Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Hot tips for the intimacy-impaired Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 13:27:07 EST Message-ID: \SE E;LIFE \HD Hot tips for the intimacy-impaired \BY Betsy Pisik \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES For those who think dating has evolved into an actuarial crapshoot of sexually transmitted diseases, bitter women with custody and oafish men who lie, Wendy Dennis offers a dash of hope and a splash of insight. She urges compassion. She stresses self-respect. And yet, ulp, she doesn't rule out sex with near-strangers. The Toronto-based free-lance magazine writer interviewed 300 men and women for "Hot and Bothered" (Viking, $20), one of those coping-in-the-'90s books designed to demystify the hormonal and emotional whirlpool that comes of being heterosexual, white and urban in this confusion-tossed era. "Cold and Clammy" would be more like it. The book, subtitled "Sex & Love in the Nineties," is broken down into such easily accessed topics as "Is casual sex finished?" (sorry, not necessarily) and "Why won't men flirt anymore?" (PC terror). And, yes, you can judge this one by its hot-pink-and-black cover. Her subjects' eagerness to talk "honestly and in surprising detail" convinces Miss Dennis that men and women really can connect - if they would just relax. She admits her survey is completely unscientific, one that grew out of her curiosity. Divorced in 1984, Miss Dennis, 42, says she was "catapulted into a world that felt lunar in it's unfamiliarity." She is raising Sarah, now 9, alone, and argues that today's little girls have far healthier and realistic relationships with boys than her generation did. But what to do with adults? Miss Dennis says a variety of social factors makes it difficult for men and women to meet an appropriate someone, communicate and fall in lasting love. "If men and women would talk to each other the way they did to me, we wouldn't have these problems," says Miss Dennis, an upbeat and stylish woman with no scientific background who is comfortable discussing just about anything sexual over quesadillas at Kramer Books & Afterwords. "There are three ways to talk about sex," the author says of her graphic language and quotes - clinically, euphemistically and "honestly." But sex is not the only problem here. "We're surrounded by romantic images, but we are intimacy-impaired," the author says. Miss Dennis attributes most of the problem to almost 20 years of blurred gender roles, which she says has knocked both sexes off balance. Men are trying to be supportive and sensitive, she says, but they're hamstrung by traditional thoughts and actions - which are now politically incorrect and therefore unutterable. She says the PC straitjacket corsets both men and women. In the book's first chapter, she offers herself - a feminist who indulges in sex-slave fantasies - as an example. She sympathizes with the many men who told her they don't know what they're supposed to do or be any more. "Men are bewildered. They don't know what's expected of them," Miss Dennis says sadly. "They're not free to express what they want or [ask] what they should be." And women, she says, are living "the tragedy of our time." Now that feminism sufficiently has emboldened them to discover what they want sexually, and they're finally secure enough to tell lovers or intended spouses what makes them happy, they can't find one. "It used to be simpler, clearer," says Miss Dennis, wistful for the permissiveness of the late 1960s: "Not necessarily better, but easier to understand what the other person wanted, what you wanted." That's why she wrote this book. "It breaks my heart to think of all the connections that aren't being made for all the static and crossed signals," she says. Today, when you tell your single friends that you have met Someone Special, she says, their first question is likely to be "Where?!" It's understood that bars, supermarkets and health clubs aren't very good for people who hope to find a Relationship, rather than a horizontal jousting partner. Miss Dennis debunks the "man shortage" myth with census statistics (there are roughly equal numbers of men and women in every age group), but admits that men die sooner and have a curiously consistent propensity for younger women. Factor in homosexuality, and the harvest is winnowed considerably. Economic pressures and contemporary lifestyles have made meeting a mate more difficult, primarily because it's so hard to get out of the office. "The workplace is a very natural place to meet people," says Miss Dennis, who is not opposed to dating one's colleagues. "But what happens when it's over?" That's presuming it ever gets started. Given a sudden lurch of sensitivity about sexual harassment, the work environment can be a dicey place to meet. "This is truly a difficult time to be in love and a difficult time to be in lust," the author says. Unless you have a wide circle of cool friends. "I want to go on the record with this," Miss Dennis says. "Married people have an obligation to fix up their single friends." Miss Dennis softens and beams when the conversation turns to Ben, the writer and actor selected for her by married friends who were concerned that she was spending too much time alone with the manuscript of her book. The two are billing and cooing - at least on weekends, when she breaks the book tour and returns to Toronto. "It's really the best way," she says. "At least you know that there is something there you have in common, or your friends wouldn't have fixed you up." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM