My first job after finishing university had me traveling out of town a lot. I just needed a room to store my meager chattels and a small bed for when I was in town. I answered a “roommate wanted” in the paper and met the house owner, Roy. In the interview, he mentioned that girls might be around once in a while, and I had to be OK with that. No problem. I moved in.
The first afternoon I was “home,” I was reading a book in the living room. Roy came home with a beautiful, well-dressed woman in her late 20s.
Roy said, “Dave, this is Gerry.”
Gerry said, “Hi Dave.”
Then she and Roy trundled off to Roy’s bedroom, and the stereo was turned on.
This kind of scene was repeated almost every day, in various ways. Roy brought home many well-dressed, beautiful women to his bedroom for a romp. When I did the math from what I saw, he probably had sex with 200 different women in one year. Anyone between 16 and 60 was OK, but no “ugly chicks,” no “fat chicks,” no “low-class chicks.” Roy was 39. I had a hard time believing that the world had that many classy women willing to partake in these casual affairs. If they were romping with Roy, they must have been romping with other men. My world view was that most of the women I knew were hard-to-get. But I was a klutz with the opposite gender. So too were many of my friends.
Roy liked two country-and-western bars. He wore his cowboy duds. He knew how to two-step and line dance. When he struck up conversation with a cowgirl, he gave himself a half hour to get her out of the bar, into his car, and off to his place. If his conversation wasn’t going where he wanted, he would finish with something like: “Let’s go to my place for sex.” Sometimes that line worked. But if she said “no,” Roy dumped her and went to find someone else. He usually found someone else. One Saturday night, Roy brought a girl home around 9:00 pm, took her back to the bar, and brought another girl around midnight. Roy believed that all women going to these bars wanted casual sex. Maybe not with him, but some man was going to get lucky the second the woman stepped into the bar.
Roy worked at a telephone company. His business card said, “Account Executive.” He didn’t talk about his job much, but it seemed to me he was helping customers understand their phone bills. Roy wore a nice suit to work every day. He was working around a lot of women. Some of them came home with him after work.
But we couldn’t call Roy an urban cowboy. Once a year, he ventured out of the city to a rodeo. He got on a saddle bronc, got bucked off, paid a few hundred dollars to the Canadian Rodeo Association, and got his rodeo card. He never saw a rodeo until next year. But he had a card to show the ladies that he was indeed a real cowboy.
Once a year, Roy took a tropical vacation for singles somewhere in the Caribbean. Roy showed me pictures. These vacations were a sex fest. Roy had sex with lawyers, doctors, millionaires, and other women who were way above his social class of “account executive.” Being able to afford the resort fees put Roy in their class. Roy was not rich.
Roy kept a very tidy house. Very tidy. Especially laundering linens. My cooking was cutting into his ultra-clean man image when he brought in his conquests. Eventually I mostly ate at a restaurant or kept some takeout food in the fridge. Not really my home, but I was only there half the time.
In the middle of Roy’s living room was a very elaborate chess set. Expensive. It showed Roy’s intellectual side. I never saw Roy play the game.
Roy’s living room also had a small bookcase. It had books from well-known thinkers and novelists. It also showed Roy’s intellectual side. I never saw Roy read a book. I never heard Roy talk about a book he had read.
Roy was a gentleman. He drove his lovers to his place. Then he drove them back to their car or their place after the romp was over. But his nearest favorite bar was 20 minutes from his house. That’s a lot of driving for a piece of tail.
Despite his bar attendance, Roy did not drink alcohol. He needed to be driving women back and forth. He never spent an entire night with a woman while I was around.
He did not physically hurt or force any woman. When she said “no,” he stopped hustling her. But every once in a while, he did find a woman who was disappointed that he would not agree to a second romp. He was a little curt with these ladies. One wonders how men like Roy would navigate these #Me-Too times.
After a bit of time had passed, Roy would accept a former lover for a second romp. She called him.
At first, I found Roy fascinating to talk to. I just could not believe how easy he found attractive women to agree to be his casual lover. Two hundred in one year! He bragged about how he could stay inside a woman until she was satisfied. He believed that he was often recommended. But as I got to know Roy, there wasn’t much else about him except sex. Yet many women took him on.
Roy and his lovers were part of a culture that was elusive to me. Somehow, I wanted to be in it; somehow, I wanted nothing to do with it. Before Roy, I really hadn’t known people who would so easily jump from partner to partner. In my world, a “player” was someone who got lucky every three months, with alcohol usually being a big factor.
After three months of living with Roy, my company transferred me, and that’s the last I saw of him.
Recently, I googled Roy’s name. I found an obituary from 2014. Roy was 70 years old when he died. He left behind a mother, a sister, a niece, a nephew. That’s about it.
Roy’s primary goal in life was the next woman. While he came off as an extremely confident person, he probably would be diagnosed with a sex addiction. Not much else mattered to him. My only value to him was my rent payment, so he could afford his nice house to impress the women he was bringing in. We have to wonder how Roy got his addiction.
My limited readings into sexual mores of western society suggest that around 10% of the population is promiscuous. Maybe 20% for the under 30s. Despite our sexualized pop culture, most of us are living a monogamous or celibate lifestyle. While a few of us in those two lifestyles may fall away for a short time, our departure won’t be taken to the extent of Roy and his 200 annual lovers.
Can you imagine Roy ever being in politics?
Roy’s only use for politics was to keep a conversation going while he and a lady figured out whether they were going to have sex or not. Roy read the newspapers so he could appear somewhat knowledgeable to keep up with such a conversation. He probably agreed with his future conquest’s politics.
No, Roy wouldn’t be in politics. He was too shallow to succeed in that profession.
Yet, we know of politicians who belong to the promiscuous culture. They have the intellect, people skills, and energy. And they like their sexual conquests. Many of the same women who would romp with Roy, who was a shallow nobody, probably wouldn’t mind a romp with a powerful male politician. All that is needed is a little opportunity to signal each other’s availability and then find a place and time.
A common argument is that whatever a person does in their free time is nobody else’s business. The trouble is good politicians really don’t have that much free time. They are always on the go: meetings, legislative floor duties, office duties, party functions, media interviews, staying well dressed, rallies, hustings in the constituency, meals with political connections, and more meetings. A good politician is probably on the go 80 to 100 hours a week. Finding sexual liaisons takes time away from all those activities. And when a politician’s mind is on the next romp rather than listening and incorporating those differing perspectives into the political process, some of his/her judgment is being lost. If a politician is going off on a causal romp on a regular basis, the voters are not getting full value.
And when a politician’s behavior is made known, the political process slows down. Our 19th century legislatures are already working too slowly. It doesn’t matter if the behavior should be private or not: the politician is now set up to be attacked by political enemies, almost like a general sending bullets to the opposing side in a battle.
The 80% to 90% of us who are keeping our sex drive within reasonable limits are a big pool of talent that society can draw from to be in governance. There are so many capable people, without sexual and other addictions, for the job. We have to wonder why western democracy has not had a stellar record in keeping addicted people out of public life.
Addicted citizens need to deal with their addiction. They should not be elected to any public office. Tiered Democratic Governance is a new kind of democracy; it is better equipped to consistently find the people with clear heads to deliberate and decide on those important societal issues.
Published on Medium 2021
Promiscuity & the MeToo Movement
