61 Frames Per Second by John Constantine Today in Hooksexup's videogame blog: We get misty on the Chrono Cross soundtrack and ponder the return of Chrono Trigger.
The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Today on Hooksexup's TV blog: Dance, Hipster, Dance! Plus: our latest NewsCrush — and why one army brat is breaking up with Army Wives.
In the past two weeks, since the world changed, I've felt physically useless and uninterested in sex. Me, September 24, 2001
I was lying when I said I didn't have sex for two weeks after the towers came down. It was actually one week, but everything seemed so much more important in those days; one week felt like two. I wanted to join the Peace Corps. I wanted to go undercover with RAWA (Revolutionary Afghan Women Association). I thought I hated my husband Dave because he made jokes about Bush and didn't want to join the Peace Corps. And then, instead of doing daring acts in distant lands, I became pregnant. It happened that first time we did it after 9/11. Life became smaller for me then the overwhelming questions were for other, unpregnant people to pose and answer. My life was approximately two inches long. My love and fear for the whole world narrowed down to fill one, small person.
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Bombarded by 9/11 anniversary specials in magazines and on TV, with their images of gigantic destruction, it's hard to feel that my day today trying out a new zucchini-bread recipe (it's great!), smiling back at my baby and, when she falls asleep, letting my Big Baby (that would be Dave) inside is as real for as that day one year ago was for people fleeing an avalanche of mortar powder. Or even as real as my own life was that day, watching live TV and feeling change as strong as an actual person breaking into my house. In the end, though, people are affected by what's in their day, not what's in other people's days. I've always believed the composer John Cage, that every seat is the best seat. Eavesdropping on the teenage couple next to you in the back of the theater, or being lulled to sleep by the opening and closing of the usher's door (and what wild dreams you'll find yourself in, and then forget), is just as scintillating and significant as the front-row view. When you truly believe that, then baking zucchini bread is as meaningful as dying. And so, after my brief and ineffectual foray into social consciousness, I've fallen back to my individualist ways.
"Everything is different now," we all said in the days following the first large-scale terrorist attack on American soil. But when I tracked down the people I'd interviewed then, I found that the songs have remained the same. Ann Miller, who was wont to be wanton before 9/11, is wont to be wanton post 9/11. Miguel was fucking against death even as a child. And even though Terry McGaughey wasn't in this country on 9/11, it's still more real to him today than it is for a lot of Americans because it was real to him before: his brother-in-law had his legs blown off in an IRA bomb. The crisis, more than actually changing anything, simply illuminated whoever a person was. For me, those dire days made my lifelong fantasies of being a spy and saving the world seem actually possible, but in the end, the path of my life was directed, once again, by the loins.
Erik Swanson - Maine
I broke up with my girlfriend [Beth]. This tragedy made me realize what a self-centered jerk she is.
Beth: Erik was really sad about 9/11, and I was really mad. I wanted to go out and smash stuff. I knew there was nothing I could do to help him, because I didn't think there was anything anyone could do. We broke up for a couple days, and then when we got back together, things were different. That was the point when we realized we did want to be together. Before that, our relationship was kind of recreational. Lisa: Did your sex life become sorry, I gotta say this deeper? Erik: I do think that after 9/11, a sort of tenderness set in, and the frequency really went down. I used to smack Beth a lot [during rough sex]. And that stopped after 9/11. Lisa: Do you miss that, Beth? Beth: Sometimes. At the time, I did want something different and more tender. But now I do miss it. Lisa: How have your outlooks changed? Erik: I look at America differently. Whenever I hear that Saddam Hussein or al-Qaeda got away with something, I cheer. I feel like we're the bad guys. The government is. These attacks happened and people came together. They gave to the Red Cross, they gave blood. And all these companies and corporations ran ads about how they love America, how much they care and then they moved to the Caymen Islands and fucked over everyone. I think all this recent corporate scandal has made people more angry than they would have been otherwise, because now we know that people are capable of being honorable. Before 9/11, we thought those are just the games companies play. Now we think it doesn't have to be like that. Beth: I've become obsessed with 9/11. I can't stop watching 9/11 remembrances and I read every article about it. Before, I'd think, "I wish people would just stop whining about it." Now I get really upset. Erik: A couple days ago, Beth was just crying all day about it. Beth: I used to be a misanthrope. Since then, I've become more compassionate.
