What do you do when one of your children asks them to help them find a companion?

Female desire and the rarity of the pink diamond

Disclaimer: this post deals with a moral dilemma. Please note that although the word “child” is used, it is my “child” as an adult. As a parent, our children are always our children.

One of the godparents of one of my children joked at one point that the role of the godfather in a child’s life came about during the passage to adulthood.  The idea was equal parts intriguing, equal parts baffling.  On the one hand I was perplexed with something so complex, that a benign and mature adult presence could help a young adult land on their feet in the world of the sexual, that something so intimate and also laced with cultural weight could be threaded so easily.  On the other hand, part of me thought ‘no!’ and another part thought, ‘is this a cultural thing?’.  Overall, my conclusion was to park the comment.

Fast forward many years and the words of one of my children over dinner one night.  “Do you think you could help me find a companion?”  I didn’t commit at the time, but I did acknowledge a level of expertise on the topic.  My children know me too well to deny something like that.

How different the feelings might be from daughter to son or son to daughter?

I also didn’t really do anything about it other than think about it.  I certainly didn’t want to be a procurer.  But I also didn’t want a child to fall into one of the many traps out there, including many I had fallen prey to.  Time passed.  I finally asked a companion friend of mine about this very topic.  Question phrased as “how do I as a concerned parent navigate a world where a child seeks my assistance in finding them a companion?”  She agreed that I shouldn’t get involved in the selection, but that I could help them by laying out some ground rules, screening.  Simple enough.

She must have a large and active presence on Twitter.  She must have a professional website.  And the client must be respectful, read the instructions, and be totally open and honest.

I relayed the relevant bits of this conversation to my child at which point they said, “I’m not sure I want that anymore.  I think I want it to be more special.”

What a fascinating response!  Let’s take it apart.

Of course, sex is special.  In a real sense it is the Shakespearian “beast with two backs” which is a form of alchemical magic that can occur between two people who are in love or lust or holy union.  But it is far more often not.  In bedrooms around the world, the thrill is gone.

I have been thinking a lot about losing my virginity.  Well, the first time.  The second time is another story coming soon to a blog near you.  The first time I lost my virginity was in the basement of her parent’s house.  We had been “dating” for a while and boy did we have fun making out.  But the deed itself was separated from what we had done up until now by both of our hesitation to ride oblivious over the “police line do not cross” markers that society places around the act of penetration.

I can’t help but get started on this idea that this concept emerges from the same toxic portfolio that centers “women’s virtue” as a burden, that sex is somehow not virtuous, that female lust is dirty, that male lust is normal.  That woman are made the gatekeepers of their own desire, whilst men are allowed to run wild; that one is a whore and the other is virile.

But these ideas are also central to this post.  The original motivating spark of my child to ask me for an introduction was centred on the performative aspects of sex.  Performance anxiety seems to be at least culturally conceived as a male “problem”.  Believe me, women have performance anxiety too, but most of it has to do with her body—what do I look like, is my pussy too tight/too loose, will he think I’m fat, will he still respect me after?  I say he/her in this dynamic, as when I consider my more limited experience of she/her sex, none of this is there anymore.  At least that has been my experience.

The first time I lost my virginity I remember worrying about whether I knew what I was doing.  I didn’t.  I asked her to help me put it in.  This was something that stayed with me for sex for the rest of my male life.  I always “asked” that she help put it in, in part because there was an element of consent to that, which mattered to me every single time, but there was also a kind of nurturing dynamic, a formal welcoming, which always felt right to be there.

Indeed, the times that such a welcome was not there, the relationship also had something in it which didn’t work and was soon over.  Some of the women I have slept with wanted something from me that I was not willing to give, which always felt to me like something akin to non-consent.

And of course, the “invitation” held in guiding me in was a part of making the moment feel “special”.  But the other aspect of something feeling “special” is that you have to behave differently, or you have to do something to vest the act with its specialness.  Is not the very thought that it is “special” what sits at the root of performance anxiety?

And isn’t the idea of performance anxiety what led to my child asking for my help to find a provider?  After all, what better way to remove the noise from “losing your virginity” than to have done it first with a companion.  To be able to go to someone just as one would go to school, and have the benefit of the experience, and be taught.  I wonder how such an experience might have made my first time more enjoyable.  Would it still have felt like a first time?  Or would I have lost that feeling that somehow my first time was still special?

The experience of so many young women is that the first time is painful, uncomfortable, filled with anxiety, and in the end, not all that much fun.  As a male bodied individual the first time I had penetrative sex, I have to say that it wasn’t really all that great.  Even the feeling.  I can’t remember too much of it other than feeling like “that was it?”  Thankfully it wasn’t the last time.

I also remember how out-of-body the whole experience was. How I smelled her on me, how I brought the moisture on my member to my noise, to my lips, how everything felt strange and new, but also how deeply relieved I was that I was no longer a virgin.

I also think back about how anxious I had been.  How laden the experience was with this kind of anxiety.  And I wonder, have wondered since my friend, the Godfather, had uttered those words on his perceived role as a Godparent.

I also can’t help but think how different things are for boys and girls.  Would a daughter ever ask a parent for help in this way?  Indeed, why is it that men are 99% of the people who seek companions with only a tiny portion of women seeking to do so?  After all, the lament of loneliness and a desire to connect are possibly more often voiced by women than by men?

Was it the words of my friend that “any woman, no matter how ugly she is, can walk into a bar and at least pull a one-night stand.  Any woman.  Any time.”  Her point being that men cannot.  Her point being that women hold the power.  And though not spoken, this point is what lies at the root of the patriarchy.  Men fear women.  Men are neutered by the idea that women have control, that they hold the power.  The whole concept of performance anxiety is one of the perverse reinforcements constructed around this toxic narrative.

I think there is some heavy stuff in this post.  What do you think?  And for those of you women who are either clients of companions, have ever been tempted to see a companion, or a companion who has seen women, please share your unique perspective, as it is as rare as a pink diamond.