I noticed early on that women seem to be much more free in their own bodies, more comfortable in them with or without clothes than men. Women and men both seem to find the female form to be more decorative, more artistically pretty than the male form; I certainly do. Whatever the reason, women often seem more comfortable being naked than men are. That said though, I have to say that women are aided somewhat in keeping their dignity by a conspiracy of nature. We men are left hanging out there in the cooling breezes, very vulnerable, and we are unable to hide any interest we have in a particular woman. What is called by some "the Gallant Reflex" is indeed a somewhat semophoric reflex, and is not under conscious control for the most part, especially when we're younger and are walking around in pretty much a semi-permanent state of testosterone overdose. And ladies, it really is a very vulnerable feeling, walking around with either a built-on towel rack or what some fish in the water might take for some sort of bait (that worried me for some time after, at the tender and impressionable age of four, I had watched a cousin fishing and realized what kind of things fish liked to eat - of course I've grown a bit since then...) or some smart-aleck (smart-alice?) decides it makes us look like a neat pulltoy" Women, on the other hand, are all tucked up nice and neatly inside and even have a natural fig leaf over a pretty little fold and nothing more, making them much harder to read under any circumstances. For the vast majority of us, that little fold, of which women often say, "But there's nothing there to see!", represents the hiding place of the Great Mystery where it all began and, for some of us with heart conditions, the place where in a very natural act of balance and symmetry in the Circle of Life, it all ends. There too, no doubt, resides the place where the phrase, "the Great Divide" was first used in reference to. In fact, some - no, make that "almost all" - women use this setup to grab the moral high ground even when they're not entitled to it. (Actually, I'm not sure there's a more reliable time, either). A woman can be so excited she'd slide off of any smooth surface she tried to sit on and still not show it, so they can say, "Men! You're all just animals!" and get away with it. When I was young and relatively newly flooded with testosterone, just looking at an attractive girl was enough, or even just thinking about sex or a pretty girl was enough, and suddenly there was a lot less room in whatever I was wearing. Slow dancing was scary thought. Under those same circumstances, we men are betrayed by our own biology, which is usually doing the biological equivalent of standing on a street corner jumping up and down and waving, shouting, "Hey lady! Over here!"
I was raised in the South, and mine were country folk; the men were all Southern gentlemen who taught me that one did not lay hands on a female without her permission, and never in violence. The idea of pressing an erection against what seemed one notch short of an angel (or maybe exactly one notch beyond an angel, come to think of it), who would without a doubt find it a horrible insult, was right next door to blasphemy, not to mention that it would be impossbly humiliating. From a very intellectual and artistic kid, Nature had suddenly put me on a level with a weird classmates' dog that was always humping people's legs. That was a time when, for the control it gave me, I wore a jockstrap under my underwear, and whenever I could I wore a coat that covered what I wanted to cover. Remember too, though, that this was the age of miniskirts, microminiskirts, bralessness, experiments like going without underwear (even with just a miniskirt or even a micromini on, which I learned can drop an IQ over 160 into negative numbers). Since a teenaged male is pretty much a walking erection much of the time, I spent a lot of time sitting down and wearing long coats.
Women are also much less shy, even the normally shy ones, once they decide on a course of action. I can remember one incident at a drive-in theater (and you young ones who will never see one have my sympathy and a bit of pity; this is one culturally iconic experience you will never know), when we had gotten bored early with the movie, which is why we chose that particular movie, and had finally gotten past my own shyness and begun to explore each other. After a short time of fumbling with the unfamiliar female clothing, I turned around to reach something in the back seat. When I turned around again the young lady had somehow osmosed out of her clothes, which were right there on the car seat looking like she had simply passed through the cloth, and there she was in all her glory, and I mean that most seriously and reverently, believe me! I have to tell you, folks, I was literally breathless! I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life as that girl. If I live so long I forget my own name and almost everything but how to breathe, I will remember that sight. Anyhow, windows, pedestrians or no (admittedly, the windows were somewhat fogged over), she was ready to go. I, on the other hand, was suddenly very paranoid and felt like everyone at the movie was looking in our windows. I had envisioned just working around the clothes, which was a real turn-on in itself. She on the other hand had found them inconvenient, so she had removed them. What could be simpler? I could not have done the same thing to save my own life, and I had this terrible urge to cover her back up. Not that I let her know that, though I told her I was really nervous about being seen and maybe arrested. She couldn't have cared less; the possibility had no connection for her with what was happening. As it turned out, she was right.
