Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress – Shotgun – June 8, 2006

Ever try talking dirty to your lover? How’s that working out?

I used to believe it was enough for ladies to splay themselves out naked on the centre of a cool, white bed, and – presto! – their job was done. For the most part, I think girls can still get away with this. Perhaps this is what’s behind the “dead lay” complaint, or the myth that sexy girls suck in bed, and not the right way. Hey, if all men think about is sex, ladies, consider yourselves damned lucky! Blokes are saving us a lot of work. They’re doing their homework, are you?

It’s time to get off our naked asses and put in some effort to seduce these guys with more than just our bodies. After all, we take cooking classes to be better cooks, financial workshops to get richer, and we train for marathons. So why not invest in our sexual future to become greater lovers?

Follow me.

Last week I was invited to Venus Envy for an “aural sex” workshop taught by Diva Midori. There, I learned how awful I must be in bed. “Blowjobs can only go so far,” Midori said to a store full of attractive lesbians, gay men, me and a couple more heterosexuals.

Damn, now what do I do?

Solution: “Tantalize, mesmerize and keep their attention, and win against the competition,” Midori rapped. Translation: Use your voice to ravish your partner with seductive storytelling and sensual instruction, and dude will keep coming back for more.

Because the brain is the biggest sex organ, the voice can be the most powerful tool to create the hottest scenes. If you can’t think of hot scenes, borrow from erotic literature. This way, you can use the hypnotic magic of the voice to seduce your lover long before you enter the bedroom (or the sushi restaurant). It’s the difference between sitting down at 6 p.m. for dinner and talking about the workday. Or, screwing with the man’s head by leaving him wondering when you’re going to do that thing you whispered you’d do to him earlier in a sexy phone call at lunch.

Sexy chitchat. Oh, it all sounds so easy, but it’s harder than you think! It’s like acting, and not all of us are Fringe Festival material. I know you have to use your eyes seductively, be attentive and vary the pace, rhythm and intonation of your speech. The challenge is not to sound like a beatnik.

But why not try talking like a sexed-up pretentious coffeehouse poet if that’ll make your man’s eyes roll back in his head like they do when you shove their dick in your hot, moist mouth.

Look! I’m talking sexy! No? Darn, I’ve always left this shit up to the guy. Tell me, gentlemen, where do you learn to talk so good?

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SEXY BOOKS Ottawa’s Aviva Cohen will be doing a performance at Chapters (Rideau) based on her tantalizing novel, Sex and Sublimation, about a 23-year-old woman strutting sex and smarts in Brixton, U.K., June 10, 5 to 6 p.m. Book signing: 6 to 7 p.m.

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SEXY THROATS Talk about using your voice, I’ll be on stage at Westfest June 10 at 7 p.m. to introduce Inuit throat singers Nukariik.

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SHOTGUN SHOUT OUT Apparently the Letters to the Editor page is skint these days. But not here at Shotgun on-line! Kudos to all of you leaving comments. To Brad Thomas: my bad on the Lance Armstrong uni-testicle slag from “I Love You, But Who Am I.”

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WHY DRIVE HIGH? Uh, because the concert was great and now I’d like to get home and have sex with my boyfriend before we both pass out. There’s one good reason. I’m sure you came up with a few more when you saw the Why Drive High? billboards plastered all around town. The eight-week, $346,000 public awareness campaign is causing quite a buzz, and not because it provokes deep thoughts on the dangers of driving like Cheech and Chong. The complaint is about the botched Arabic translation that reads something vague like Go Feed The Ducks. I don’t know. But here’s the thing. The slogan is ineffective because it’s straight-laced and square-pegged. If you’re sitting on the OC Transpo reading a poster like that, two things come to mind. First, don’t you wish you had a car? Second, you probably want a joint now too. You want to get through to people? How about, “Drive High, Die,” for starters.

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COMMON SCENTS CBC radio has been talking incessantly all last week about the proposed citywide bylaw that would ban fragrances in all public places. To move the campaign along, the City of Ottawa should use sex to sell the idea: “Covering up your natural scents is hazardous to your sex life.” How many times has your lover’s natural scent been a great aphrodisiac? Hell, I was taken by the manly sweat smell of a young man on the bus the other day. When I complimented his odour, he told me he just got back from the gym and that he hadn’t showered. If we were part of the Fatal Attraction exhibit now on at the Museum of Nature until September, this encounter would have had me down on all fours in a lion’s roar. I say, display it before you spray it.

– Sylvie Hill