Cuffing Season

ISSUE #29

Today I give you another one of my Essentials playlists, and my first of the series that I call The Nasties—sex playlists, that is. After weeks of hiding behind my monthly themes, it's time to get a little vulnerable. Just in time for cuffing season, this one is for the Honeymoon Phase. You don't have to be in a relationship to use it, but I will warn you that some of the songs are a little precious because, as you know, I tend to be a little precious. If you're willing to drown yourself in the L-word every once in a while, this will be perfect for you.

One benefit of relationship sex over the casual flings of summer and spring is there's at least a guarantee your partner will actually stay over. This means there's the potential for morning sex (my favorite), the lazy, bleary-eyed, pre-dawn snuggle-fucks when you both realize the other is awake and you have some blissful alone time before the rest of the world wakes up. So that's the vibe I'm going for with these songs:  warm, gentle, feathery, sweet. Does "snuggle-fucks" make your skin crawl? Better close this now, it only gets worse. Here is my favorite love poem:

Having a Coke with You
(by Frank O'Hara)

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

I hope you all find the right person to stand near the tree so you're not cheated of that marvelous experience. Mine nabbed me during cuffing season last November and found a way to keep me through the summer. It's her birthday on Sunday, so she served as my inspiration and dedication.

There's sometimes a negative connotation to cuffing because it implies that the relationship is flimsy, fickle and brief, which is unfair. It's perfectly natural to want a partner during the lonely months, and we are never so lucky as when we have someone, even for a brief moment. We should be free to open ourselves up to relationships, no matter how short or how long. Break-ups will happen to everyone, very few of us will die without a little heartbreak. How can we ever get the biscuit if we are not very well willing to risk it? "To feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!"

The Nasties are always risky because this can be triggering to those of us who are single during these long nights. If you are, I pray you're not worrying about it. You will find someone soon—we all do. Life is long, sometimes impossibly so. Set this one down and pick it up later. This playlist will be right here, to use as soon as you need it. Specifically, when you need something to put on so your roommate doesn't hear you.