Come As You Are

On Saturday Feb. 17, 2018 RWASD had Emily Nagoski, Ph.D., deliver a morning and afternoon lecture on sexuality and love. I’ll feature one aspect of her terrific talk, and one supportive insight by me.

She said that straight men and women exhibit different responses on the average to genital and subjective arousal. In men, 85% correlate genital response (aka physical attraction) with subjective appraisal. That is, if they are attracted to a woman they want sex and they want her in their lives 85% of the time. For a woman only 10% show this associative behavior. 10% want sex right then and there and because of this desire they want him in their lives. The remaining 90% reject the man’s advance even though they may be in some state of arousal. Therefore, men should not read too much into positive sexual indicators. This misreading of women is one indefensible reason why some men abuse women and by so doing trample on her human rights. In some cases, this rightfully earns him a trip to prison.

ME: Interpreting the above, most women prefer to make sure that their offspring have the right genes. Whereas the man sees beauty and having the bullish feeling that his genes and her beauty make a sufficient combination pursue a life partnership. Another way of saying this is that the man has many sperm and needs to make a gift of them, whereas the woman has one egg (at a time) and needs to protect it.

Nagoski said that the opposite is true, on the average, for gays or lesbians. To support this, I offer: Among others, a landmark study by Savic and Lindström indicates that there are cerebral differences in homosexual and heterosexual individuals. There are differences in brain anatomy, activities, and neurological connections. Brain scan images of the subjects who participated in this study show that the brains of homosexual individuals exhibit similar structure and functionality as that of heterosexual individuals of the opposite gender.

I learned from Nagoski’s lecture and will order her book to help me write better male and female characters and live a better life with my wife. I highly recommend Come As You Are, by Emily Nagoski, Ph.D.

Ex's and Oh's

We all agree that if your heart isn’t into it, don’t write it, whether it be prose or poetry (or song). Sometimes our creative energy is low. In that case, there’s nothing wrong with working on an idea, which in my case is a sequel based on another artist’s/writer’s work ,as long as you don’t publish it without permission or you are collaborating.

Hit songs are like well-written novels because their emotional content is well drawn. Has to be. In 3 minutes you must get your points across, starting with emotion, then story. Because nobody follows a flat character no matter how compelling the plot.

Rarely, hit songs can be reprieved as a sequel. That’s why the following creativity challenge I gave myself is probably just an exercise.

The original number 1 hit starts this way:

Call Me Maybe

By Carly Rae Jepsen

I threw a wish in the well
Don't ask me I'll never tell
I looked at you as it fell
And now you're in my way
I'd trade my soul for a wish
Pennies and dimes for a kiss
I wasn't looking for this
But now you're in my way

Your stare was holding…

Here’s the beginning of my offered sequel:

Kiss Me Maybe

I know I asked for your love
I promised I’d never tell
But your friends knew I fell
Then you threw your heart away
I'd trade my soul for a wish
I’d settle for a kiss
I’d wake up your soul with this
But you threw your heart away…[if you’d like to see the whole song, write me.]

So Carly can call me maybe, no definitely. Call Me Maybe was written about and for a new adult or teenage girl looking for love with a certain guy and not knowing how to go about it. You might not be a listener/reader for this song/story but it was huge. Kiss Me Maybe is written about the same girl who doesn’t quite get what she asked for when with the same guy.

I use songs to inspire scenes or themes in my stories.

Here’s a fun song called Ex’s and Oh’s, which has already found a home in my WIP, Seven Boyfriends. Ex’s and Oh’s was recently released and will (I bet) rise quickly on the alternative and pop charts. Nice to have your cake and eat it too and Elle King (the artist) does just that with her boys. Ever notice titles with double entendres? No, it’s not a reference to the start of the football season. Ex’s and Oh’s can be about hugs and kisses just as much as ex-boyfriends and oh so good experiences! I think the ladies in this blog’s audience will enjoy Elle’s take on eye-candy. I think the ones who ain’t no ladies will enjoy it even more.

 
Ex’s and Oh’s by Elle King, 2015: