Despite being a non-heterosexual woman-centred celibate woman, I apparently still get to go “He’s quite tasty!” when the moment arises. I tend to react that way (oh dear, how predictable) to rugby players, men in uniform or black tie, and a few Professional Ugly Blokes like Gerard Depardieu and Gordon Ramsey. I’m such a useless stereotype, it’s actually embarrassing.

The above is by way of being an introduction to a post about something else, because I had one of those kinds of conversations with someone the other day and it set me musing about this and that.

It should already be clear that my rating a man as tasty does not mean that I would like to have any sort of relationship, or even casual sex, with him… No way!!

For one thing, I learned from trial and error (oh, college days) that the best looking ones are always the most selfish, in bed and out, but especially in. No - you always go for the slightly nerdy-looking bloke with a twinkle in his eye - not the one who never pulls, but the one who just happens to have interests in life other than getting off with girls. Honestly. It’s not just the “he’s so grateful you even looked at him” nonsense, it’s also the fact that because he is neither drop dead gorgeous nor obsessed with sex, he hasn’t been trained since puberty to expect that women (girls) will throw themselves at him, hasn’t learned contempt for us, hasn’t learned to view us as entirely replaceable and to take our availability for granted. So he treats women - or is more likely to treat us, at least if he isn’t a porn monster (which, if you pick right, he isn’t) - like human beings deserving of, you know, consideration.

In any case, the moment some bloke - especially Some Famous Bloke - opens his mouth is usually the moment I lose interest, so I tend to admire from a distance, or with the sound turned off… I guess that’s why firemen and rugby players are good to choose, they don’t talk much while they’re on the job.

Yes it’s all very dysfunctional and somewhat laddish. I blame the patriarchy, or something. But all that is by-the-by. (This is clearly doomed to be a meandering post where I get distracted at every turn, and I must keep hauling myself back on track. The trouble with trying to write a post on sexxiness, or even a post that isn’t actually supposed to be about sexxiness at all, is that you end up going down all sorts of by-ways and unplanned diversions. OK, I’ll stop looking at Jason Robinson’s torso now.)

The nutshell I got to on Tasty Blokes was, more or less, that just because men may sometimes be quite sexy doesn’t mean I want anything to do with them… It’s not that all men are stinky and mean - clearly, that isn’t true, although if the cap does fit… Ahem. Nor is my decision to steer clear of men, however tasty, a political one rooted in some ideal of a far-off feminist utopia, although of course my chosen way of life is definitely rooted in the feminism that gave me the eyes to see it and the courage to live it.

As I was saying, it’s not that men are all horrible creatures from the deep, or that they are politically unacceptable to me. No. What puts me off the idea of having a (sexual) relationship with a man is the way they just take over your life.

Seriously. One day you’re an independent woman doing your own thing and enjoying every minute, the next you’re worrying about whether you have time to cook the lovely meal you have in mind cos you need to have a bath and get yourself ready for Stud Man. A month later you start taking an interest in his darts league; after a year you’re wondering why you never have time to see your friends any more; five years down the line and you’re a haggard wreck because you can’t cope with the fallout from his depressive mood swings or his mid-life crisis.

Screw all that.

Of course, it may not turn out quite like that every time. But what is true of all relationships - all the ones I’ve had, anyway - is that there is never peace. There is never time to just be; you are no longer a person but only part of a unit; suddenly somebody else’s problems all become your problems too.

It is what I think about when I see ants - when you disturb a nest they all run about madly, grabbing eggs and making a run for it, busy, busy, busy. But why should an ant, a worker who will only live for a few days anyway, waste its precious time saving somebody else’s eggs? Because the ant is not an individual; the ant is part of a collective, a mindless collective, an ant unit. Is that what I want to be?

I’ve been reading Possession and although it is seriously stagnant for most of the plot, there are moments that speak to me. There is talk of a clean, white bed. Another of the main characters writes of solitude as freedom, she uses intense privacy and voluntary isolation as her means to achieve freedom and independence - but when she allows a man to penetrate her solitude, when she allows herself to be blown off course by romantic love, it all comes crashing down.

Screw all that.

Just give me a bed of my own.
It needn’t be white, or even especially clean.
Just a bed, a space, a sanctuary, a time and place to be - something that is all my own.