In 1990 I was a long way from having sex. Too long, I thought in my later teens. Nonetheless, the particulars of what to do in the bedroom - apart from pull on your PJs and hit the hay - wasn't even on my list of things to discover.
I was also a long way from understanding metaphor and hyperbole in pop music. But even through the ignorance of childhood, some messages from the blanket of pop culture make it to the subconscience to lay in wait.
And what does this have to do with Jimmy Barnes?
LET’S MAKE IT LAST ALL NIGHT
THIS COULD BE THE LAST TIME I MAKE LOVE TO YOU
LET’S MAKE IT LAST ALL NIGHT
BABY GIVE ME SOMETHING TO HOLD ON TO
EVEN IF WE CAN’T MAKE IT RIGHT
BABY MAKE IT LAST ALL NIGHT
Let's Make It Last All Night - Barnesy’s stomping ballad off the classic gruntfest album 'Two Fires' - was everywhere in the summer of 1990. And nowhere more than from the shiny-red-plastic-shelled two speaker radio cassette deck perched above the faux-wood-panelled microwave in our family home kitchen. My mum had the commercial radio blaring from sunup to sundown, and the pained romantic ambitions of Barnesy and Farnsey and Ninah Cherry and Lionel Ritchie all leaked into my little putty brain somewhere.
Jump cut to years later. Through a series of cruel circumstances and what could be only called ‘bad luck’ I was a frustrated 17-year-old virgin. I realise eminently now why the turn of phrase insists you ‘lose’ your virginity, since not only was I a changed manchild after that blustery dusk on the beach, but I also cannot remember a single detail of the actual event. It’s lost. Gone. In a haze of relief and confused expectations. But one thing I do know – it didn’t last all night.
And as my unlikely sex life sputtered along, this simple fact plagued me. I could NEVER make it last all night. Even if by some magical alignment of the stars I managed to make it last over 15 minutes, I was near clinical exhaustion. And sometimes those sitcom-length dalliances were worth the effort for the other party. Yet lurking inside me somewhere, sabotaging my sexual confidence and undermining my mojo, was the belief that if I really, really cared I should make it last all night. Especially since at that age I believed that every night could be that last time I could do it.
And in my mind was a picture of Barnesy circa 1990 – looking like a man who could undoubtedly make it last all night. For several on the trot if his lady-friend demanded.
I’ve since realised it isn’t possible. At least not without Viagra, a drip and some serious tantric training. I’m not sure when I finally, consciously acknowledged that perhaps Barnesy wasn’t speaking literally and I could relax the expectations I’d put on myself. Maybe it was in the scarce moments of honesty between my male friends where I realised more than 15 minutes isn’t a bad innings. Maybe it was discovering more valuable things to a relationship than a superhuman sexual stamina. Or maybe it was just seeing Barnesy looking really fucking old.
Jump cut to years later. Through a series of cruel circumstances and what could be only called ‘bad luck’ I was a frustrated 17-year-old virgin. I realise eminently now why the turn of phrase insists you ‘lose’ your virginity, since not only was I a changed manchild after that blustery dusk on the beach, but I also cannot remember a single detail of the actual event. It’s lost. Gone. In a haze of relief and confused expectations. But one thing I do know – it didn’t last all night.
And as my unlikely sex life sputtered along, this simple fact plagued me. I could NEVER make it last all night. Even if by some magical alignment of the stars I managed to make it last over 15 minutes, I was near clinical exhaustion. And sometimes those sitcom-length dalliances were worth the effort for the other party. Yet lurking inside me somewhere, sabotaging my sexual confidence and undermining my mojo, was the belief that if I really, really cared I should make it last all night. Especially since at that age I believed that every night could be that last time I could do it.
And in my mind was a picture of Barnesy circa 1990 – looking like a man who could undoubtedly make it last all night. For several on the trot if his lady-friend demanded.
I’ve since realised it isn’t possible. At least not without Viagra, a drip and some serious tantric training. I’m not sure when I finally, consciously acknowledged that perhaps Barnesy wasn’t speaking literally and I could relax the expectations I’d put on myself. Maybe it was in the scarce moments of honesty between my male friends where I realised more than 15 minutes isn’t a bad innings. Maybe it was discovering more valuable things to a relationship than a superhuman sexual stamina. Or maybe it was just seeing Barnesy looking really fucking old.
1 comment:
"I could NEVER make it last all night."
Weak.
Post a Comment