Exotic Magazine: I Love Las Vegas : February 2005

Um... so my last column? The one wherein I listed what I wanted from a male partner and then solicited resumes? Well, it was clearly incomplete. I got many wonderful responses--well-written requests for coffee dates, caring critiques of my value system, concerned advice and pats on the back, but what was obvious in the end was that this love nut is a lot harder to crack than I made it out to be.

Ultimately it was the Hottest Chick in Town who--in the dressing room--made evident the error of my ways.

"Oh, Viva! If they would just LIE and say, 'Honey, I just outran the cops today.' Or something! They have to be BAAAAD. Or they have to lie."

My God, I thought, she's right. Then I thought about my shrink who repeatedly asks me to examine my fondness for dating criminals.

"I admire them," I say. "I feel they are at odds with a fundamentally fucked-up and unjust system, and I worship them for it."

Said shrink thinks I lack the capacity to read people, like the last guy I dated who was missing a handful of teeth and who tried harder to procure a doctor's note saying he was RETARDED than he ever did trying to get a decent job.

One of my applicants for partnership called foul on my whole list. He deconstructed every line to show that my mating requirements were merely the usual What-Every-Woman-Wants: a hot, rich guitar player who gives her head for hours (see pg. 22). He said my list was "at best coded and incomplete and at worst utter bullshit." Well, duh.

In the end it's all star signs and love potions. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Or, as my darling Scorpio supplicant put it, riffing on Tom Arnold, "All

women are crazy. All men are stupid." Or, as my Brooklyn roommate is wont to say, "Chemistry is so important to you girls."

Isn't chemistry important to guys? Obviously they are less discriminating and can fuck a cold cantaloupe and get off happily, but aren't certain cantaloupes more to their liking than others?

Every ostensibly "good" relationship I've bailed on I've done so due to lack of chemistry. If I'm not totally turned on by you, sex feels sweaty, sticky, uncomfortable and, ultimately, not unlike rape. Conversely, if I am into you--you ASSHOLE--you could hit me and, as the Phil Spector song goes, it would feel like a kiss.

So obviously there's a new list. A continuance. A second page.

Dear Male Partner Prospect,

You must be a criminal. You must not treat me too well or I will not respect you. You must push me up against the wall of the shower on occasion and stick your tongue down my throat. Most importantly, I must really and thoroughly enjoy this. Otherwise you are going to jail.

Goddamnit I don't know. A lot of this boils down to hero worship. I've got to respect and admire you in order to get hot for you and most of you are so ugh! I've done a lot with my life. I've lived--alone--on four continents and in six states. I am an athlete, an artist and an intellectual. I play four instruments and speak five languages. I bathe frequently and I like to fuck. I have wonderful friendships with hot chicks and I volunteer time and money to charitable causes. I've recorded seven albums, appeared in countless movies, documentaries and music videos, and seen publication of my writing in national periodicals. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but it's getting harder and harder for you to impress me.

But then again how hard can it be? I'm a girl who's impressed by the bums on street corners. My last boyfriend didn't have a job or teeth! But in the end I run with wolves and you simply have to keep up.

What you can bring to my life are the things I can't create on my own--that sweet easy feeling that everything is gonna be alright, that it's only life after all, that we're gonna rock out with our cocks out until they put us in the ground. And, on occasion, push me up against the wall of the shower, stick your tongue down my throat, and tell me you just outran the cops.