Sex+Design Magazine

The Irony of Having Sex, Being a Player and Falling in Love

The Sensitive Player By Alex Crevar

Why is player a bad word? I reckon it’s because for a player to exist, someone else has to get played … at least that’s the logic the recently played spout during the sober light of day. Of course when the nasty electricity of nighttime builds, it’s a different story.

It’s the playahs, the groove merchants, the seduction hawkers, that give any get-together, disco, club, or house party that delicious, wicked, sexually charged vibe. Frankly they’re the reason to go to parties – even ones that are supposed to be tame. “God, I hope this gets out-of-hand,” the bored – one hip cocked, staring at the ceiling, sipping from a martini glass – seem to collectively think each evening as the gates of their normal lives part and they walk onto streets dripping with possibilities, which players are busy creating.

For the contrary, please answer truthfully: though you may not normally be naughty, don’t you at least want to know you have a choice beyond just an after-work drink and then going home to your TV’s depressing blue light? Don’t you want to believe you could end an evening with your pants suit/dress/overalls in a pile behind the door and a shiver down your spine?

That’s the player’s department.

Players are the ones who push the point. Sure, they may not go home with you and meet your parents during Christmas vacation. They may not water your plants when you are away on business. They may not remember your name. But they’re the ones who encourage one too many I-don’t-know-what-they-were-called-but-they-went straight-to-my-head cocktails. (“Where are my panties?”) They inspire the shedding of layers. (“It is a little hot in here, you were right.”) They encourage rump-rocking epiphanies and nether-region tingling. (“Yeah, I guess I could wear the same outfit to tomorrow morning’s meeting.”)

But, have you ever wondered what it would be like if the player lost his touch? If suddenly it was the player who got played? Now imagine the player and playee were the same person. Imagine if that he-thinks-he-can-do-that-to-me-and-just-forget-to-call sumbitch began unconsciously sabotaging his ownself. Time and time again.

Welcome to the Sensitive Player’s world.

Listen here baby, I play. Sho nuff, do I play. But I’m also trapped in a universe formed by an overly receptive and slightly self-destructive personality set. I am a tortured soul that loves to play AND has grown a conscience. For the player, that’s the death knell.

First, I’m Southern. I genuinely love hosting people and having folks, who were previously strangers, suddenly dirty dancing about the place. Rocks glasses in hand. Riding a knee. Rubbing a backside.

Secondly, when the room thumps and I go under the spell of a backbeat, I’ll dance with just about anyone. Anyone becomes a partner in crime. Anyone becomes prey. All the while my judgment is finding its own rhythm through copious amounts of bourbon. And don’t be fooled: I am an adorable drunk.

Sounds like the typical sleazy so-and-so to me, you think. Well, I would be except for one fatal flaw: in the heat of the moment and all at once – dancing, drinking, Southerning – I am not Playing. I am genuinely in love. Gosh darn it. Rather than finding a person’s faults, I find their strengths. Such beautiful lips. My god, what a neck. Her face is perfect when she’s serious. Is that a lilt in her laugh? Yes, rub that thing on up over here.

In fact, I fall so in love I become tongue-tied and have a hard time closing the deal. Can you imagine anything sadder than a player – lubed up on Southern whiskey and shaking it with a lovely young thing lost in his web – who can’t close the deal? It’s cataclysmic. It’s Tony Orlando without Dawn. It’s Chico without the Man. It’s Peaches without Herb. Lawd knows, it’s just sad is what it is. Sad.

But I’ve decided to put my plight to use. For all those who wished a player would get his, I’m your man.

I live in Europe and am given regular opportunities to fall in love. Most end in clown-like failure. This column will follow this Herb-less, the Man-less, Dawn-less Sensitive Player through almost-affairs across the continent as I fight through language barriers and convince the unsuspecting that “James Brown plus Jim Beam is actually a really good way to learn English” and then document my fall from the heights. And lest one should feel sorry for the Sensitive Player, don’t worry: I’m still flitting about a room dancing, sneaking a kiss, and trading naughty glances. And occasionally even SP ends up with his chain mail piled in a corner.

***

This episode comes from Zagreb, Croatia, where Mr. S. Player has been holed up under the guise of a freelance travel writer. Naturally SP is in a bookshop, looking sharp, smart, and trading bedroom eyes when he’s thunderstruck by a beautiful Croat: tall, blond, breathtaking … literally, I lost my breath. She must have noticed it because she came over and spoke – in English – to the Player.

“What are looking for?” she asked, her alert breasts resourcefully reeling in homeboy.

“Dunno,” homeboy replied with a tone that could’ve been mistaken as mild retardation.

“Well, let me know if you need any help.”

Only then did SP see the nametag. It was the first stage of heartbreak. I should have aborted then. Naturally, I didn’t.

“Wondering if you’d like to go with me to a hockey game tonight. I’ve got good seats,” SP asks while buying something inconsequential just to have an excuse to do a little jawin’. (The Player always has comped, of course, tickets to something. Tickets can be abandoned but they can’t always be secured.)

“Okay,” she said simply. “Meet you here at 8?”

The Player was in love. Period. And it wasn’t just her looks. It was her directness. It was her saying yes without hemming and hawing. It was her breasts.

We drank early and often at the game. Lawd knows SP was funny and witty and cute. After, we went to a pub and traded shots of brandy. We laughed easily. I brushed her hand with mine. She was receptive. The gods helped by laying down the soundtrack for the evening: Otis followed by brother Ray and then Reverend Al got in on the act. At one point we swayed into a hip-grinding slow dance so tantalizing and sweet that others were inspired to get off their stools for a little something something. I softly kissed her neck. She ran her fingers through the back of my hair.

All right … stop. Truly, I needed nothing else. I didn’t need to see her naked. If I had died there while nibbling on that soft, silky neck as Marvin Gaye told us to “Get it On,” I’d have been more than okay. Then why on earth didn’t we just remain in that heavenly cloud? The Player can’t quite answer that. That answer is wrapped in biology and animal instincts and lawdy, got to be honest here: when someone got their hand running through the Player’s hair his brain don’t work so good. All I can say is that the Player needed more. And like most tragedies in SP’s world, trough-scraping lows are a product of groin-throbbing, mountain-reaching highs combined with greed.

“Let’s go to a club,” the Player suggested. “But it’s raining,” Ms. Wonderful said. “What’s a little rain?” the Player foolishly retorted instead of dancing to Parliament. “Okay … I guess.”

It was in the rain, waiting on a tram that SP misplayed his hand and went in for a dramatic, romantic smooch. Ms. You-one-big-MFing-fool pulled back with a lurch. I am sorry, she said. I’ve got a boyfriend, she said.

Time stopped. Cars screeched to a halt. Dogs and cats started speaking in tongues. Somebody scratched the album on the record player and then switched “Songs in the Key of Life” with “The Heart Touching Magic of Jim Nabors.”

The Player played it cool though. When she asked: should I just go home? I said: no, stick around if you’d like. Then we met up with folks at a place spinning funk. Ol’ SP drank a bottle of whiskey. Just before she left she said: you were dancing with a lot of girls. I said, with a stumble and some slurring: that’s right, baby.

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