Today is my 33rd birthday and the start of My Sex Project. My Sex Project, while, yes, a new project, is ultimately the continuation of what will (hopefully) be my lifelong project of sexually peaking.
If you don’t know me, over the past three years I’ve talked a lot about my sexually peaking journey. Every tweet a new insight into my horniness. I talked about the confusing early stages, the experimental stages, the threesome stages! But a story I’ve never shared dates back to the weekend it all began. The weekend of my 30th birthday.
Three years ago I celebrated my 30th birthday in New Orleans. It was one of many places I always wanted to go and seemed an appropriate place to start my ‘Dirty Thirties.’ I believed that once I was thirty, I would seamlessly transition into the role of confident, sexually awakened woman. An understudy no more. I imagined coming home from New Orleans and immediately writing the next bestseller: Eat, Pray, Fuck.
Now usually when I travel alone, there’s an initial moment of panic. Why didn’t I ask a friend to join me? Do I even have friends? Am I the absolute biggest loser ever? Not this time. There wasn’t a single person I thought worthy enough to share this journey with me. It was my way or the highway. Move bitch, get out the way. Looking back, it’s truly amazing how confident one is the first 12 hours of turning 30. Well, I arrived in New Orleans the afternoon of my birthday absolutely glowing! Not from confidence rather unexpected heat and plane grease. So far 30 was looking and feeling hot.
I showered and headed to Bourbon Street. I heard honky tonk-like music coming from a bar called the Cat’s Meow. I’m sure in my head I thought something like ‘Cat’s Meow? Wait till they see my pussy.’ Seriously, the confidence. I got a margarita and purposely sat at an empty table. My first challenge as a sexually peaking woman: Let them come to you. Two songs later and after I had politely sacrificed the stools around me to butts in need, my second challenge as a sexually peaking woman came to light: Keep moving.
I walked into the outside patio of a bar playing jazz. Jazz. New Orleans’ bread and butter. This felt right. I took a seat at the bar next to a group of attractive dudes and flashed my toothiest Julia Roberts smile. I flipped my ponytail and let my pheromones loose. At this, one of the guys introduced himself. He and his friends were in town celebrating a bachelor party. I mentally patted myself on the back. The pending orgy was going to make a great chapter in Eat, Pray, Fuck. I asked what their plans were. Strip club? Dancing? Hotel party? Naked swamp tour? His answer was even hotter. He was going back to the hotel to check on his wife and kid. Turns out the only bachelor at the bachelor party was the man of honor himself. I contemplated reactivating my Tinder account for the weekend.
I kept walking and found a bar called 21st Amendment. The music being played reminded me of Boardwalk Empire and if there’s one thing you should know about me it’s that prohibition era music gets me wet. I took a seat and watched the musicians. I don’t know why but I had my eye on the dead-eyed, bass player. He reminded me of Judd Apatow even though I had no idea what Judd Apatow looked like. But when the musicians took their break, it wasn’t he who sat next to me, it was the saxophone player. The saxophone player (whom I’ll refer to as Sam), bought me whiskey and thought I was funny. Plus, as a seasoned local, I could tell he enjoyed talking to a first-time visitor. I stayed for the rest of his set.
Sam and I strolled around the French Quarter. I giggled as strangers pinned dollar bills on my jacket for my birthday. Traveling to New Orleans on your birthday is worth it for this tradition alone. All the attention and free money had me very excited. I felt myself peaking.
The night kept on and somewhere between Canal Street and my hotel, Sam stopped to kiss me. I felt my confidence battery recharging. I was almost at 90% when he pulled away and calmly broke the following news to me: Sam wanted to give me the best head of my life. He said it so matter of factly that it took me a moment to register. When the words hit me again I froze. The newly confident Carolyn suddenly felt very nervous and even more unprepared. I felt my prowess shrink and battery drain as I politely declined. We exchanged numbers and I left. I spent the rest of the night watching My Kid Would Never Do That while eating delicious hotel peanut butter and jelly sandwiches under the covers. I decided this was the ‘Eat’ portion of my book.
Despite the early hiccup, I continued to have a great time in New Orleans. I went to so many bars, and a music festival, and a Peaches concert! I made friends with people I still cherish today and I even went on a ferris wheel! But my lack of dirty deeds had me questioning my new role of sexually awakened woman. Sure, I got dinner at 1am with Peaches’ backup vagina dancers but my vagina wanted to be the star!
I spent my last day at the World War II museum. Somehow in three days I skipped my ‘Dirty Thirties’ and went straight to ‘Obsessed with War Late-Fourties.’
I sobered up with propaganda and exhibits on the use of cooking grease for explosives (Neat!). I had to do something before the bomb ticking inside me exploded, or worse, never went off. I decided to give Sam (and myself) a second chance.
I found him at one of his gigs back on Bourbon. We got dinner and drinks and swapped condensed versions of our hopes and dreams. I said nothing of his previous night’s request to give me the best head of my life as he gave me an impromptu ghost tour. It wasn’t until we moseyed away from the Lalaurie Mansion and toward my hotel that I could sense his offer about to make a comeback.
We made it back in time for the free peanut butter and jelly and hot chocolate. We sat in the lobby and enjoyed our free treats while the prospect of another ‘treat’ lingered in the air. I reminded Sam about my early flight the next day to which he responded with some cliche about ‘ships passing in the night’. But then, for the second time during my four days in New Orleans, Sam asked permission for the chance to give me the best head of my life. I knew it was coming and yet I froze again. There I was, my one half a grown woman trying to embrace her sexuality, the other half nervously eating a PB&J. I didn’t feel threatened or think he was trying to take advantage of me so why was I so nervous?
I may not have realized it then but the thing that freaked me out was his honesty, albeit a bit conceited. Sam was very clear and upfront in what he wanted from me. Scratch that, what he wanted to do to me. Up until then, my sexual experiences were never so decided. Logistics weren’t really discussed, they just happened. I also wasn’t used to someone completely setting aside their own satisfaction. Was I really being offered the chance to just ‘get mine’?
In the popular book, The Ethical Slut, the authors remind those in open sexual lifestyles that, “The important thing is to be aware of your needs and wants so you can go about getting them met with full consciousness. If you pretend that you have no needs for sex, affection, or emotional support, you are lying to yourself, and you will wind up trying to get your needs met by indirect methods that won’t work very well.” The more I continue to familiarize myself with this type of honesty, the louder it rings true. Being honest has been an extremely important revelation in owning my sexuality. I’ve learned way more about myself by pinpointing and expressing my exact sexual needs than just by ‘getting laid.’ Not only that, being upfront has provided me a whole new way of approaching casual sex, an act I naively thought of as more bad than good. Casual sex doesn’t have to sloppy, it doesn’t have to be rushed, hell, it doesn’t even have to be the standard definition of sex. Just because you may not ever see that person again doesn’t mean the moment should be void of your truest self.
Now, did I go through with it? Was it the best? Are saxophone players as good with their mouths as they claim? Were the free PB&J’s at Le Pavillon really that good?! Hm, I think I’ll plead the peanut butter fifth and keep my mouth stuck shut. After all, this is only the first entry of many and it’s my birthday. Stay tuned.