As far as I can figure out, much more than men, women are just natural outlaws, with little regard for laws and rules and customs that get in their way. And when it comes to nudity and degrees thereof, women are beautiful, they know they are beautiful, and in certain situations they just don't seem to concern themselves with being naked any more than might a cat, to which I suspect some if not all women may well be related. They seem to have many of the same attitudes, and the same sinuous, flexible grace, and softness over a surprising strength. To me, a naked woman is simply a blazingly, stunningly beautiful creature, and the sight often just takes my breath away. I feel privileged to be gifted with the sight when I am so fortunate, and I sometimes have to be brought back to the moment to get me to quit looking and do something. Okay, not that it ever takes a great deal of effort" That there is also an intelligent, fascinating person in that otherworldly yet very earthy inspiration for all Art is always a source of wonder, too. I want to explore her in moments like that, and I'll just sit there like a kid in a candy store, torn between urges for a short time, not sure what I want to touch or taste or smell or do first. There just is no part of a woman I can't find beautiful. Fortunately, that doesn't last - the indecision, I mean. I just end up taking my time, not missing anything of interest, and it generally seems to work out well.
The point being that just looking is as serious, as wonderful a pleasure to me as touching, though one without the other would get frustrating. I feel like an artist in the Louvre when I'm at the beach, and between watching the ocean, which is always fascinating, and the women, who are more than fascinating, and the combination of the two which is beyond words, I am so heart-full, so engaged with what I'm seeing, there is almost no room in me for me! The lines of the female form, the muscles under sliky-smooth, soft skin, the smallness of them, the childlike, tiny feet (I wear thirteens) on a mature, intelligent adult and hands that, as with feet, look like entirely different structures from my large, clumsy-looking, angular ones - I can almost feel what I'm looking at under my hands even when the woman is thirty feet away, not that I ever stare obviously enough to make a woman uncomfortable, or at all when I'm with someone; both are unkind, ungentlemanly. And don't misunderstand: women are not just "things", they are not works of art to me: they are the Sun Source of all Art, the reason that the first barely-human creatures learned to draw in the first place. They rae the source of that fire that any artist always tries to put into the work and so seldom succeeds at. When it does work, the result is a masterpiece, and still it's only a vague shadow, a hint, of the Infinite we're working from.
There is simply no part of a woman that is not beautiful to me. Did I say that already? That's okay, it's worth repeating. I understand that some men manage to get "hooked" on pictures of women instead of on real ones; this is beyond my comprehension. It's like saying the pictures on a menu are more satisfying than the actual food. And when a woman makes it clear that she wants to make love, it's an unexpected, incredible gift, a permission to step into the Holy Place where I never expect to be permitted, much less welcomed. For some reason, I never expect a woman to be interested in me that way; I'm always surprised and delighted - and a little disbelieving at first. My marriage hasn't changed that very much, either. It has only deepened my knowledge of my wife, and left my sense of wonder intact. It has also caused more than one woman some frustration; I really don't expect a woman to find me sexually attractive, and that's so strong that it generally takes a really overt signal sometimes, on the order sitting on my lap and wiggling, to get me to realize how she feels. A consequence of natural shyness, I guess, and a Southern Baptist upbringing.
