What is ‘Essential’?

My book, Polyandress, is now on Itunes and Barnes & Noble: //www.newmansprings.com/release/?book=polyandress.

In the last few weeks under Covid19, dog groomers have become —essential. Please—-I am aghast.  If people would just brush their dogs, we could be sane.  It’s fine. I enjoy working, but I do not enjoy pandering. I believe the reason they made us essential is…. is that we see so few clients every day, and they don’t hang around. But since there was no dog grooming for 8 or so weeks and a lot of our regulars didn’t’need’ grooming until we were closed, we’re seeing a lot of hairy dogs.  People who live with those dogs–rather than take a brush to their BEST FRIEND…beg to have the dog shaved. Lots of shave downs. Some people do take care of their dogs, but many don’t. 

I am not a naturally optimistic person. I would be described as cynical. My boss asked me if I considered myself an extrovert or introvert, and I said, “Introvert, definitely.” I  bring that up because now I am overwhelmed by my fellow Americans, and I  more often think, “What the fuck are these people thinking? Were they thinking?  they have student loans!  Why did they get a dog that needs a haircut so it will smell halfway decent?” (Keep in mind, I have whippets—naturally clean dogs.

I  went to ‘work’ this morning (It’s Thursday 5/28) but I walked out because the person I was ‘working’ for had so little integrity, I could not take it. She was charging extra for a dog that should not have been charged— for matting. Yes, it’s her business & her prices are her prices, but I don’t think she will be in business in a year. Worse, she hired a woman who wants to learn to groom dogs (Laura is 52, and she was a pharmacy tech!), but she had her bathing a dog that could have been bathed more quickly, humanely, efficiently—and she won’t do it. She’d rather pay this woman more—to take more time, which will stress out the dog for no good reason because that’s the way she does things. To me, that is inhumane.

Life is too short to be a party to people who don’t act in an ethical manner towards others. You see, this has nothing to do with God, or believing in God. It’s a matter of common sense right and wrong. If we’re no longer going to be fair, and accountable that means nobody can be trusted.

I started addressing this to a man I met online. From what I know of him, I like—I just don’t know that much. I still don’t have enough information.  I was telling a friend, I am attracted particularly to entrepreneurs, because they take risks, and are responsible for their decisions…more so than someone working for someone else. My father was a businessman, and having been in business myself, I know the difficulties and the rewards. It helps me to respect these guys. Isn’t getting respect part of love?

I have to be clear. I am not sure what love really means. I thought I was in love a few times, and the love was not returned. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I don’t think so. We have an expression: ‘Trust but verify.’ Too many men have told me too much stuff that turned out to just not be true. The fact of the matter is that they were all Christians, and their worldview was that they would ultimately admit they were imperfect, ask Jesus for forgiveness, and how they messed with my heart wouldn’t matter. So, all the words mean nothing until I understand how a man is with me.

You can’t buy me. Gifts that are just gifts are just stuff. The gift I want is a man to be as vulnerable as I am. If I am to let you into my body, I am taking a huge physical and emotional risk. Men don’t consider that. I am saying it is important.

For me to love, I need a safe physical bond. I’ve never had that with a man ever. I don’t need another platonic male friend unless he is extremely funny & wants to take me to dinner. I’m serious. It does me no good to try to cultivate a relationship with a man who talks a good game and then is either afraid of me or finds giving me pleasure disgusting. We all have our limits. There’s a lot of stuff associated with sex that I don’t enjoy. I don’t want to be hurt, slapped, tied up, penetrated anally, or in 1 position all the time. I don’t want to be a receptacle. You would think I would not have to say that…but I know I have to. I know I intimidate men, but I know what I want, and I am not afraid to ask for it.

I don’t know how to make this idea of good sex more plain and direct. I discourage a lot of men who don’t want a woman asking for anything, and that’s just fine. My life is good. Good sex would make it better.

In any case, I am busier than I wanted to be. And….suddenly, young men on the dating sites are lying about their ages and coming out of the woodwork. I admit, I added a profile shot with cleavage (when you got it, flaunt it), but I am bemused that so many young—and I mean really young, men…. are contacting me. This is excellent fodder for an erotic romance writer, so I have to take advantage, but I still have to sort through who is real, who has something to offer, etc.

