My name is not Naomi. It’s a nom de plume to protect my identity. Though names and identifying details have been changed, all the stories in Gen XXX are true. My anonymity means that I rely on word of mouth to grow my subscriber base, so if you’re intrigued by what you’re reading, please: share with friends.
Astrid took over my Bumble profile last week. We meet on Tuesday to go over her findings.
“I don’t think you’re going to like anyone I matched you with,” she warns me.
Astrid tells me that I have a lot of success on Bumble, which is to say that a lot of men like me on it. Every time she opens the app, she says, I have a ton of new likes. Which is once every couple of hours. But a tiny percentage — close to zero — are worth engaging with.
Same goes for the men that the app recommends I take a look at.
Astrid shows me the profile of a 61-year-old man named John. Bumble tells me that John and I both like to have “deep chats.” I start laughing. There is literally nothing else about the guy that seems appealing. Also, what does “have deep chats” even mean?
We swipe left on that one. And a bunch of others. Astrid is worried that she’s being superficial but, based on the men who are popping up, both in my “likes” and in the “regular” feed, I think she’s being realistic.
I ask if she’s seeing any commonalities in the men who are liking my profile. She says it’s all over the map — the men range in age from 28-65, she says. “I’m shutting down the extremes on both ends,” she says. “I’m just looking at a spectrum from 38-55.”
Astrid shows me the profile of a doctor who seems smart and self-aware. I find him unattractive.
“I’m not into him,” I tell her. “I look at that guy and I don’t want to kiss him.”
“I knew he wasn’t your type,” she says. “I just wanted to check. And he’s a Pisces, which is not a great match.”
Astrid shows me another man’s profile. This guy is handsome and seems professionally successful but very immature. In response to the prompt “I’ll never shut up about…” he writes “…how much Trump sucks balls!”
Trump is a menace and a ghoul and a psychopath and a fascist, but “sucks balls” is the sort of phrase that a 17-year-old would use. “Hard pass,” I say.
Who would be the perfect guy, I ask Astrid. Meaning: The perfect guy for me?
“Mature late 30s to mid 50s,” she says. “Tall. At least a bachelor’s degree.”
Just then, a white Fiat drives past us. The exact sort of car Nico has. I try to put him out of my mind.
Astrid continues.
“I think that you are professionally driven and ambitious and I think that it would be nice to see you with a person who was equally passionate about how they spent their days and their time. Thoughtfully engaged in their work.”
Simon, the guy I had the second date with last week, hasn’t texted to ask me out again.
“He has a week,” says Olivia. “Don’t worry.”
As I’ve said before, I always worry that there’s something horrible about me posted on the internet, that once a guy goes out with me and learns my surname, he Googles me and finds something he doesn’t like. Maybe something I posted on social media. Maybe pictures of me when I was fatter.
“If that’s the case, you wouldn’t want to go out with him again anyway,” says my friend Holly. I know she’s right, but still. It concerns me.
On Monday, a 35-year-old guy named “Liam” likes me on the sex app. I burst out laughing when I read the first line of his profile:
Similar to Luigi Mangioni [sic] in that I’m socialist, Italian, and will blow your back out. 😩
I take a screengrab and send it to Olivia. “He thinks he’s funny,” she says. This isn’t a compliment.
I send the screengrab to Max.
“I mean, I kind of want to date him,” she says.
“Me too!” I say.
Liam and I have a back and forth for a bit. We talk about how we’re both looking for something consistent but casual. He asks me if I’m a size queen. I tell him that I’m not picky, though not opposed to something big.
“Want to see a picture?” he says. I consider it for a second. “Sure,” I say.
He sends me a disappearing photo of his erect penis. “Impressive!” I say.
Liam is eager to meet up soon, but I tell him I won’t be able to get together until the next day or the day after that. I ask him about his job. (He’s a lawyer.) “Your work sounds intriguing,” I say. He doesn’t respond.
That night, I see that he’s unmatched. It’s okay, though; his profile writeup was worth the price of admission.
About an hour after Astrid and I first start talking, she opens Bumble again.
“In the time we’ve been sitting here, 10 new people have liked you,” she says. We go through the profiles. There’s one man, a guy named Jack, who looks promising. “We” send him a message. A few hours later he unmatches without comment.