I also learned, with a little time, that while beauty and personhood can be separated, the two in combination, like love and sex, are simply an unbeatable combination! I have seen a nude picture in a magazine of a woman I knew and didn't care for, essentially because of who she was. I didn't recognize her! The picture was of a very pretty woman, but I had considered her, the person, unattractive. My wife, on the other hand, is simply beautiful. She has a little extra weight on her and is an expert hugger who loves to snuggle, two things she does wonderfully well because she does them with her whole heart, nothing else more important on her mind, going nowhere. She has two pretty little shiny, perfectly cloud-white streaks in her long, dark brown hair that stream down in front of her small ears. She's an admitted and unashamed hedonist, and it pleased both of us for me to brush her hair for her every night; I even learned to braid it loosely for her so it didn't pull or get in the way when she slept, until illness made it difficult for us both. Dirt under her fingernails means it's mushroom season and we're spending time out in our beloved woods hunting for and picking wild mushrooms, and just being there together for the simple joy and beauty of it. She has a number of scars, wrinkles, freckles and other marks, and her small, very feminine hands show she's actually used them for working with. She has lived her life, and aside from cleanliness, neatness and her own personal style and preferences, she has always been more concerned about who she is than about what she looks like, and it shows. Those wrinkles are almost all from smiling, I think; she's a sweet natured, sharply intelligent, forgiving spirit who smiles and laughs a lot, and she's always surprised when someone she knew from a long time ago remembers her; of course I'm not surprised at all. The marks she bears are the marks of more than just a survivor, which is an accomplishment in itself; just as that much, they are badges of honor. They are also marks of character, of someone who has lived her life fearlessly and in joy, generously and without hiding or holding back bits and pieces of herself. What she loves she jumps into with both feet, throws herself into it with all her sweet heart and loads of unencumbered enthusiasm, and I love that about her! She is also fiercely loyal, and I've seen her fight for me when she would not fight for herself; that's my job now, and my great honor! She has big, gorgeous, liquid brown eyes that she considers "ordinary," but no one else does, freckles that bothered her as a child (I once told her something I'd read that speaks for my feelings about them: "A woman without freckles is like a night without stars," after which she saw them differently herself, and I know the pattern of them across the bridge of her nose, like small signposts that tell me if I'm a little off course). She is without doubt one of the most beautiful women I have ever met!
I would not trade my sexual experiences before our marriage for anything - or hers. I learned a lot, and it has added a dimension to our relationship it might not have had. I feel the same about her experiences, as does she. And besides, all of our experiences before we met made us the people we were when we got together, and I treasure them for that, because the resulting person was who I fell in love with, and even given the chance, I wouldn't change a thing. "Fundamentalist Christians" insist that the lack of experience called virginity is the only "proper" state for people, those not married before, anyway, to be in when they marry. I don't agree; ignorance is ignorance. For us there was the excitement of the newness and discovery together with the comfort and easy familiarity of long experience, without the fear and confusion that ignorance can cause. It was wonderful, we were both delighted and remained so until serious illness intervened, and again, I wouldn't change a thing save the illness.
She is still the Love of my life and always will be, my beloved; my admiration and love for her are unbounded and so is she; there is always something new to learn.
Ian MacLeod
5/1/09
Oregon
My beloved passed away peacefully in my arms at 2:15 PM on June 15th, 2009. As she wished, she never had to leave the house she grew up in and where we had made our home for all of our life together; I was always with her, within reach, and we never stopped touching, holding, petting, talking... I found ways to bring or make for her whatever she wanted, as she was confined to a hospital bed and on oxygen in our living room for the last year and a half or so of our time together. I always made sure she knew that she was the love of my life and always would be; she never had any fear of possible abandonment because she knew it wasn't possible. She was my dearest companion, my lover and best friend, my teacher and champion, my hero. In almost fifteen years together, thirteen of them married as of this past May second, we never once raised our voices to each other in anger. I learned from her and taught her, and I kept all my promises to her save one, the scattering of her ashes, which I will do this coming Spring in a magical and lovely place in the forest she so loved at the headwaters of a little creek where we always took our first drink of Spring in the woods together. I had always said I wanted an equal or better as my life's companion, and she was all that and more. Much of what I like best about myself came to me in gift from her. The most terrible regret that I often hear others speak of, I do not have: we wasted not one moment of the time we had! We married when we were no longer young and knew our time was limited, so we treasured it and each other all the more, and now I understand completely what people mean when they say that someone who is gone will always be with them and a part of them. It's true. I have also come to realize, having known her and shared her life for a time, that we are more than just our DNA trying to make more of itself, more than can be contained or explained by the mere physical facts of being. She is gone in that way, but she is also here in ways I cannot explain but that are nonetheless clear to me. We shared ourselves, mingled our spirits, and the spirit of a good woman does not just evaporate; we are more, and she is! This last is not a threat or a death wish or anything of the sort; I would never dishonor or belittle her love of life or her love for me in that way. Rather, it's a statement made in understanding of what lies before me, in it's own time:
Aeternum Vale, beloved! I won't be long.
Ian MacLeod January 2nd, 2010 Oregon