 I am not just talking when I say I write erotica. I have to really get it out there to men approaching me so as not to waste time. My ‘interaction’ with ‘the Muse’ turned out to be less than satisfactory. I could possibly fix this, but it takes two, and I think he was so disappointed in himself and the fact that he has no female friends, well, it is what it is.  He doesn’t understand you have to give to get—and can’t slide by on your good looks forever. A shame, but you can only do so much.

I guess it’s my age range, but the guys my age who respond are all foreign. Legal residents, not citizens, They all have the same story. All widowers, looking for ‘love’. What loves seems to be in their amorphous views are a commitment, trust, and not asking questions. Clearly, most are very sexually conservative, and when I address that I don’t need a man to take care of me, that you’ll get love when you provide great sex and reliability, they go away. It’s still ok for a man to have this attitude, but not so much for a woman. I was describing how this is to several friends, and said, “I am scaring them away.” The response was, of course, “You don’t want them then.” No, I don’t.

 

 

I’ve Kissed Way Too Many Frogs…..

A waste of masculinity.

I’ve been on various dating sites for about a year. I told myself I would give it a year…and the results have been worse than ‘not good’. They’ve been awful. It’s just with the internet, you meet more awful men more quickly. 

First of all…there are scammers: they steal photos off Google or Facebook, prowl (or troll, whatever term you prefer), find a mark, and they love you and you are just what they are looking for. It’s easy to spot them: their English is either very bad or of the European English variety. They also profess love and pour out the same story: wife died, they have a teenage daughter. She is living with a relative in Europe, He came to America for work. Je doesn’t drink,  came upon your photo….& apparently, women believe this & without ever meeting them….send them money.

Some of them go to elaborate procedures, but they don’t realize that there are ways to determine who is real. In Chicago, everyone lives in a neighborhood. If you don’t know your neighborhood (or the default is ‘downtown’), forget it. Then, they seem to forget that you can google & reverse lookup phone numbers. 1 idiot actually gave a phone number to an escort service.

The scammers are not the worst. The worst are the men who just look at photos and don’t read your profile. They just see boobs. Then there are the guys who pose with grandchildren, a dog, or a fish they caught.  I don’t know you. I don’t want to see your grandkids, and if the dog isn’t a sighthound, well, I’m glad you’re a dog lover, but that’s not enough.  Especially if you have some sort of designer dog. Please, no. Not into fishing, either.

There are always men who don’t think your values should be of any concern. Some will tell you straight out they are stepping out on their (sick) wives. Lots of guys looking for friends with benefits, but they offer no benefits.

How was it before the internet? Most of my friends know that I met my husband in high school. We were together maybe 8 weeks before his parents moved across the country, and we corresponded. Craig was very sexually adventurous. I would have never learned to engage in oral sex were it not for him. I really believe that you have to start young, as a teenager, or you become too inhibited. If I can thank him for anything, I can thank him for that. I barely dated and certainly didn’t engage in anything intensively sexual for most of the rest of high school until we were together on holidays. I just didn’t meet that many guys worth the bother.

When we were living together, I came very close to cheating a couple of times, but it didn’t happen.  He did, though. & then we were divorced. When I finally met Tony, I thought things would get better. Tony was great, but he told me right from the start that he was recently divorced and not prepared for a ‘relationship’, and it was clear he was juggling women. I didn’t like it, but 2 can play. When he invited me to Robert’s sauna (he had hired Robert to give lectures at the museum), he practically handed me over to him.    He said I had no sense of propriety. As though it was proper to display me to a colleague.  He then, without my permission, gave my phone number to Robert, and I started seeing Robert.  Robert was nothing great, but he wasn’t Tony, and he was appreciative. In fact, the first time we had sex, he asked me to leave the lights on because—he told me—I was the most beautiful woman he had ever been with.   Yeah, I was really a hot babe when I was young.  Tony got angry with me for spending time with Robert. I thought things then would be better with Tony (He actually said to me, “You know how I feel about you.” What a joke. What I knew was he was ambivalent and didn’t care.). I learned I wasn’t wrong because he went to see his parents over Christmas, and THEN, New Year’s Eve, went with his friends. Not with me.    We could have gone to both parties! He didn’t want a date at a party. Is that not clear?

