Everybody Lies About Their Sex Life - Hello!

By

Micheline Birger


It was the height of the Clinton-Monica brouhaha scandal. Sometime in '98. No one could breathe; open a paper; turn on the radio or watch the news without hearing or reading about the Prez having a little nookie in the Oral Office. So what! I thought. So what! Other political leaders, especially in Europe, always had mistresses. It wasn't a moralistic secret. It just was. Part of life. No big deal. In France especially. They thought the whole affair was the laughingstock of the world. The Prez of the Free World; the US of A. Virile. Charismatic. And a lover! What a powerful combination! The country was doing economically great, so what's the problem? Humph!

Anyway, but anyway, I attended an art opening in July in North Beach with a man. We had a mutually agreed upon contrived relationship. We decided to hang out together so he could meet other women. He felt if other women saw him with an attractive gal then he wouldn't appear as a loser. He treated me like fine wine. Always a gentleman to the core. We'd run around town on his tab; have a hoot and a holler and a whopping good time. I really wasn't into him so the arrangement suited us perfectly for the moment. I had a handsome ladies man escort and he had eye candy to strut around with. A win-win situation. We just wanted to have fun. Other women could see that he wasn't a jerk because if he didn't make this Queen Bee happy then I would drop him like a hot potato. He loved being a legend in his own mind.

Anyway, at one of our outings, I met Professor Annette Lust at an art opening in North Beach. We chatted. I love San Francisco. The natives are oh so friendly there. They really want to know who you are. Anyway, I told her that I was a writer. She then told me that I had to write a play for her one-act play festival at Dominican University in San Raphael. A play? I was an aspiring screenplay writer. I wouldn't know what and where to even start thinking about to write "a play." A one-act play nonetheless.

So over the course of the next several months I would run into her at other art openings in the city. She would boldly come up to me and ask where "her play" was. My trigger response was - "I don't do plays." Period. End of statement. I would get agitated. Upset. Who in the h___ is this woman creature demanding that I write a play for her play festival. Finally, after about 3-4 months of this constant badgering I began, at least, to entertain the thought of writing a one-act play. But what would I write about? Just what on earth would I write about?

I was saturated like everyone else with the constant heaviness of the Clinton-Monica hoopla. I would laugh. The whole thing was so ridiculous. The man is a politician - not a saint or the Pope. Monica captured him - heart and soul. I would think about all of my woman friends...all of their affairs...all of my affairs. How we all lied about our sex life. So what was the big deal with Billy Boy? Certain things must remain private. What is the point in making a federal case out of a little love in the Oral Office? What an infantile media we have! Tch! Tch! Alas! An idea was conceived.

If I were to write a one-act play, I would call it Everybody Lies About Their Sex Life. OK, but where do I go from there? Ah, yes, two gals dialoguing about their latest love affair gone awry. Ah, it wasn't working. When I tried writing it, it just wasn't going anywhere. I fell asleep with the two of them whining about their sex life. Zzzzz... I then remembered what a writing teacher once said; "Go to place where you normally don't go to write and write there." So I went to the San Francisco Hilton Hotel...you know...right in the heart of the 'Loin District. I had a small notebook. I sat in the front lobby. Bustling. International. I continued with the two gals talking about how they have always lied about their sex life. The dialogue was flat. It couldn't be resuscitated. Dead! It just wasn't going. Nowhere.

Then a Force, a Muse came to me. It threw another gal character into the mixture. Then their names echoed in my ear clear as day. April, May & June. All three writers. All 30-40 something. All ex-college roommates. All had gone their separate ways after college. Then by divine happenstance, the Universe threw them back together again in Cutting Edge City, USA. All had relationships that dissolved.

April was the straight one. She was a New Age magazine editor. She was totally in love with Bill Clinton. Both of her ex-husbands went gay. Then there was May...a lesbian erotic fiction writer. She also happened to be a Republican. Then June appeared - a bisexual comedy writer. "Why be bipartisan when you can be bisexual?" Alas! Everybody Lies About Their Sex Life was birthed! I wrote the play in about three hours after that revelation. It just kind of wrote itself after that moment of clarity. All I needed was the right angle! Yahoo!

They accepted the play at Dominican...the uppity Catholic university and all. What a hoot! I directed the play. People laughed at lines I didn't even write to be funny. But they came out funny thanks to my wonderful actors - Carolyn Gregory who played April; Catz Forsman who played May and Jean Mullis who played June.

I remember the audience's comments to me as the playwright. A 60-70 something woman from Marin asked me if I sent the script to Saturday Night Live??? A 14 year old adolescent male asked me if I planned to make a series out of it??? Whattt??? I wasn't even there in my thinking - yet. Hey, I was just happy that I wrote something that was timely and that people laughed at without canned laugh tracks. A series? Saturday Night Live? Wow!

Anyway, I did write about 11 or more one-acts with my three characters - April, May & June - using the politicks du jour as the backdrop to their sexual insights and escapades. Wouldn't it be nice if I created a producer who is actually serious about making it into a series? I had all of these chick-lit essays and poems that I had written throughout the years. I put the plays; essays and poems in a book called Everybody Lies About Their Sex Life. (The Vagina Whine-O-Logues) One of the essays was also made into a play called - If Her Purse Could Talk. This was produced in 2oo7 at Dominican also.

Since that time era of the Clinton/Monica fiasco there have been numerous other sex scandals in politics. Who needs reality shows when you have politics as the best reality show ever? The Congressman from the Mid-West who did the toe-tapping in the men's room of airports...but really now? Then the past governor of New York - Eliot Spitzer - who got defrocked...it just behooves me that these women in these scandals have all profited immensely from their taste in married men...maybe that is my new job on the planet...to run for some type of political office or have an affair with a politician...just think - I could wear teeny-tiny little Navy Blue dresses from the Gap; I could start my own online purse company and then become a "cultural attache" for the BBC. Heck, the girl - #9 - in Eliot Spitzer's world, a wannabe singer, had her songs downloaded more that 100,000 times at .99 cents a pop...but anyhow...that was then and now is now.

The saga continues. Everybody is still lying about their sex life. We've got a new Prez who has promised everything and has delivered nothing. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, or the more things change, the more things remain the same. So now we are globally caught up in the "Great Recession". The US of A is undergoing yet another political maelstrom. Ye Gods, are we all flying by the seats of our pants? Is the whole world falling apart only to idealistically come together? Is everything really going to H___ in a handbasket??? Or is it all just smoke & mirrors???

There is one thing that remains constant amongst all of this change. And that is - Everybody Lies About Their Sex Life. Everybody...except me...I don't have one, by choice, so there is nothing to lie about. So what, a lot of folks don't have one either. I love to quote Glenda Jackson when she talks about acting. "The important thing in acting is to be able to laugh and cry. When I have to laugh, I think about my sex life. When I have to cry, I think about my sex life." Or Woody Allen when he quips about sex. "I'm a practicing heterosexual but bisexuality doubles my chance for a date on Saturday night."

This is my Hello to my new column. I have no idea what to write about but I write anyway. Somebody will find it entertaining besides me I hope.

If interested in purchasing the book - Everybody Lies About Their Sex Life - follow link below. It can also be purchased on Amazon; Barnes & Noble online; and Border's online. Ciao for now!

http://www.buybooksontheweb.com/product.aspx?ISBN=0-7414-2890-3

Love ya'
Micheline