He’s got game — video games, that is
I was a little lost looking up and down the aisles of Best Buy, trying to find the new PSP3 video game title The Kid asked me to pick up for him.
But as it turned out, my aging eyesight wasn’t being put to the test as much my ears. Nearby, I could hear a few guys discussing the pros and cons of various video games. I thought they were middle-aged dads talking about their teens’ gaming skills, until I gave them a good look — they were late-20- to early-30-somethings, max, too young to have kids indulging in the joys of the latest Grand Theft Auto.
I returned to my search, but I couldn’t help but think, “Dudes, aren’t you a little too old to be playing video games?” 
And then I thought of The Kid, who kills more than his share of hours in front of FIFA
Soccer 11 or the latest MLB or Madden title, and all of a sudden I had a freak-out moment — is he going to be a gamer past his teens? He wouldn’t be the only one. And, if I were dating someone like him — or the late-20- to early-30-somethings at Best Buy — how would I feel about it?
Would I want to be dating a gamer?
No. Well, I don’t think so, but I realize it’s not fair to say that; I’m not a late-20- to early-30-something woman who’s grown up with video games and all the other techno stuff we can’t seem to live without. Maybe it’s no big deal. Honestly — how different is it than blobbing out in front of the TV, which I did grow up with (although barely watch anymore). We Trekkies turned out OK, right? And, my boomer friends and I still play board games — Scrabble, anyone?
And yet, there’s something about guys sitting around for hours on end killing people or even just kicking soccer balls around that makes me pause; it seems childish, like guys are suspended in adolescence (not quite a child, not quite a man but a child-man).
Now, I love it when a guy is in touch with his boyish side, but I mean the playful, imaginative, dreamer side — not the boyish side usually portrayed in the clueless T&A-obsessed beer-soused frat boy flicks, the kind that thinks hours of Final Fantasy with a Halo- keg and pizza chaser is a good use of time. But I wouldn’t be dating those kinds of guys, anyway.
I don’t think video game playing is a threat to society — if I did, I wouldn’t let The Kid play them (although at this point, it would be one helluva battle to get him to stop!) I think checking your cellphone or Facebook constantly may be more threatening — certainly to relationships, and that happens a lot more with both genders and among all ages.
I would have no problem learning how to play FIFA Soccer 11 or whatever if it brought my kid and me together although I haven’t volunteered to learn nor has he asked; might be weird to bitch-slap Mortal Kombat‘s Bo Rai Cho with your Mom by your side.
Would I want to do that to be closer to my partner? Uh …
- How do you feel about guys playing video games?
- Is there an age when guys should stop?
- Is it any better/worse than TV watching?
- Do you kids play them, and do you place limits on time/violent titles?
A Kat Wilder sex tape?
“So, did you hear that what’s her face made a sex tape?” Sara said.
“Who, Miley?
“No, you know,” Sara said, hoping my middle-aged brain would know what hers obviously couldn’t remember.
“Lady Gaga?”
“No, Gaga’s celibate, remember?”
“Oh, right,” I said halfheartedly because, honestly, I have no interest in celebrities. But I tossed out every name I could think of because that’s what good friends have to do sometimes. “Lindsay? Paris? Angelina? Kate? Heidi?”
“Fishburne!” Sara said with a new-found confidence in her brain. “Montana Fishburne. Yeah, she says it helped that Kardashian girl become famous.” 
“There are, like, 500 Kardashians, and I couldn’t tell one from the other, thankfully. But, what exactly did it help her become famous at? Screwing?
“If Ashleigh made a sex tape, I’d disown her,” Sara said, skirting the issue. “What about you?”
“I would be very surprised if there was a sex tape of Trent floating out there. I don’t even think the poor kid’s gotten laid yet.”
“No, I mean you. Have you made a sex tape?”
“Me? No way! I mean, I think I haven’t.”
“Kat, I would think you’d pretty much know if you did, don’t you?”
Yeah, one would think. But with the technology nowadays, when you’re goofing around with a boyfriend, you never really know what’s going on — or where it will end up — do you?
Like the time I was over Ryan’s house, the somewhat geeky dot-com entrepreneur I dated for a while. We’d slipped into his bed and I noticed there was an eerie light coming from his bedroom closet.
“What’s that” I asked, snuggling under the covers.
“Just some things I have plugged in.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound cool with it; he was a techie, after all. But I couldn’t help but wonder why the closet door was slightly ajar.
So I called him on it.
“Are you filming us having sex?”
“No, why?” he said, with just a bit of huffiness in his voice.