Should I list all the bad experiences? Going out to dinner with guys I knew I had nothing in common with and wasn’t attracted to at all. Friends remember Les, who came to take me out to dinner (he had volunteered to be an ESL tutor for my project) and then felt he was so lucky that I was ‘so beautiful’ that we never got out the door. We didn’t go to eat. I just listened to him say how lucky he was….for two hours. Les was an adjunct. Not a bad looking guy. He wanted to be an actor and a comedian and still lived ‘in the family home’—with his parents.

Mark, whom my tenant, Al, introduced me to as divorced….was not even separated from his wife. He was so funny. I continued to see him for the funny even though I would not be sexual with him.

Then more single dates…  lots of aggressive men who really believe they will give you a good time( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNEX0fbGePg )until Jon, the mass communications major who couldn’t think what to say to me. He was also so attractive, and I seduced him…but…nothing. Then a few people remember Chisanga. He was a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Northwestern. I met him at the African students’ party (after Mawba committed suicide—that was a shocking and rough time…end of 1985). African men: you can’t teach them anything. I went through a series of them. They have no idea what they’re doing, They develop bad habits when young and apparently a lot of women let them get away with it. Then James….another total waste of time. He set up the boundaries early. We always had plenty to talk about, but he knew exactly what he wanted and didn’t want.

Amadou…thanks to Baidoo, I let that go on way too long. I think we had sex twice. What was going on in his mind? He wanted to be self-employed but was just too stupid. That’s the truth. He used to steal from me. He thought I didn’t know. After 3 months, I just refused to see him. What was really funny was that after we hadn’t seen each other in several months, I came home 1 day to a message on the answering machine. His car had broken down somewhere on I-80 & he wanted me to pick him up. I had been out most of the day, so I have no idea when he called…or where he was—not that I would have gone to fetch him. He used up all that goodwill. Baidoo told me I was wrong, but when Amadou stole from Baidoo’s girlfriend, he believed me.

When Kunihiro came to live with me, I thought I had hit the jackpot. What a sweet man. But I learned he was from the generation of Japanese men known to be part of sekkusu shinai shokogun. For whatever reason, they have found that dealing with women for sex is such a fraught experience, that they don’t do it. What a waste of physical masculinity! But—-and this is what is very important—-because I like him so much as a person, I respect his boundaries and we have lived together in relative peace for over 20 years. Who would have believed it?

Not to lose hope, I wanted a sex life after writing my own erotic fantasy, so I joined all these dating sites and ended up actually meeting—–face-to-face— 5 men. I Iranian guy who just wanted a regular lay but although he lived near Wrigley, he wouldn’t come up to Rogers Park. 1 guy was a sapiophile who had gotten himself into so much debt I didn’t think he’d ever recover, as funny and smart as he was. 1 guy not only did not read my profile, he lied about it. His photo had to be way over 10 years old or retouched, and he was Catholic. Catholic! What a waste of time! The Iranian guy in his 30’s, who lived across the street. How sweet to be told that I didn’t look that old, but he was worse than any 14-year-old boy I had ever encountered. What an asshole. After pretty much attacking me—I did not allow rape to happen, he had the nerve the next day to ask to see me again! Then George, several weeks ago who told me a guy owned him several hundred dollars and he was having trouble collecting. He was also a professional poker player, but he paid his rent in cash. He had no credit cards, no savings, no nothing. Just what I need. I was pleasant.  I practice being pleasant because my friends know that I have a low threshold for bullshit.