Pauline Ann Wolstencroft - New York then,
California now
The parks are filled with memorials and pictures of missing family members. Their eyes are everywhere, watching us go on with our lives.
It did surprise me how quickly people in New York got back to normal, myself included being rude to one another again on the subway, avoiding eye contact. Daniel and I moved to San Francisco in January. We'd been planning a move for a long time, but it felt strange leaving New York so soon after 9/11. I felt like a fair-weather friend. In San Francisco, there is almost no evidence of what happened. Occasionally something will be on the news about the redesign of the World Trade Center, but that's about it. Every now and then I think about what happened and how we spent that day and I feel so fortunate that we both made it home. That's made a stronger bond between us, and that can't hurt a sex life.
Bill Wrigley - New York
By the time my new girlfriend moves to California, two-thirds of our time together will have been spent with the World Trade Center a pile of smoking rubble, two-thirds of our conversations will have revolved around world politics, rescue efforts, fundamentalist moral codes.
The sex I had on 9/11 after watching the World Trade Center go down wasn't exactly porno-movie sex. When we were finally alone, a sobbing embrace became panicky kissing, became frantic sex. Sadly, she moved to California soon after. Then an old ex-girlfriend and I hooked up for a bit in October. I was really hoping that things were as heartfelt as they seemed at the time. In hindsight, our attempt to rekindle our relationship was another form of terrorism sex. That concept makes me sick to my stomach, even this many months later.
All in all, I've been pretty distant in the last year. The eleventh was sort of the end of one crazy period for me, and the beginning of another, where I switched jobs, flip-flopped on school, and in general found myself a total nervous wreck. I was afraid to take subways for a few months, got a cellphone so that people could contact me in case of the next emergency, and moved out of the neighborhood I'd been living in for a significant chunk of my life. The fear and paranoia that I had in the months following September made me sluggish, defeatist. It seemed like every movie I watched from September through November included a collapsing building or war orphans or something, and halfway through I'd have to stop watching. Like trying to listen to your records right after a breakup. Thankfully, my Hooksexups are finally starting to scar over. I'm no longer spending most nights staring at the ceiling wondering if I'll die alone.
Terry McGaughey - Great Britain
My friend Eric who lives in New York was supposed to come here this week, but obviously couldn't. Instead we tried to have phone sex well, Eric insisted, really and I felt so uncomfortable, I pretended to jerk off (first time ever).
Eric and I met up when he came over here in April this year and we "did it," and then he reminded me of the phone call and it turned me off. It may have been a way for him to deal with a traumatic event taking comfort in the body. Another, unpleasant reason he was ready to go so soon could be that gay men are the kings of objectification and can have sex in just about any environment. But it was really weird and bad for me the idea of something sexy coming out of an "Are you okay?" phone call. After his visit, we basically stopped contacting each other. Mostly I stopped; I was weirded out by the situation. I swear to God, I really don't know how ambulance chasers get off!
I might have taken the events more seriously because for Northern Irish people, and probably for Palestinian people, too in fact for anyone from a country with a long history of convoluted political wars terrorist atrocities are more real no matter where they happen. And we know what happens after all the cameras, news reporters and media types go away. I've seen quite a few terrorist atrocities my brother-in-law had his legs blown off in an IRA bomb. But I think a lot of Irish people had feelings of sympathy mixed with weariness at the attacks in America. Weariness in a "it even happens there" way, I mean, because people were genuinely appalled by the magnitude of the event. Until the attack, America seemed impervious to large-scale terrorism. I noticed a lot of Irish people having weird parental feelings towards New Yorkers after 9/11, like my sister who said, "They only ever see stuff like that on TV or in films, god knows how they'll ever come to terms with it."
Don Ross - Germany
Watching CNN, FOX, I felt a little bit like Alex from A Clockwork Orange.
This past week there were a number of TV specials on 9/11. Germany is very involved with the war on terror. They would just prefer to see a diplomatic solution to the Iraq situation. A growing number of people are very concerned about the destabilizing effects a war in Iraq would have on the entire Middle East, as well as what could happen in Germany with 3.5 million Muslim members of the population.
