Self-Indulgent Whore

This was originally published on August 25, 2022 back when this newsletter was on Tinyletter. It's quick, rough, and perhaps in need of an edit. I hope you enjoy it in its full glory.

August 12

Lately, I haven’t felt interested in pursuing the casual sex I hunted down when we first moved to the city. Practicing polyamory in Las Vegas was certainly doable, sure, Feeld even offers the city as a preset location for you to choose from. But I, personally, didn’t have much luck. There are sex parties and horny tourists and swingers in suburbs with upside down pineapples decorating their lawn, but it ultimately felt like the pond was a little too small for meaningful long-term connections. If there was anything the city taught me, it was the instinct to always be running the odds — and they didn’t look so good. Even a one-night stand felt risky most days. Less risky as in, sure, you might get murdered; that’s what they always tell trans women who like to have casual sex. More risky like, what if it’s a bad time? That’d be a huge waste and worse! it’d be a big bummer. I hate having sex on a full stomach. I practice a fasting diet if I think I'm going to have sex, but having plans fall through and sacrificing a normal dinner time just for some mediocre fuck, sucks.

So, here, in a bigger pond, I wanted to see what was out there. Better lays, hopefully. Maybe someone I could actually hold an interesting conversation with, not just someone with whom to mutually brave a boring conversation while we hold out for the part where we get physical.

So far, though, I’ve found that the sex I’ve had here is mostly kind of boring. There’s the thrill of someone finding interest in you of the anticipation when you walk up to their place or wait for them to get to yours. Mostly, though, the thrill comes from the fantasy in my imagination and the potential for something really amazing.

It’s been a minute since I’ve bonked a stranger and now I’m wondering if I even liked sex or if I’ve just been chronically bored and had nothing better to do. Was sex just like, mindless stimming? A level above scrolling TikTok or twirling a fidget spinner?

Early Evening

In an effort to resist succumbing to the slackerish urge to lay about, I send out a few more obligatory emails when I get back to my apartment and make everyone in my workosphere happy. My boyfriend and roommates are all working tonight and everyone else seems to be otherwise occupied, so I decide to take myself out on a date. Initially, I put myself through an outfit change montage, trying on a series of cute outfits as if I needed to impress this proverbial date. I quickly realize that all my clothes are a little tight or a little too high-waisted. Most of the time, I can grit my teeth through the discomfort. I deeply enjoy looking good and will usually do so at any cost, but today I decide to pursue comfort and luxury.

A skirt-induced-stomachache is not going to be fun if no one’s really looking at me. In the end, I’m wearing a big t shirt and bike shorts – an outfit I usually save for lounging around the house. Being this comfortable outside feels like a novelty.

At a fancy Japanese joint I order two bao: shrimp tempura with pickled fennel and a 6-hour braised pork shoulder with jalapeño chutney. The food comes out quickly and it’s visually very appealing, the kind of food you see in a YouTube video. The food is glistening as if a food stylist sprayed it with globules of light. The food looks crispy and delicious.

On my first bite I discover that it is bland. Like, confusingly bland.

For all its pomp & circumstance, everything tastes like it could use about 3 more tablespoons of salt. Even more confusingly: texturally, it’s all correct. The bao is soft and cloud-like. The pork shoulder is tender. The tempura is crispy. The pickles on top should act as a fun and zingy contrast. But it doesn’t taste like anything. The texture actually highlights how little it tastes like anything. It’s like a beautifully drawn coloring book that someone hasn’t filled in yet. It’s not COVID – my Kirin tastes perfectly fine. The perfume in my bag still has a scent (and yes I open my bag to conspicuously sniff it.)  After a few bites I’m feeling existential. I’m wondering if I even know what’s good anymore. What if I’ve debauched myself, over-indulged so much throughout my life that my palette is completely blown out? What if I’m just addicted to stimulus itself, the act of masticating a crunchy meal, the elastic feeling in my guts from penetration? I ate slowly at first, trying to enjoy this date I’m taking myself on but soon I’m quickly scarfing down the meal so I can leave — desperately trying to distance myself from this meal. It’s as if the restaurant itself is an unholy house of debasement, and running away is the only thing that will atone for all my sins and bring my taste back.

On the street, I search for something more. I had the idea of taking myself on a food tour in the neighborhood, a bunch of smaller bites to experience the full spectrum of sensation. Plus, that food was so bad – I couldn’t let myself leave this date unsatisfied.