This handsome young guy, whose photo I stared at forever, came across my feed.   I just said to myself, “A shame, too young.”  Then he messaged me because he wants steady and regular sex with a woman my age. But he told me his boundaries quickly:  nobody spends the night, he never spends the night. Yet he wants to be told he is loved. I had nothing to lose. We actually had a text ‘discussion’ (oh, the modern world) about…body hair.  He texted me that he was ready for me last week. I texted him to not shave (I  like a guy with facial hair. Like someone told Freddie Mercury,” I don’t date a guy who doesn’t have a mustache…”).  He told me he had shaved his body.  OMG…why?  He said it’s for hygiene, …and girls like it.  Not this girl. This girl wants her sex partner to look, feel, and smell like an adult.    How often do I turn to Freddie dancing around with light on his chest hair? (FYI—a good glimpse :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCbxTTW_B0A   2:01—2:05 & 4:54—5:00, 5: 50—5:24)?  So I put it to him plain:  I am making a lot of compromises to be with him under his terms, and for me, his body hair adds to my sexual experience.  I couldn’t believe we had to address this, but this was NOT a romance. This was a planned sexual encounter.  I guess I had to spell that out for him, too. He has set the terms and I acquiesced to his terms.  He wanted to be loved.   Maybe no other sexual partner has ever verbalized why she was unhappy, why she left, but I have no problem with this.  I have sought out, by elimination and not being overly descriptive in my profile online that I didn’t want a Christian—not only for the baggage that comes along with asking a deity for forgiveness but because I didn’t want a pasty European guy. But I also, in so many words, wanted a  partner who had experienced what I had experienced in society:  being an other.  Does he really think he’s been assimilated and accepted? Do these guys want him dating their sisters?  Clearly, he’s had enough profound disappointment to reach out to strangers….as I have.  On the 1 to 10 vulnerability scale, this is about a 4.   Allowing a woman to sleep with you, so you can so subconsciously smell and feel her all night, so when you wake up hard, you can reach for her and make love—have intercourse without talking, or wake up in the morning—hard—and have a woman ready for you…why would you avoid that? That’s love.  Telling a woman after you ejaculate that you love her.  That’s just immaturity.

I  had a feeling he was more talk than action. He really didn’t understand that the fantasies you have in your mind, or that you experience via media may not feel the same in real life.  He was so explicit.  Not going into lurid details now—I’m putting them into a book and have people pay to read it, but I did something he asked me to do, and he clearly wasn’t enjoying it.  When I asked him what was wrong, since he had asked for this, he said, “I never expected you to do it.”  To me, that is so sad.  & now he won’t talk to me because he is so embarrassed about failing me and takes full blame and we can’t talk it out anyway because it’s Ramadan.

But, although I didn’t nearly get what I had hoped for (-I could just tell by how he expressed himself that he was another ‘wrong planet’ emigre), there was something I can enjoy in my own fantasies;  the feel of his beard, his arms, and his chest.  He was the best thing I’ve felt in over 20 years.

Of course, I am not settling for that. I  hope in the future I will hear him on the phone again…but I am starting out now to cultivate the next victim.I’ve recently had text conversations with  4 men and have actually talked to three.   a

At least two are looking for marriage.  Like my Muse, I’m happy with my life, except for this one thing…

Polyandress

Integrity. What does it mean to act with integrity? Is integrity the same in Africa and the United States? Is it telling the truth? Being fair? Not doing harm? Being accountable to your community? Do lovers owe each other integrity? Do they owe integrity to those around them?

Daler, a Sikh teenager, and Amara, an American Jewess in her early twenties, met due to family connections. They are brought together when Daler is asked to escort Amara on a brief trip in Africa. Then, due to circumstances, they don’t see each other for twenty years. Daler an engineer who falls into being a rock star is sure he’s in love, but Amara, a dog groomer and trainer, is more pragmatic. Their lives are so different.

Amara sees herself as a polyandress, if not necessarily by choice.

Daler thinks they have something special…or do they? Will cultural differences define who they are to each other? Can their relationship work?

by Robyn Michaels

 

In stores now!

 

 

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Choices

Some people who disregard what I’ve written because it’s…smut. But is it?  When Ann Patchett wrote Truth and Beauty, about her relationship with the writer Lucy Grealy (who wrote ‘Autobiography of a Face’), she didn’t consider it controversial, but the truth.  Yet,  a bunch of protesters, who hadn’t actually read either book, demonstrated against Patchett being allowed to speak at Clemson University because she wrote about ‘the love between two women’. Yes, Patchett did write about the love she had for Lucy, and how Lucy had coped with so much physical pain and romantic rejection. Patchett even wrote about Lucy’s bad choices, including drugs and sexual promiscuity, but there is nothing salacious about Patchett’s book. That’s the problem when Christian men get hold of something & turn it into something else to discredit or debase women. The men remain credible, and the women have to defend themselves.  In any case, what I write is being judged by the larger Christian community.