I have always realized that death is imminent, so my fear of losing my wife in a car accident rather than in a terrorist attack is much greater and just as heartbreaking for me to consider. I would say that I am basically the same person now as pre-9/11: very positive and optimistic. But the world, sadly, is not becoming a better place and that makes the idea of an apocalypse all the more probable for me.
Jean Louis Costes - (Lisa's ex-husband)
France
Editor's note: Jean did not participate in last year's poll, but is chiming in now.
The night of September 11th I was in Saint-Denis, the neighborhood where I live in the northern part of Paris. It is mainly an Arab immigrant neighborhood. People were openly excited, just like after a soccer match. In the Arab restaurant where I used to eat, people entered making V (victory) signs with their fingers. People from the cars yelled at me and threatened and insulted me. One car tried to hit me while I was crossing the street. Even very moderate shopkeepers of Arab origin, the next day, talked openly against France and how this rotten country should be destroyed. Well, I would not really oppose it, but the little detail that worries me is that in the case of racial civil war, people like me, the ones closest to and most integrated with the immigrant population, are going to be the first killed!
As for my love life, no, it was not affected by September 11th. My love life is masturbation, and that's not influenced by ethnic tension!
Robert Flanagan - Italy
Vanessa and I mostly sat in bed all day Sunday drinking wine and slowly taking off each other's clothes and putting them back on, kissing and stopping, starting to have sex and pausing to tell more war stories.
Vanessa was just one of the girls I was seeing over here in Italy, where I'm stationed with NATO. My heart really belonged to a former girlfriend who I'd recently met again through email and phone calls, a woman named Billee back in California. But our love affair seemed so improbable, both because of the 10,000 miles between us and because we hadn't seen each other in ten years. I was really psyched to go see Billee on October 6th I had plane tickets, hotel reservations, everything, but when that piece you did on 9/11 last year came out, Billee called and told me not to come. I'd been honest with her about the dating I'd been doing, but . . . Lisa: She was probably just picturing back alley trysts, not the emotional scene you described in your interview last year. Rob: Well, then you called her, and I don't know what you said, but she was willing slightly to see me again after that. On October 6th, we fell madly in love again as soon as we saw each other. It was BAM! I think 9/11 made things feel more urgent. But it was more of a backdrop to everything that went on than a catalyst. Billee and I would've gotten together regardless; 9/11 just flavored it differently. We'd be laughing and drinking and then turn on the TV [to the bombings in Afghanistan] and then we'd feel nervous again. Especially because of my job I'd applied for return to active duty. Italians are really not talking about it anymore now, and I find myself forgetting too. On August 17th, I asked Billee to marry me. She said yes.
Ann Miller - California
The very first thing I did after hearing about the tragedy was to go over to the home of the guy I'd been dating for nearly a week and spread my legs, hoping for some solace.
I never saw or heard from that guy again. He was only a few months out of a divorce anyway, which was probably more cause for his retreat than the effects of 9/11 though bad sex on Doomsday couldn't have helped. It took about a week after the bad day/bad sex for me to get my bearings. I figure right now the world needs love or at least some heavy petting and who am I to allow chaos and confusion to stop me from adding a bit of good vibe into the great cosmic unconcious? Given the current state of the world, I'm much more likely to say "fuck it" and do things I might have been shy about a year ago.
Rob Rowsey - California
You could say that the WTC tragedy was responsible for us meeting since we started talking about it that night when she said that she was still covered with the dust from the collapse.
The post-apocalyptic mayhem going on at the time added a bizarre and dangerous edge to meeting that girl online. Nothing ended up happening between us romantically, but I bet there is a large group of "9/11 babies" born this year. They're probably mostly all on the East Coast though, where things felt more urgent. Things haven't become bad enough yet for a really widespread social response movement like Free Love. For me, all it did was make me more aware of how precious peace really is.
Someone on livejournal.com said that everyone should get together with the people they love and have "peace sex" in order to create a positivism in light of the attacks. Made sense to me.