Devil Dawgs is less than a block away. Everyone’s told me I need to try it, that it’s a famous Chicago thing and now feels as good a time as any to scarf down some disgustingly good fast food. On my short walk I imagine the piles of chicken tenders, fries, corn dogs, polish dogs, a huge soda I can shove down my gullet while reading my book. It’s going to be glorious! But, now in line, looking at the food and smelling the hot grease in the deep fryer, I suddenly have a vision of myself overeating and feeling ill, my bike shorts constricting against my bloat while I’m four train stops away from home, the sort of discomfort that only laying face down on your bed and the liberty of using your own bathroom can fix. The potential for a glorious meal is replaced with visions of an all-around bad time.

I leave.

The Szechuan place down the street smells delicious so I open up the menu on Yelp - something I feel extremely self-conscious doing. Standing outside looking at the menu of the place right in front of me? If I were normal, I’d walk in and ask for a menu. If this was the 90s or something I could do that, but the internet has groomed me into a socially anxious cretin incapable of normal human interaction. I worry that going in will force me to be immediately seated and then I’ll feel obligated to order food even if I don’t actually want anything. Even if it smells good and I am still hungry, I like to have control, and that would be absolutely lawless.

The restaurant has a few dishes I really want to try. Pork brain, numbing chicken, cumin lamb, stir fried aorta. But the dishes are huge, obviously meant to be shared between a few people and the price matches the size. I’ve set a budget for myself this month – something I’m usually too stubborn to do – and I think about how big of a chip a meal here would put into my allotment of food money. I decide against it.

In the end, I wind up at a bakery I haven’t tried yet. It’s tucked into an older looking building and the interior is all browns and woods like how I remember everything being in the Bay Area when I was a kid. I ask the barista what they recommend and inquire about a tiny chocolate ganache cake covered in macaron shells. “Do you have a really bad sweet tooth?” they ask. I do, but I only like cheap chocolate and dum-dums. Overly sweet baked goods make my teeth hurt and feel like a slog to eat, the same bite over and over and over again full of rich fat and expensive ingredients. If a kit-kat is masturbating, this chocolate ganache confection is like being fisted for an hour. So, I say, no, I don’t have a sweet tooth. They tell me their favorite flavors of macarons: rose, balsamic fig, pistachio. I order all three and an iced coffee. They ask, “black?” and I notice a micro-nodding of their head as if they’re subtly suggesting to me that I should drink it black. I feel that I must impress the hot barista and say “Oh, yes, of course!” but I think they can tell it didn’t occur to me until that moment that it’s even possible to order an iced coffee without sugar and milk.

The macarons are so good it feels like my brain is recalibrated. Thank god, I think to myself, I do still have taste! Not just like, the sensation of taste in a COVID way, but in like a oh my god I still have taste way. I still know the difference between good and bad and what’s good is this rose flavored macaron and this extremely smooth black coffee. The sensational delight I’ve been searching for all night has finally found me.

I’m sitting on a comfortable aluminum chair on the sidewalk, which feels like a contradiction but it really is comfortable. I wonder to myself if I’m a self-indulgent whore to my core even if I’m not actively pursuing sex.  Filipinos love to feed each other and love to eat - but so many of us are raised in conservative Christian and Catholic environments wherein gluttony, the act of eating and enjoying it, is sinful. There’s so much fat shaming and so much pride in restriction and minimalism and frugality. Is this date slutty, whorish even?

Night

I’m reading about intense autists who spend all their free time doing research, making art, writing, being productive with all their hours in a day and feel inspired to do the same. I’m going to take the train home and do all my laundry and scrub the floors and brush up on my art history and write and it’s going to be amazing and I’m going to be a genius.

Immediately, I take my outside clothes off and sprawl onto my bed naked. The articles I pulled up about the political history of collage suddenly seem impossible to read. I search “art podcasts” so that I can at least be productively lazy and listen to an art historian tell me about Georgia O'Keeffe's Deer's Skull With Pedernal while I’m prone.

I open TikTok, which pauses the podcast, and then Instagram, which allows the podcast to restart its conversation with me and I switch back and forth for a while. the podcast stops mid-sentence a few times. I start window shopping for home goods on my phone.

Eventually, I remember I have the apartment to myself and briefly ponder the idea of having someone over. I open Grindr to see who’s interested, swipe through Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble. There are a few hits – I talk to someone who only goes by “🇮🇳🤴🏽” for an hour before realizing he lives a train transfer and a 50 minute commute away. I tell him that we can hang out a different day and finally muster up the courage to do my laundry at midnight. Which, of course, is a mistake. I’m satisfied with what I’ve eaten today, but I find myself wanting more. Searching the pantry for something, something to eat between laundry loads. In the end, I don’t eat anything for the rest of the night.