Honey, I'm at the office

More red-tinted, naked thoughts, this time from Fritz Glatman, "American, of English and Austrian extractions/6-1; 227 lbs; Of Counsel at the Center City law firm of Gontarek & Enfield. [...] divorced, with no children":


When I go to The Office, a go-go bar on 15th street, I see men from all over, a veritable assembly of the United Nations. Nowhere else can I hobnob so freely with Pakistanis, blacks and Mongolians. Each man nursing an inconsolable hard-on, wearing a shroud of pussies, we are all humbled, pared down, incorporated. We must all share the nude girl hanging upside down from the greased pole. She's presently doing a series of queer sit-ups to polite applause. None of us can have her. The best we can do is give her a dollar. It is the most democratic place on earth. All the sexual surplus of society ends up in a go-go bar; it's where men go to celebrate their equality. I'm reminded of a Cezanne painting called "The Eternal Female," in which men of various professions and pretensions, high and low, are depicted gazing up at a naked woman hovering over their heads.

Apropos of prostitution and pornography, a symbolic defilement of intimacy and a seance of lovemaking, respectively: I would never patronize a whore because I cannot consent to sex without commitment, with neither preface or prologue, but neither will I allow myself to be titillated, or moved to the depths of my soul, by a photo of a naked female, the cheapest form of idolatry. (Masturbation, which is unavoidable, I consider a breathing exercise, a cardiovascular fitness program, a trip into the future and a jogging of the memory. Time-traveling.) I avert my eyes from lingerie ads in the newspaper. If I must read an article on the same page as the ad, I cover the exposed flesh with a book or a bagel.


[from "Fritz Glatman," in Fake House]






















[print image on hardstock, cut along dotted line, suitable as bookmark or friendship token, nuts included]