I still see the person I had "peace sex" with last 9/11. He comes to visit the cat, occasionally we have sex. He dates other people, I date, we're friends. My love life has not been affected by 9/11 at all.
Vicky Wheeler - Rhode Island
I'd wake in the middle of the night, urgeful as hell, and I'd clank my clit to beat the band, just waiting for orgasm to crush me back into slumber.
In the days following 9/11, I definitely felt like my days were more numbered. I started longing for a new baby. I guess when any living thing's existence is threatened, there's an urge to reproduce, which translates (in me) as feeling horny. My relationship at the time ended in the days following the tragedy. He was of the "nuke 'em and let Allah sort 'em out" persuasion. So 9/11 did have something to do, in a minor way, both with that split and with my hooking up next with a public defender. He is the legal voice for people accused of child/spousal neglect/abuse. It takes a profound appreciation for our justice system to willingly defend the seemingly indefensible; and the ability to look beyond accusations for truth. The hardest part is defending somebody who actually is probably guilty. Even the worst axe-murdering puppy-rapist deserves his day in court. So, there's Osama bin Laden. Perhaps he is totally evil but the lynch-mob attitude we've adopted as a nation is fundamentally dangerous to our way of life. Yadda yadda don't get me started. Lisa: How is clanking the clit these days? Vicky: The public defender is the only man I know who even comes close to clanking my clit as well as I can. Confidence exudes with every thrust. Also, we bought a blue metallic battery-powered friend. I've never owned a vibrator, believe it or not. So with that, and the renovation of office space to apartments in lower Manhattan's (per a report on NPR this a.m.), it's a whole new world.
Miguel Calbillo - Texas
Being this close to death and the endless waving of bloodstained banners as nationalist kites makes me horny. I fuck against death.
When I was a child, I had such bad asthma that the doctors thought I had cystic fibrosis. I spent the first ten years of my life in and out of hospitals, struggling for breath, and, like Bob Supermasochist, I eroticized my pain and masturbated because it was the only relief I could get. It does something to you as a person when you're told for the first ten years of your life that you're going to die very young and in a great deal of misery. I came into this world fucking against death and I still do to this day, especially on days when my asthma racks me something fierce. I'm currently in a monogamous relationship with a Zionist; we have heated arguments and then spectacular make-up sex. Lisa: Is it hard for you, since you're such a runaround normally, to be faithful? Miguel: My sex life is currently so good, it's like finally finding a system of government that works so why would you want to try another system? The only time I have trouble with sex is when I feel powerless, helpless in the face of all this country's current problems. My parents instilled a sense of justice and freedom in me early on, with the knowledge too that it must always be actively sought and fought for. When I find myself slipping, becoming complacent with the trappings of societal distractions, I feel like I perform less than perfectly in bed. My father recently organized a rally to celebrate all the undocumented workers who died and are still uncounted. They were the largest number of casualties, since they were all there from sunrise, cleaning offices, toilets. I videoed the event, helped with the clean-up, made people smile, and any feelings of impotence I may have harbored vanished.
David Goolkasian - (Lisa's husband)
New Hampshire
Editor's note: Dave did not participate in last year's poll, but is chiming in here.
Dave: I think a lot of people got not less self-involved, but they have a bit of a conscience about what they do now. Like, "Is what I'm doing destructive?" Lisa: And how was our love life impacted, if at all? Dave: The World Trade towers were two of the biggest buildings in the world, and to see how quickly they were demolished gave one a sense of how fragile everything is. It was such a confusing event, you felt like you should take a moment and try to figure out what was going on instead of . . . I felt guilty at the thought of satisfying myself. I didn't eat chocolate or have sex for about a week. Even though we fought a little bit there, we got a little more loving and thankful too. Thanking our lucky stars. It made a lot of people, and both of us, think, "Look what we have to be proud of and to enjoy." It felt like things might get taken away, and you're one of my favorite things. Even better than . . . well, almost better than . . . no, definitely better than my computer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Lisa Carver is the author of the books Dancing Queen, Rollerderby, The Lisa Diaries and Drugs Are Nice. She's written for Hustler,Index, Icon, Feed,Newsday and Playboy, among others. She lives in New Hampshire.
