couldn’t get worse and there certainly wasn’t any praise. She simply never said anything positive about me or my achievements. Indeed she was jealous. She used to complain to o, ‘You’re so lucky’.
“You’re so lucky” she’d sneer. She was a feminist and feminists simply are socialized in traditional ways. She saw the relationship as completion and undermined whatever I did which served us as a couple. She thought of herself first and didn’t tend to consider me except as useful to her. That was my perception at the time.
I thought people made their ‘luck’ and as I was always working and studying and being a ‘really good guy’. I didn’t understand this constant ‘feminist’ criticism. I’d come home all the time to ‘feminism” and constant male bashing. Men were bad. Women were good. I was a women’s liberationist and egalitarian but Hogg Summers would explainit all in her book “Who stile Feminism, how women betray women”.
I didn’t see women as victims. It hadn’t been in my house or my time and I’d defended women every time. 50% of the my class were women and they really did get a lot of slack. Mostly way work was set up was there specifically to accommodate motherhood. The whole of society was set up to help parents. I saw the call schedules and various other accommodations. As a man without children I was expected to carry the load and do the tough stuff because the parents were doing two jobs. Maureen without children had the advantages built in for ‘mothers’ in the workplace but these ‘girls’, the feminists’ demanded more because of the ‘gender’ whereas it the priviledge were there because of motherhood not so much gender. Society supported parents.
Repeatedly I’d be asked to cover for a guy because he had a sick child or his children needed something and I’d just do it. We all pulled for each other but the feminists just complained all the time and didn’t pull their weight when push came to shove.
That was tearing my marriage apart. All the criticism and complaint and the anger and the demand for money.
I was talking about it with my psychotherapist. I was talking to my parents and my supervisor. I was asking advised of all those wise people and they would all tell me that,
‘she’s having a hard time with her residency. Buckle up . When she gets through it will get better. You’ll have children then. Everything will change when she gets her exams. Hang on.”
I was just in New York and the Museum of Sex had a wonderful display about the movie Deep Throat. No younger can appreciate the impact of that movie. Teen Vogue is teaching Tween girls today how to enjoy anal sex. Missionary position was de rigor when I was married. Deep throat was revolutionary. It was the 50 shades of grey of my generation.
Before marriage, I had an insatiable wild cat wanting every position and going at it all night long. No oral sex and nothing kinky but just constant demand. After marriage there was this ‘off switch’ that only came back ‘on’ when we were alone on vacation.
She suddenly couldn’t orgasm without an hour of foreplay and this had never been an issue before marriage. But now I was constantly attentive and then raised the horror of horror concern.
“It’s not like I’m asking for deep throat but a blow job wouldn’t be too much considering all the licking I do.” I said one night.
Not guaranteed to be romantic, but definitely what I said after rejection and increasing friditity.
“Women dont’ like blow jobs. No woman like it.” She said authoritatively and adamently. She and her mother her sister, she said, all, thought the movie Deep Throat was obscene pornography.
“We all find Fellatio idisgusting! “
She used the ‘royal ‘we’ . That was always her way of ending arguments. Feminist never speak for themselves. They always speak on behalf of all the women on the planet. She was the spokesperson for women and what she said was what all women said and felt. All men were oppressors and rapists.
I was however studying sexuality and teaching sexuality at the time. I had all the June Kaplan Singer stats and all the data. I gave them to her like you offer an alcoholic a Big Book. Despite being a scientist/physician she said.
“It’s all lies. Women don’t like blow jobs, period. We don’t like fellation.”
So there I was in my office hearing from married women who begged to differ. I was also seeing gay men who loved it. I was seeing single women telling me about how much they enjoyed 69’s I was hearing in marriage therapy how men , like me, enjoyed the ‘taste’ of women but how women enjoyed the ‘taste of men’. Songs were sung about ‘taste’ and most of the lyrics of the Elvis era derived from the black poetry spoke of the love of physicality.
Not in my home. No discussion. Case closed.
“Women don’t like fellatio (period). “.
“The people you’re seeing are crazy. Your patietns are all sick.”
This was the other major issue. Her family was more ‘sick’ that most of my patients. I was seeing the makers and shakers of society. However my wife considered psychiatrsists and psychiatry and especially psychiatric patients as seriously ‘less than’. They were ‘dirty’ or ‘diseased’ or ‘bad’. She had an 18th century approach to psychiatry and thought I was wasting my life and talents being with these ‘losers’. The amount of stigma I faced every night was horrendous and she never saw it.
She meanwhile was in heaven with baby’s and mothers and doing good and righteous medicine. I was by contrast disgusting. Pediatrics was good but psychiatry was bad.
There was even a suggestion that the ‘jews were in psychiatry’ because they weren’t accepted elsewhere. The predjudices against jews was palpable. I rather liked them.
As a Christian I loved that the jews were much more down to earth about sexuality. There was a love of life a ‘joie de vire’ “‘Chaim!”, They were unsullied by the Neo stoicism that infiltrated Christianity. Everything about Jesus and his disciples is down to earth but the church had this thing against sex. Having babies was good but god forbid you enjoy it. This was exactly oppositive for Jews.