I am going to defend my choices.  I became acquainted with an attractive man through a dating site.  He seems honest. We haven’t actually met. There are some things that aren’t quite right.  He’s Catholic, and as I’ve said many times, you can’t have it both ways.  Over the past week, he’s tried to find out more about me, and he has asked some interesting questions.  However, in a recent text chat, he mentioned me to his daughter and had her text me.   I just can’t imagine why a man would do that.  If I had kids, I wouldn’t have them meet anyone I didn’t know until I really knew them.

Our actual conversations haven’t been totally clear because of the audio quality of both our phones.   He now has Covid19, is very discouraged and not feeling well (but not bad enough off to be hospitalized).  I asked him what it was he actually did for a living. He lives in a very upscale community, so he must be paid well (he had also asked me if I invested).  He told me he sold mining and drilling equipment. When I asked him, he affirmed that yes, he sold fracking equipment. He was reluctant to explain how he justified helping greedy people ruin the global fresh water supplies just to make money. He said to me, “Don’t judge.”

  I am not rich, but I’ve been able to carve out economic security for myself while not having to compromise my values, for the most part. It’s been tough. A few times I took work for pay doing things I was not comfortable with, but I didn’t make a career out of compromising my values.  I worked for less than a week for a man who resold dogs from puppy mills. He lied to buyers that they were raised by families. Sure, the Amish are families—but make no mistake: puppies are a cash crop to them, like any other livestock. I just couldn’t do it. I am a purebred dog fancier. Ethical hobby breeders who love their dogs don’t sell puppies to be resold. They want to meet the people who say they want puppies.

I’ve worked for veterinarians who lied about how much playtime day boarding dogs got, and how much time dogs spent in cages, especially overnight in their own filth because they didn’t want to pay an overnight person to let the dogs out. I’ve even worked for one who told people he would euthanize a dog, and kept it as a blood donor! I’ve worked for dog daycare owners who didn’t train their staff and allowed dogs to be bullied and harassed, or isolated with no playtime. People whose friends found dogs that were lost, and, instead of searching for the owner, or seeing if the dog was chipped, kept the dog for themselves or resold it.

I’ve groomed dogs for ‘no-kill’ dog rescues that lied about dogs being good with kids, or housebroken.

Briefly, I sold timeshares for a company until I learned that, because they were resellers, most of the buyers had a terrible time booking the weeks they had paid for.

I have many Catholic friends. Most have lapsed.  They lapse for the same reasons I   address in my writing:  a religion that has managed to sustain itself by protecting leaders—and that’s what the church hierarchy is—who have acted for their own best interests, while not just misleading followers, but protecting stronger people who have exploited their flocks.  It’s 1 thing to be culturally Catholic, and another to continue to support these hypocritical people because it’s comfortable and you think it benefits yourself.

I wondered for a long time if I was really out of the mainstream. Having these questions led me to study cultural anthropology. I had a unique instructor who assigned books written by Africans, and that’s where I discovered Chinua Achebe’s books, particularly Things Fall Apart.

So now, I am being confronted, and that is the term, by potential lovers who haven’t ever addressed that they’re characterizing themselves as Catholic. I’ve had the conversation with a few Christians who have denied that this is how it is—but this is how it appears; once you have admitted that you are not perfect, you can make the wrong choice. Then, you ask Jesus for forgiveness, and you can get into Heaven. You can attain salvation even though you knew what the right choice was but chose to do the wrong thing anyway.

Having been an environmentalist…evolving from being a teenaged tree hugger into someone who understood the scientific ramifications of protecting or stewarding the natural environment (or not), I try to act on what I believe.  I helped found one of the first community-based recycling centers in the country. I have lived in places where getting fresh water was a daily struggle. I don’t think I could make the wrong choice and then ask a deity to forgive me. I have no savior. Nobody would get me into their heaven. I could not live with a wrong choice to just make money. This is what Trump and the GOP are doing now.

Yet, that is what I am being confronted with. I am being asked to overlook or discard the fact that a potential lover helps people poison the environment. Does he think there is an ‘away’? That what he does two miles down the road, or on another continent, won’t affect him and his children? I’m waiting for an answer. but, for now, I have to step back. I can’t be giving (or receiving) sexual pleasure from a man who does this, and that was the whole point of trying to get to know him. I am very disappointed. Such is life.