Zen — and the Art of Going Down

I’ve done some research for you, my male comrades.  I did that!  Having heard enough of women’s tales of woe titled He Just Won’t Go Down on Me—always followed by the eventual and unavoidable dumping of the unskilled lover, by the way—I’ve decided it was time to get a man’s opinion on the subject.  Or better yet:  Why not get a tutorial, I thought.

And who would be better suitable than the Young Latin Lover type I’ve known since my very first days in LA-LA-Land six years ago?  The kid is in his twenties, yet, as I’ve overheard from his satisfied customers, is highly equipped in the lip service.  He and I have never hooked up; because despite standing at 6-feet tall and then some, in a body of a Giorgio Armani model lives a heartbreakingly sweet kid.   Gullible and funny, always up for a game or an improv, he used to dangle off of the workout bar installed in the doorway between my former roommate’s and my own bedroom—for hours.  Sometimes, I would come home to a BB gun warfare of the two men-children at play; and while ravaging the furniture, the walls and each other’s backs with yellow plastic bullets that I would continue to discover for years to follow, this kiddo would leap out of his hiding place at my arrival, as if I were his mother and he were a 5-year old in love and I’ve been gone for way too long:

“Hey, Rara!”  He would engulf me in his embrace, and warmth, and beauty.

“Hey, Rara!” he said yesterday, leaping off his black vintage motorcycle and shaking a head full of Miami-sun-kissed hair out of his eyes.  His eyes—so dark they appear pupil-less—remained locked on mine while he walked toward me.  And then:  he smiled.  God damn it, I thought:  Youth!

That’s just the thing about the kid:  No matter his hustle in this city, or the struggle as a young artist, or the heartbreak of his recent love affair with an insecure creature who knew nothing about her self-possession, his heart—alas, his magnificent, generous, childlike heart!—has remained unscathed.  Oh, to what gods must I pray to protect my friends from losing their innocence?!

What followed was an afternoon full of uncensored laughter and words and stories, old and new, as if no years have passed since the beginning of our friendship.  He was my kid brother, my fellow artist.  A co-historian of human love.  A beautiful soul I wish to spend my lifetime deserving.  As the sun crawled through its habitual trajectory, we sat on the patio of our regular joint famed among actors, musicians, writers and other LA artsy types (yet somehow seemingly immune to duches).  When the meal arrived, we both chose to ignore our utensils; and while I was licking my fingers, the kiddo put on his best James Dean expression and said:

“So, what’s the deal with going down?”

I’ve warned him, you see, that he would be expected to co-author this piece; but just like I could not predict that an hour-long interview would turn into three hours of my uncontrollable laughing into this kid’s lap or the lapel of his black leather jacket, I failed to predict the manner of his contribution to the subject.  First, there was zero embarrassment or crassness.  Instead, he began with poetry:

“The thing is:  I just l’ove to do it.  Period.”  (He said “l’ove” like a Latin speaker would:  slightly softening the tongue on the first syllable.)  “I want all of it!  And I don’t care how long it takes!”  He bit into his medium-rare burger which made his lips glossy with its juices and oil.

Apparently, gentlemen:  It’s all in your intention. Just like you can sense when a woman is faking her pleasure during her oral performance, she can pinpoint a bad actor in her bedroom as well.  You must find pleasure in pleasing her. If you think the job too hard—just imagine the mere mechanics of fellatio that she suffers through:  much more rhythmical and forceful, it may cause a crick in her lovely neck or a lockdown of her jaw.  If your sympathy for her part won’t get you to dive—then, just go down a checklist of what the job entails:  a naked woman, moaning and grunting at your every move, whispering or screaming your name, and losing complete control of her censored behaviors.  Hmm.  Not to shabby, if you ask me—or my kiddo pro at yesterday’s conference on the subject:

“It’s kinda like…  I don’t know:  energy?” my “Jaime” Dean continued, searching to express a now seemingly god-given skill of his.  “You have to be in tune with her.  Gotta think about what it feels like—to her.”

“You have to be in tune with her.” It’s not just about the moves; because the moves will have to be customized to fit your lover’s habits, histories, fantasies and anatomy.  Also, as in any artistic endeavor, there must be room for improvisation.  But something that cannot be taught—is empathy.  To get there:  First, you must be comfortable in your own body and mind (and hopefully, your lover matches your maturity).  Once the baggage of self-consciousness is out of the way, you must carry on as if the two of you were a part of one body.  Yes, there are signs that she may grant you:  moans, back arches, hair pulls, etc.  But what’s more crucial—is your capacity to identify with exactly how she feels, in that moment.  “It’s kind like…  I don’t know:”  Being her; being a part of her, as if a single entity.  Fuckin’ poetry!

“It’s a beautiful thing,” my Latin comrade smiled yesterday, with his eyes departing for a moment into what had to be a memory of a woman.  “It’s not just sex.  It’s something you do to get close…”—he got intense, channeling his inner Pablo Neruda.  “There’s nothing you can do wrong if you really want that person.”

It may be just sex, gentlemen, and she may even be on the same page with you.  But my beloved comrade hit a bull’s eye yesterday:  No matter the duration or the objective of your affair, in the very moment of every physical intimacy—you must be in love.  You must be in love with that person—your lover—in complete empathy with him or her.  In your sex act, you must worship their body and honor their humanity; and remain fully present and aware of their needs, finding satisfaction when those needs are fulfilled.  That, I believe, is the only way to beauty and art and, as confirmed by my Jaime Dean, to successful love-making.  Or, in his cunni-lingo:  “L’ove-making.”