I was in a fake Irish bar with two men, both in their way very attractive. In standard faux fashion the bar was covered with little wooden frames containing dumb sayings and puns. One stated: wanted – one night stands. Apply at the bar.
Making conversation, I said that I thought that one-night-stands were under-rated. The two men disagreed with me. The sex was always bad, they usually involved too much alcohol, which interfered with performance, and if there was anything more to it than sex then there was no point having a one night stand. It would be better to get to know that person in the context of a more meaningful relationship.
I let it pass. They obviously had not had very enjoyable or satisfactory experiences. It seemed to me that this was because they understood one night stands only in terms of the sexual act itself.
I think that coming (or not) is really only a fraction of what a one night stand involves. Just as you can have more or less meaningful relationships, you can have more or less meaningful one night stands.
Simon LeBon, lead singer with Duran Duran introduced me to the concept of the ONS. I was 10 years old. In the song ‘Save a Prayer’ LeBon sings to the woman who is the object of his desire – “some people call it a one night stand but we can call it paradise.” The imploring vocals accompanied by a lush video of beaches and sunsets made me think that a one night stand, whatever it was, had to be something wonderful.
To enjoy one night stands you need to see quality of an encounter not just in terms of length but also depth. A good one night stand can be time out of time. It is good precisely because it has no meaning or consequence outside of what it is. But while it is going on it can be as intense or serious as the two people involved are prepared to make it. It can be two people breaking through politeness and convention for random and pointless intimacy. And this is what, it seems to me, womanisers instinctively understand. Whether they are the type that likes women or hate women, women are the subjects of their interest and concern.
A good womaniser can make you feel that you are the most interesting and important person in his world, and even for just 2 hours, that’s something. You can have a two year ‘serious relationship’ that never achieves that level of emotional intensity. I find that men who want girlfriends - serious relationships - want someone to do things with – like a hobby or a new computer. The Romantic or emotional aspect - if it exists at all – can be so abstracted from the woman herself as to be experienced as something closer to religion.
Of course, one night stands (ONS) can lead to relationships but even if they don’t they have a special quality of their own. The experience of a good ONS is about seduction, anxiety, hope, persuasion, negotiation and victory – amidst all this, whether you actually fuck someone or not, is almost a digression.
ONS’s do require performance – not just sexual. For a man to pick up a woman at a bar or a party he has to put himself out. He has to separate himself from the safety of his friends and take a chance. There are the easy ways of doing it of course – extreme inebriation, crude desperation. But these types of encounter have the air of abuse and harassment rather than attraction and fulfilment.
I can understand how ONS are intimidating for men. And always risky for women. A man has to convince a woman that it’s worth taking that risk. So a good womaniser has to play into something else – into a connection, interest or even, in the truest sense, fun. If you see a ONS purely in terms of sex then it’s probably not worth the risk for either party. And for womanisers, the risk is part of the pleasure…
Womanisers know that the most important sexual organ is the brain. At the end of the day their motivation may just be a quick fuck, but their methods to achieve this end, play on individual desire. And desire is not an anatomical function – it is assembled from memories and associations that are cultural, social, personal, political. Womanisers can often be nasty, selfish, egotistical and dangerous people, but implicitly they understand that there is no such thing as “just sex”. And this is something that my two friends in the bar just don’t get.
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2 comments:
Yeah I agree with the essence of the original post, even though I'm pretty crap at womanising meself. And I agree with nemad too. I've often thought the best quip to offer in those sterile "should you do it on the first/second date" type discussions is "Bollocks to that that, you should do it BEFORE the first date."
It's also interesting how prissy, almost puritanical attitudes to one-night stands persist even among pretty progressive people, people who would reject many of the reactionary and misogynistic attitudes towards promiscuity that historically have framed discussions on the subject. All that "but it's empty and meaningless" stuff. Which chimes with the modern post-Bridget Jones obsession with finding The One, to which both banal chick-lit and banal lad-lit have devoted themselves. Which itself is pretty reactionary.
However, I'd ask why the title of the topic is "in praise of WOMANISERS and one-night stands", rather than "in praise of promiscuous women and one-night stands." For sure, there's a slightly different predatory dynamic in the way women and men go about slapping it around, but I'm uneasy with the public lionisation of womanisers in our society - in its public, Loaded-culture manifestation it's very subject/object based, and tends to involve the lauding of the worst kinds of alpha-male menchildren. Look at some of the ludicrous tributes to George Best, the "maverick who had it all and lived it all", while hurting an awful lot of people, mainly women. I know that's not what you're talking about, but it can easily curdle. Think Robbie Williams doing a Ratpack cover versions' album, an almost textbook example of what's wrong with public male culture in Britain in the 21st century.
But none of this proselytising distracts from the argument that having meaningless sex with people you don't know very well is sometimes a good idea.
Fair point - that the title should be in praise of promiscous women rather than womanisers. I guess I was trying to link different two different ideas, one to do with one night stands and the other to do with enjoying womanisers from a kind of aesthetic point of view, rather than thinking of them all as "bastards" only after one thing. I am also not sure that it's really promiscuous women as such - reminds me of an old distinction I used to make between "loose" and "easy". Promiscuous is basically easy, but I think enjoying the time-present of a one night stand is more about being loose.
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