I was enjoying my learning about their culture and religion and studying the Old Testament now as much as the new. So much of Freud was based on Torah but with god removed. We had lots of discussions about this and the Judeo Christian slice of reality. It was an issue because I had been immersed so many years in yoga and Hinduism and Buddhism and Christianity and now was learning Judaism and secularism.
“Meditation is not good for you. It will damage your brain.” He said authoritatively. “ Psychoanalysis heals the brain but you mustn’t meditate. It’s damaging. You want to think always. Meditation damaged the brain”
This was the Jewish adolescent psychiatrist. He was an idiot but because he was a nice guy I listened to him and stopped meditating. I thought if I was going to learn psychoanalystic psychiatry I’d better do as I was told. It was a major mistake. The guy was completely wrong and it would be a year later I’d learn what an arrogant fool he was.
He gave a talk about natives and their psyche . I turned to the provincial head of psychiatry who I did trips to the north with and said, “He’s all wrong. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Good call. He’s never seen a ‘real indian’ . All he’s seen is acculturated downtown adolescent delinquents. He’s totally immersed in his own Judaism and can’t see any culture outside his own so he compares these urban kids with his own suburban Jewish kids. This is the ethnocentric nonsens he comes up with. You’ve seen the love and success up north. The natives are a highly success society without the booze and acculturation. Forget him he’s a fool.”
Nice guy for helping lost urban teens but utterly igornant of anything not Jewish culture. He also didnt’ know jews that meditated so meditation was bad. I’d later study the jews that meditated and return to meditation but it was a loss at the time. Kind of like saying that driving cars is bad before a person has a bike and there’s a million miles yet to travel. Psychiatry was a mix of good and bad advice. I was getting total immersion.
“I love blow jobs. I just love the taste of a man. I love to pleasure him. It gives me a sense of fulfillment and power.” She said with a silky soft voice. She was wearing a pleasantly revealing black bikini.
She was sharing a hot tub with me. A New York Jewish doctor she was beautiful. We were attending the annual Ericksonian Family Systems conference. We were drinking red wine. It was the end of the first day of the glorious conference in Phoenix.
My wife had refused to come. I’d begged her. Instead she wanted to spend time with her mother. She wasn’t interested in family. The conference was on family. She was a pediatrician. I thought it would be so helpful. I loved the folk I met through the Ericksonian Foundation. She didn’t like my colleagues. She certainly wouldn’t like this sophisticated sexy lady who introduced me to hedonistic heaven.
“Especially love deep throat,” she said before I became silent in absolute revelry.
My wife never forgave me. She wasn’t a forgiving sort to begin with. I was quite unforgivable too. The marriage ended then. It would take another year to die. I was sorry. But what did it matter.
We went to marriage therapy but she considered it all my fault which of course it was. She took it as a personal insult. I had resentments. That was true. But the writing was on the wall when she wanted to share our holidays with her family. I begged her to come camping and hiking alone with me. We’d found ourselves as a couple when we could be alone but she didn’t want me anymore. I was changing. She had her specialty. I’d served my purpose helping her along the way.
I was still loving Leonard Cohen . “I was so easy to defeat so easy to control I didn’t even know there was a war.”
I was tired of the stupidity of cultural communism and feminism and male bashing and all the lies. I liked my patients and psychiatry and the learning and I didn’t see this or my work or my patients as inferior.
On one level I was utterly remorseful. On another level I was unrepentant. I still like cunnilingus. I still like felatio. I like women who like both,
The gazebo was also the turning point.
I failed again as a husband. I’d done 7 years in the ring with what has been said to be the most difficult of women to marry, female doctors, worst record, male doctors aren’t so great. The average length of marriage was now 5 years. I’d spent over 10 years of my life living with the enemy. Studying 50 year marriages I”d learned one third had had a fling.
I’m a failure at marriage. 70% of childless marriages end in divorce early. There’s a whole lot of stats that I know.
At the end of the day I had had no defence against. “I love to do deep throat.” It was incredible. It still is.
The snake offered me the apple. I ate it whole. She offered me the apple. I ate it whole. 69 in a hot tub is still a lot of fun.
Now most people are perfect. Women all are. My wife was perfect. She’d always been perfect. Her mother was perfect. Her family was perfect. I’m not. I’m not proud of it. I’d like to be one of the perfect people. Most people would be but so few are.
I’m the ‘dirty little boy’ of Leonard Cohen’s song.
Marijuana and alcohol were part of the story too.
“I love the taste of a man.” She’d said looking up in the hot tub her bikini top undone. “Mmmmm” she said.
I got a letter from her.p a year later.
“Thank you. My husband and I had separated and I felt I was no good as a woman. Your appreciation of me gave me confidence to tell him to go fuck himself when we were going for divorce. He begged me to stay. He said I had the confidence again that he’d loved. I’m pregnant now. I’m writing this not to say I’d like to see you again but to thank you. My marriage and life are so much better. I have a child on the way. I hope your marriage improved.”
It didn’t. There were no children. Just divorce. And blame. And shame. I never got the gazebo either.
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