Opposition to gay marriage, legislated age limits for teen sex, and I'm afraid that the signs are there that having a strong Conservative government will eventually mean they decide they should have a place in my bedroom.
Or at least at my bedroom window.
I don’t want that.
I really don’t.
Because I can feel guilty enough about what happens in my bedroom already.
It doesn’t mean I don’t want it — it just means I don’t want to be judged for it.
And, really, you don’t either.
Think of this: warm wet lips on your ear. One shivering breath.
Or that questioning, almost-hesitant hand walking up your thigh, its uneven rhythm lingering somewhere between question and doubt.
The moan.
The dark.
Don’t forget about either the necessary or unnecessary dark, or about the way bedsheets pull across and whisper on your bare skin, each individual tiny hair gathering signals and sending them up to rush your breath.
Your breath — you know it. That inward-caught sigh with the sharp sudden halt at the end.
Ohhh.
One breath, long and deep and falling.
I know what that sounds like, whether it’s from me or from you.
And it’s a wonder — being there with someone you love, or maybe just someone you desperately want.
That sheer sharp voltage, running down your arms (because there’s no way to describe it except as voltage); that shimmery, bright tremble that you never want to end but that’s so strong you can’t believe you can stand it for another second.
The way things fly apart, the way the world shatters into square little snapshots and scattered little pieces — blood rushing, someone else’s skin warm to the touch, both of you single-minded and unable even to speak with the naked plunging need of it.
And sometimes, you go too far — not too far, just a step further, somewhere you’ve never been, something you’ve never done (but always wondered about) and then you’re hovering and exposed and waiting to see what your partner will say, whether they’ll bend in to you or pull back with disgust, and you wait on that knife-edge and know you don’t want to stop.
It is calamity and danger and wonder and absolutely no one else’s business, ever.
My hands, your hands, my skin, your mouth.
You know what I mean.
You know exactly what I mean, even if you spend the next two hours denying it, that precise and powerful rush.
It’s just my opinion, but I covered court as a reporter for a long time, and I saw sex cases almost every other day.
I know much more about what floats people’s boats than most people would want to. Bestiality, sexual assault, all sorts of types and varieties of pornography — it’s out there because of bare, naked, unsatisfied need. And here’s the thing: When you’re pruriently interested in what your neighbour’s getting or doing — even if you actually do nothing illegal — it’s often because you’re not getting or doing enough of what you need yourself.
That is a particular hairshirt.
And it itches in the most constant, needy, and deliciously erotic of ways.
Dirty, guilty pleasures: I think they shiver the timbers of the outwardly righteous — those who wonder and want and also feel ashamed — best of all.
We are the people we are, and we have the needs we have. That’s not an excuse when someone’s not willing — but it is possible to understand where it all comes from.
Maybe you want the politicians there watching: Maybe you need it.
I don’t.
I like my politicians a little bit more like Pierre Trudeau. I like them as far from my bedroom as they can possibly get, because then I get to be who I need to be, in every dirty, desperate, wonderful way I have to.
I can only hope that’s not now going to change.
Russell Wangersky is the editor of The Telegram in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
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