Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress; October 14, 2004

Not everyone wants to get married and have kids. Some want to get married and not have kids or have kids and not get married. For me, it would be nice to get the relationship bit down for starters.

Confused, I turned to Gene Simmons – the exotic tongue guy from KISS – for advice on how to understand the dynamics of a healthy romantic relationship. His book, SEX MONEY KISS (2003), is a lot like reading Maxim magazine; it’s fun, and will likely guarantee you more success with the opposite sex than girl mags like Cosmo, which give you “The Top Ten Things To Attract a Guy at a Party.”

Both Simmons’s book and Maxim entertain you with humorous facts, trivia and jokes that are more likely to get the attention of an interesting bloke than standing there like a vacant tart paralyzed by protocol. That’ll just get you laid, which is fine too.

Taking direction on relationships from Gene Simmons probably seems about as useful as following advice scrawled on the bathroom wall of a pub. But despite his reputation as a skanky asshole womanizer who comes across like his own shit doesn’t stink, this guy is not as stupid as he looks without the KISS make-up.

His book has allowed me to accept, without question, that some guys really do think about sex a bazillion times a day, and that some women are romantic idealists. I for one always idealized my boyfriends and assumed they never checked out other women. Wrong!

But aside from acquiring a greater understanding of the battle of the sexes (or gender types) through the KISS bassist, most importantly what stood out for me in SEX MONEY KISS Sex Money Kiss was the chapter, “Women are From Mars, Men Have Penis.” Here, Gene touches on the really sensitive topic of sex, coupling and procreation.

He writes: “The thing that makes young women attractive is not necessarily any reason other than because biology makes them able to bear children. ‘Prettier’ means ‘younger’ for women. Men physically stay the same longer. They are able to remain the physical partners women aspire to much later in their lives. It’s all about bearing children. That’s what makes people appealing.”

If hooking up is all about bearing children, safe to say, many women are in deep shit because a) some of us are too old to conceive and b) some of us don’t want to share our lovers with a wee tot-not yet anyway. There has never been a better time for divorced fathers to get out there than now!

Tick, tick, tick.

Biologically speaking, men have like, billions of sperms to offload to a female’s few eggs. Most men can make babies when they’re old farts. Women can’t.

There’s the blasted biological clock, like some ominous Rolex hanging on my wall, with the time always pointing to: “You’re 30, asshole, find the guy, get shakin’!” When you hit 30, folks start talking about it being time to “settle down” and there is no enemy like fertile family members.

Mine think I’m a total failure for being single, unmarried, and without the baby, house and car. If you are someone who met your partner young, had time to build a solid relationship and are now having kids, consider yourself fortunate because it worked out so conveniently.

At a later stage in life though, it’s a bit freaky for the rest of us to pre-screen our dates for their potential to father or mother phantom children of the future. And if you’re doing this, there’s your answer for why buddy hasn’t called you back.

If women in Ottawa can’t translate a hot fella into masturbatory fodder, but instead, project immediately onto the poor bastard some fantasy of family life, we’re all in trouble.

Certainly wondering whether your date would be good with kids is a reasonable question as it pertains to YOU – if this person has the patience to educate a toddler, they’ll likely tolerate you when you’re freaking out about burning the Christmas casserole!

Unfortunately, the inability to chill on the kids factor gets people manic, jumping in too soon with some stranger, fast-forwarding courtship to buying a condo together. All to accelerate marriage and a family, not to mention investments.

In effect, insisting that partnerships, and indeed marriage, must involve not only shared finances (which Simmons cautions about) but procreation, not only pathologizes infertile couples and puts a wrench in the whole gay marriage thing, but it’s fucking with my chances of aging peacefully and being satisfied in my current singledom, thank you very much.

Together, Gene Simmons and my little silk-screened hand towel reading “I fuck to cum not to conceive,” that I got from an anarchist/queer shop in Kensington Market, have alerted me to the reality of biology and selecting alternatives to, and variations on, marriage. Wow, KISS and dyke linens – recipes for success in the ways of love.

Extract the pressure to make babies from your life and you’ll be less desperate in that blossoming relationship, freeing you to focus on the great gift in front of you instead of some absent stranger in your belly. First comes the love…

XXX

Cheers to the great number of Shotgun readers who came out on October 8 to the sold-out durtygurls event at the Mercury Lounge.

– Sylvie Hill