[originally written June 28, posted today]
Got sex ? Use it or lose it …or are you saving it up for that special occasion? If you won’t have the inclination to indulge, or polish it up for window-display, at least once this season, recycling (or even loaning it out) might be the option for you. Did you think that consignment shop rule was just for last year’s Fendi Spy Bag, those strategically peek-a-boo flesh-exposing bell bottoms or Xbox’s Ninja Gaiden Black ( say what, E3? And shouldn’t the word “fashionista” itself be so last year)
Recycling has “re-imaged” itself over the decades from the flower-child, nature-loving/ uni-tear-splashed, anti-pollute, anciently wrinkled Native American in the 70s, to the entrepreneurial going-through- the- neighbor’s -trash to pick up some spare change in the 80s. This century it’s either an almost patriotic under-municipal ordinance mandate in some neighborhoods, or a “yeah, whatever, I- can- if- I- feel- like-it” individual empowerment for many other communities. While the Good Will and Salvation Army are synonymously branded with used apparel and household goods, the Lions Club asks for used eye glasses, and many new foundations, and as many scams, have gotten on the donate old cell phone to the used-car band-wagons.
But like most anything--sex was the original. Recycled sex began right after humping between humans consumated, 35,000 or 6 million year ago, depending on if you believe in evolution or intelligent design creationism.
My friend Sylvia, sent me a card a long time ago, when either she or I were going through one of our many breakups with men. It unfolded into countless, indistinguishable cartoon hetero and gay couples, each wrapped in each other’s arms with one hand reaching out for one hand of the couple next to them. Remember, the old anti-“venereal disease” -- VD? -- public announcements, cautioning that you slept with everyone your partner slept with prior to you? Taking in account six- degrees of separation, it’s very plausible that you and I, dear blog reader, have Bill and Hillary’s passed-on love juices somewhere in us. (They did it at least once, you all.) Probably GW’s and Laura’s (and Condi? if those Internet rumors had any merit), your favorite celeb sex symbol, and Bin Laden, and your next-door neighbor, too. We all breathe a statistically connected lust imprint—fantastical or genetic.
Not just in airplanes, either. And our genitals and asses, concealed with permeable fabric, sit in the same public chairs. Educator’s often explain “one earth” ecology to children by illustrating that we’re all drinking and eating dinosaur’s #1 and #2 (that’s pee-pee and poop; #3 is still open to your imaginations). Reconditioned sex – from our thoughts to our serial-partners— makes it an it’s-a small world continuum, my fellow kissing-cousins to Charlemagne, Ghengis Khan and genetic Eve. Politically correct or germaphobe-protective condom users, it’s not just semen and vaginal secretions that a good reusable make, though that makes it’s sensorially more interesting; it’s about the given-away emotion, as well as the fucking.
Don’t feel that special something for your lover anymore? Don’t worry about having to repair the worn-out feelings, just “move on,” he or she will be picked up curbside, barside, or bedside by someone new, sooner or later. And you, too, can have opportunity for improved, retro-fitted sex. If a virgin is your new love, she/he would probably be a product of two recycled sex persons (RSPs ), unless the parents were virgins themselves when they did the deed. Since we all came from sperm and ovum, recycling can’t be avoided, as we have some generational connection to our biological parents. That is, in some ways you’re having incestuous sexual instruction with that vivacious blonde’s great grand-dad/mom and your own aboriginal ancestral cave dwellers. (In ancestor worshipping traditional Sri Lanka, a tenth-year ritual burial-clothes cleansing coincides with those same linens blessing a wedding bed, if that doesn’t creep the sex right out of the honeymoon!)
A man I recently met told me his ex-wife married an old friend of his with his approval. He had dated that friend’s ex-wife before he had married his own ex-wife, and the now adult children from each of the original marriages had dated each other a few years before both sets of parents had gotten divorced. The friend’s ex-wife asked the man if it wouldn’t be great if they, too, got it on again. Love Boat meets Brady Bunch was a smidge too retro for him, even though the sexual connection had already been previously established.
Personally, I try to hold on to people, just like my things. I wear my mom’s Fifties' fashions every few years, and even showcased my ex-mother- in- laws Sixties' styled dress to an extended family event recently. I find myself re-visiting my old lovers’ lanes in between relationships, rather than add another notch with someone new. There is something about the passage of time blending re-kindled remembrance that emotionally seasons an energetic coming home. So, long as we don’t wear out the visit.
But mostly, my own sex waits in the closet a bit more than the clothes, or more aptly biding time in a holding pound for yet another recyclable adoption. Part bitch and part pussy (I know, I know, but those words work here), my cat-dog self pants-purrs for a loving home with a strong fido-lion for mutual licking of coats, sniffing of scents, clean water, and a really hard bone for me to play with. We can take turns protecting the house, be finicky about the litter box, and entertain each other with rolling-over and sexy pet tricks (passed down from the supply of mutually linked two billion past adult sex partners.) And if the time comes, ungrudgingly, "hand me-down" each other’s paw to someone’s new claws, unless we choose, finally this time, to mulch our mingled sex the way of those dinosaurs-- to death do us part.
