I Used to Dream of Being Free of Sin

by William Lowell Males

I dreamed of being sinless, and sex was the first thing that came to mind when I thought about the complications. I am older now and mercifully impotent. My teeth won't do to bite open modern packaging--peanuts, for example, or condoms. Would you want to bite open your condoms? I'm over the hump, or over humping if you please, and should have an easier time being civilized.

I think we older men have a responsibility to younger men. Old dads have a responsibility to young dads. Old soldiers have a responsibility to young soldiers. There are dreams that can get in our way, and some are real hard to figure out until later, and then you really wish you had.

Back in Oklahoma where we grew up, my brother learned to dig postholes from an old hand named Oscar. We were town boys but our folks both sides came from the farm and our parents agreed we needed to dig postholes. It was a pounding activity in the 50s. You used a special kind of double shovel that plunged into and bit the earth. The posthole diggers ate a round hole into the sod and pretty soon you had a cunt. Or so it was in my brother's imagination.

I'm not sure Oscar could read words too well, but he could read my brother. When my brother went to shoving a fence post home again and again to set it right, Oscar said "Son, you always want to let the woman come first. It's easy for us, but it's a kindness to her. And after all, when you think about it, her pleasure is your pleasure."

This became a koan for my brother. He already had his driver's license but hadn't given this question any thought until that very hole.

I think we old men also have a responsibility to our daughters and young mothers. They can get lost in their own dreams of sinless men. One thing I can see is that the women generally can't fathom our fascination with the female body. Pretty much any female body is a thing of wonder to us. That wonderment never wears out as far as I know.

Sometimes a young man lets himself say "I love you so much, honey, that I'm never going to sweat on another woman." He says this, I think, because he understands that his woman dreamt something like this, and it sounds real good. I've said something like that myself a time or two.

Back home when I went to revivals spring and fall I promised God I wouldn't masturbate any more. It weighed on me, so abstinence seemed possible. I could have promised to quit eating.

We boys have seen tits, but every day we keep turning to see a new tit. What could possibly be new about a tit?

But we're not looking for the perfect tit. We're just looking around to appreciate all the tits we can find. And I think our preoccupation with the female body is basically a good thing. We want to merge with the female, at least I do. I'd like to stay there, merged.

Merger doesn't necessarily mean mating. Merger is the good dream. The sinless man is a bad dream.

I know a woman who uses Viagra on her roses when she takes them into the house. You can also use it on your dick.

But merging transcends all that. My revival-goers back home would disagree. They have trouble talking about sexual mergers right across the board. They would itch to say "Well, there's good ones and bad ones."

A merger for me has to do with timelessness, like dancing. Okay, like dreaming. But a dream that doesn't get in your way, and that can carry you anywhere.

It happened to me the other day with a young man on the plane. We were sitting close and bombed out and fell into drowsiness. Somehow by and by I touched the young man's leg and he didn't pull away. We fell into a dance and I didn't think about who I was dancing with.

When the plane landed we talked friendly and he said he was a masseur. I let him go in the crowd and then he caught up with me at baggage claim and I helped him find a cart.

I noticed he had nice lips though I try not to think of lips on a man. I remember in the service we had a lieutenant with nice lips. You notice it more when there's only men around.

The thing surprised me most was that the young man could have been a woman. His bodily ways were like a woman's. I didn't know men could be like that. Or maybe I was most surprised that I didn't feel ashamed. Why should I be when he wasn't? And he had an open face.

A good dream clears away your preconceptions.

There's the actual orgasm, of course, and young men think of penetration. But what I'm talking about is neither penetration nor orgasm, just a merger with the goddess and dreaming good, whether you're doing it with a man or a woman.

And as I said, I'd like to live in constant merger, or at least as much of the time as possible: Make love not war. A friend said the other day she wished me a happy 60th with people coming by and rubbing and fondling me all over, maybe feeding and bathing me.

That sounds pretty close to perfect, but like I'm just lying there taking it. I think there should be more bodily dialogue involved. We tend to think too much of dreams and sex as spectator sports.

Anyway, I was saying that boys are drunk with the girl body. And this drunk is a good drunk. We see female forms everywhere, and always lean out to see them.

But we can also understand that there are people living in these female forms. We can understand that our soul's twin may live here and that having found her, we don't want to lose her.

Even the times we're lost in the very body and don't care who lives in it, we can still be decent. Dream about the decent man, ladies! Like when you go dancing, he asks you up, is attentive to you and your movements, follows you back to your table, pulls out your chair and smiles thanks very much.

We need to be as decent as we can, both men and women. To get up in the morning and see your own decent face in the mirror is as good as it gets, in love or war.

If you want a prophecy from me, not that I can imagine why, I say we're going to see the breakup of the sinless lady (and I won't miss her). On that day, we can still be decent together and human, but nobody sinless.

To the young man in my earlier example, I say it's good to merge. I don't really see the problem. Why not lie in the grass with your whole body or make love to a new-plowed field? We're drawn to the anonymous female body. We dream her anywhere it is at all feasible.

Beyond this, I'm feeling I may be drawn to all bodies.

If you, young man, can make your home person understand who she is, she won't have to take it personally that you are drawn to other bodies. Of all the people living in bodies, you can know only a few, and you have after all chosen to try to know her. This is real. This is not a Barbie dream.

If you have to say something at all, I'd suggest something like this: "Honey, I think you may be my person. I like to be with you. I listen to you and like your smell. I'll do my best not to give your body the clap or get some other girl pregnant or fill her with unrealistic expectations."

The Author

William Lowell Males, who has been writing regularly for about 25 years, only recently discovered non-fiction. Now that's all he writes. This kind of flip-flop is typical for him. He's very happily married, is the father of three perfect offspring, tries to invest in the living part of life.