Why I'm Not A Sex Offender

In the tradition of Nietzsche's Ecce Homo let us now count the ways....

See what we did here?

“I hope you don’t get caught up in all of this…” My mother trailed off. In a run of big print news stories that involved Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Louis CK et al, she was expressing some concern that all of that boys will be boys shit would somehow shake its way down my street.

“Ma…”

“Just be careful!” My mother’s lifelong and steadfast advice for me has always been the very useful “don’t go anywhere with anyone” and when asked to elaborate she’d finish off with a story that’s really more of a beginning than an ending: “there was a boy in my neighborhood who did and THEY CUT HIS PEE PEE OFF!”

So armed with the possibility of castration I have charted a course through public life that while steeped in all manner of degeneracy (what everyone had hoped the first memoir would have covered but which I’m clearly/cleverly saving for the inevitable bidding war that will see the second memoir come to light) has never even ever skirted close to criminal sexuality.

Yeah, I know. I’m as surprised as you are but a deeper analysis shows that what all of those other cases have in common (outside of the extant criminality) is that they have nothing in common with people who really like sex. Which brings me to Hugh Hefner.

How could one man fuck for over six decades and not have any fans of his cock skills?

As a boy of the 1960’s Hefner was like Jesus to me. Or like James Bond, but without all of the shooting. Hefner intimated, or outright claimed, to have bedded thousands of women, and while aging out of Playboy was almost inevitable for me, or anyone really, I mean how many times would you be open to thinking that naked women really can’t figure out how to tie the laces on their rollerskates? Hefner continued to be a figure of fascination. Especially as he got older.

Older, and weirder.

Then an amazing thing happened. I got a gig ghostwriting a bio about Hefner. Put together by a fellow named Hank Fawcett, who had been Hefner’s aide-de-camp for over 40 years, Fawcett had promised to tell all the tales, spill all the tea and in me had the world’s most rapt and willing audience.

We worked on the book for months before Fawcett fired me because what he thought was the most interesting part of the book — Hank Fawcett — I, in fact, thought was the least interesting part of the book. Even in 2018 Hefner had a hold on me until a cold middle of the night wake up, full on cinematic style with sitting bolt upright in bed and all of that: no one’s EVER said that Hefner was worth a damn in bed.

No one.

It hung there. Thousands of sex partners and not one murmur about the man’s skills as a swordsman. How could one man fuck for over six decades and not have any fans of his cock skills?

“No one ever talked about him getting better, or even being very good, because he didn’t and he wasn’t.” My wife looked at me like I was stupid. So a finer point on it: “He didn’t and he wasn’t because he didn’t want to.”

And the kernel at the heart of the sex offending sex offenders: they’re not there for the sex. Any one of the me-too’ers could have easily gotten sex if that’s was what they wanted, and only what they wanted. The aforementioned troika of Weinstein, Cosby, and CK, as well as any and many of the others were in positions to rack up whatever kinds of numbers that they wanted. Only, it has become clear over time, as clear as it was with Hefner, that they did precisely what they wanted. They committed crimes, and chose to do so, over having consensual sex.

Have I LIED about sexual activity? In the face of an angry partner with or without a handgun, yeah, I might have. Buuuuttt…

Which is not news really, that this would be the case. I didn’t make it out of the ‘70s without understanding that sex crimes were less about sex and more about crime, and the exercise of power by men who feel powerless when it comes to being men.

What is news though is how bad they are at, so bad that it leads me to believe that getting caught for doing it in the first place may be part of the thrill. All of which, I subsequently shared with my mother, is not at all part of my oeuvre.

My oeuvre? Look no further than the confessional “A Gentleman’s Gentleman” off of OXBOW’s Thin Black Duke where I sing the lyric I wrote

The Duke is deluxe and delightful
And the lovers of him all say so
Before they leave and after they go

This is not white knighting of any kind. I am openly and painstakingly honest about being a filthmeister. But that’s the thing: I’m open and honest about it.

Versus?

Well, versus Louis CK asking someone to come to his room to talk about a script and jerking off while blocking the door. Am I stranger to masturbating in front of an audience? Clearly not during OXBOW shows nor in hotel rooms but the fact of the matter is and always if that was on the menu, you probably knew about it before hand for a simple reason. Because simply I would have said, “hey…come on up so you can watch me masturbate!”

And that’s when it hit me, like it hit Kurtz and like that same diamond through the forehead I realized: I don’t like trickery. Specifically sexual trickery.

Have I LIED about sexual activity? In the face of an angry partner with or without a handgun, yeah, I might have. Buuuutttt…that’s just self preservation, not trickery. The creeping sneaking that’s so much a part of the skin crawling sex offense? Absent any interest for me.

“I’d never believe you would have committed a sex crime that involved force,” my wife said, batting 1000 for the home team. “Simply because your attitude, insofar as I’ve been able to gather, is that you’d be disgusted at the prospect of having sex with someone who was so stupid that they didn’t want to have sex with you in the first place.”

Close the quote. Drop the mic. It’s a wrap.

So it’s the sex that attracts, not the trickery. Moreover I don’t like trickery in any of its forms. I don’t favor telling lies, though, yes, I have lied. I don’t like misrepresentations. My fear-based actions and activities trend toward gun ownership and Brazilian jiu jitsu, not the telling of falsehoods or the use of lures, nor surprise attacks.

You’ve heard of people whom other people see coming from a mile away? That’s what I told my mother I was/am. And anyone who was surprised when I got there with my penis in my hand, just wasn’t paying attention.

My mother laughed.

“Well, ok,” she capitulated. “Just don’t go anywhere with anyone though.”

“Wasn’t there a boy in your neighborhood who did?”

“Go ahead and laugh. See how funny it is when YOU get your pee pee cut off.”

A sobering thought no matter the circumstance. But based on me still having all of my parts intact, even better advice to have followed.

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Also, OTHER book shows up coming up? Yeah, man….

[08/21/2024: Washington, DC: Black Cat]

[08/22/2024: Brooklyn: TV EYE]

[08/23/2024: Philadelphia: Kung Fu NeckTie]

[08/24/2024: Boston: O’Briens]

[08/25/2024: Providence, Rhode Island: Askew]

OK…So you have ordered the memoir A Walk Across Dirty Water and Straight Into Murderer's Row, from Amazon…Or the Bookshop.Org dealie: Here?

Might you consider giving it a review in either of those places?

I’ve been told it matters, somehow. So please: review away! Unless you think it sucks. Then, maybe, just keep that part to yourself. At last count there were 62 reviews…so yeah…GET AT IT!!! Every one helps. Or so they tell me.

If you already have one and want it signed? Bring it on over to any of the above shows. I’ll do it. And might even spell your name correctly when I do.

FINALLY…and now that I have time on my hands…if you’d like to book a book show? Please DM.