I didn’t want to make an issue of it, so I decided to get on with the evening’s, uh, agenda.
When that relationship ended, I started seeing Van. One day, after making a lovely meal together, we got naked and made our way to his hot tub when he began to hoist his movie camera onto a tripod.
“What are you doing?”
“I thought it would be fun to watch us on the TV.”
“You’re not going to film us!”
“No, just projecting us,” he said as he kissed me with his soft lips, which just made me melt, and I didn’t think too much about it.
Until now.
Do I expect to find my naked body gyrating on the Internet for anyone to see … and for free?
Hell no!
And now I feel kind of foolish for not paying a little bit more attention — and also for not fully trusting Ryan and Van.
Not that a have a problem with porn.
Anyone who’s read this blog knows I’m no prude!
I certainly wouldn’t have any objection to making a home porn tape with my lover either, as long as the emphasis was on home, as in staying at home.
And it got destroyed if we broke up.
But having it go viral?
No thank you, even if it meant I’d be “famous.” I can think of other ways I’d seek fame.
However, when I watched that sex tape of Colin Farrell and Nicole Narain, I just couldn’t help thinking, “What a lame blow job — even I can do better than that.” (Ah, if only Colin would give me a chance!)
Hmm, maybe I’m missing my true calling …
- Have you made home porn?
- Ever worry if you’ll find it on the Internet?
Photo © Maciej Mamro – Fotolia.com
She says romance, he says porn
“What’s this?” I said, picking up a book from Sara’s dining table before we headed out for a gal’s night.
“What’s what?” she said from the other room, finishing putting on her “face.”
“This book on your table.”
“Oh, that’s Nora Roberts’ latest.”
“Nora Roberts? Oh, please! Isn’t she one of those sappy romance writers?”
“Uh, someone gave it to me,” Sara said somewhat defensively, surfacing from the bathroom, “face” intact. “Why?”
“I’m just surprised to see such porn in your house, that’s all.”
“What are you talking about? It’s a romance novel, not porn.”
“Same thing, baby.” 
“It is not!”
Hmm, well, I guess it depends on what you
consider porn.
Porn isn’t just a bunch of naked people having a really good time with various body parts — especially certain wonderfully super-hard and extra-huge parts — and exchanging bodily fluids until everyone’s smiling and happy after all’s said and done — although that’s certainly the kind of porn I like.
But that porn’s not for everybody. A lot of women don’t like that kind of porn because the porn babes are beautiful and have massive boobs and tight perfect butts and luscious bods, and honestly, few
of us really look like that and never will look like
that.
And, many of us aren’t going to say “give it to me, there — hard,” and really mean it.
So we tend to worry that the man we love is going
to expect us to get all Jenna Jameson on him.
But, if we gals worry about men having totally unrealistic expectations about women based on porn stars, how come men aren’t freaking out about romance novels, the kinds Nora Roberts and hundreds of other female novelists write and that thousands of women read?
Don’t they give us the same unrealistic notions about love and romance? Are they any more reality-based than, say, a Jenna Jameson film? Is a romance novel addiction (I don’t know of any 12-steps program for that, but if you buy every new title that comes out of Harlequin, I’d say, yeah, you need rehab) any better than a porn addiction — if it means a woman’s going to look at her guy and get all pissed off that he isn’t reaching for her gently, even though his muscular arms are strong and tan, letting his arms caress the small of her back as he lifts her up to his full, moist lips, never letting his gaze leave hers …
Ahem, well, where was I?
Do we women dislike porn because we’re insecure about our sexuality and beauty, and jealous of others?
OK, maybe it’s because everywhere you look, from the mass media to the Internet, you’re more likely to see porn star-like babes as the norm than, say, Fabio, and the expectation from men that we’ll look and act like them, too — and, you know, we may not want to! I know a lot of men are into porn but the sales of romance novels is a pretty close second. And, amazingly enough, even though there are more college classes on porn than there are on bodice-rippers, Yale — Yale! — offered a course on romance novels this past spring, so I wouldn’t doubt that we’ll see more.
I’m not into romance novels. Not that I have anything against romance; I love romance, love being courted, love a long seduction. Nothing is sexier than having a man want me so much that he grabs me forcefully, rips off my clothing and desires nothing more than pleasuring me for the next few hours. In fact, where is he — I’d like to him to start now!
But, is it a double standard to be OK with the unrealistic expectations of the romance novel and not porn?
- Guys, do you worry about romance novels the way women worry about porn?
- Gals, if you read romance novels, do they help your relationship or make you dissatisfied?
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