I tell Astrid that I wonder if some of these guys are getting cold feet about my age.
“I don’t think you should spend too much time thinking about this,” she says. “Your age is your age. It could be this, or any number of other things, none of which have anything to do with you.”
“I’ll never understand men,” I say.
“I don’t even try,” she says.
After we’re done looking through Bumble, I show Astrid the profile of a man on Hinge I find attractive.
“Without shaming anyone, he seems like a little bit of a softboi,” she says.
“What’s a soft boy?” I ask.
“You know, art school, smartly designed t-shirts,” she says. “It’s not an insult, it’s just that he seems…”
She pauses.
“I want to be careful with my words,” she says. “I mean, Belle and Sebastian.”
She’s right. Belle and Sebastian boys are not my type. Or maybe they are! Either way, I don’t have a lot of experience with them.
“There’s a certain kind of man who not only curates his life but the way he projects it to the world,” Astrid continues. “I look at this guy and think, ‘Do you have a record player? Do you shop for vinyl on the weekends? Were you a DJ in college?”
Speaking of record players and vinyl, I’ve been feeling a little “off” about Antoine. He’s been having a challenging time work-wise, and is navigating a move from France to Spain. All of this is fine and good but it seems like all he does lately is complain. It’s a turn-off, to be honest. I don’t need him to be puppies and rainbows all the time, but there’s a level of hyperbole in his language that can get a little tiring. (Sample comment about him not getting enough sleep: “I’m destroyed.”) What can I say to this besides, “I’m sorry”? It doesn’t feel like it’s enough, and it also feels like I’m saying “I’m sorry” to him a lot lately. Maybe something is lost in translation. Maybe I’m not suited to dealing maturely with someone’s ups and downs. I wonder if I ever was.
Seth, the dom from the sex party, is coming over to my apartment this week in order to show me the BDSM ropes, so to speak. (Sorry.) I’m nervous. He tells me that he wants to make sure that he brings the right toys for our “date.” “Is it okay if I give you a call tomorrow to figure it out?” he asks.
I tell him “yes”— but I honestly don’t know what I’m going to say. The truth is that I just want to be smacked on the ass. Hard. And see where things go from there.
I get the sense that Seth is not going to disappoint. We have a 45 minute long conversation about what I want him to do, what I expect from the situation, and what some of my boundaries might be.
“I want to be exploratory,” I tell him. I apologize for the lack of specificity.
“Okay, first we’ll try sensations and then find your limit,” he says. “We can do an amuse bouche. A tasting menu of things.”
I laugh.
Seth goes through a list of toys he has and the sorts of sensations they create. He asks me if I want to be marked or bruised. I tell him “no.” And I say “no” to cuffs or restraints though I explain that I’m open to being blindfolded.
“I’ll see how I feel,” I tell him.
“Of course,” he says.
While we’re on the phone together, Seth texts me a picture of his “toy bag.” He wants to explain what each toy is used for and then curate a selection for our session. His toy bag has over two dozen items. At least eight types of floggers. A few paddles. A riding crop or two. There are “sting-y” toys, he explains, and ones that make more of a “thud.” Silicone, he says, is the “height of sting-y.”
“I suspect I’ll like the thudding better,” I say. “But who knows?”
I think about Liam’s comment about blowing my back out and start chuckling.
I’m fascinated by the terminology that Seth uses to describe each toy and its form and function. When a toy is “mean,” he explains, it has the potential to really pack a punch. (He says this about a set of acrylic paddles he’s just added to his collection.) “Car wash floggers,” are just what they sound like: Floggers that look like the sort of things you’d find suspended from the ceiling at a drive-thru.
Seth directs my attention to a paddle that looks like a cheese board. It is, in fact, a cheese board! It’s made of olive wood and purchased at Williams-Sonoma. I chuckle. “This is so creative!” I say.
“Any aversion to leather?” he asks. “I’ve played with vegans and it can be tricky.”
Seth and I discuss what I’ll be wearing. I tell him I’ll be dressed in a white button-up shirt and a black thong so that he has access to my ass cheeks. “I’m going to be nervous,” I tell him. “I don’t always like the way my body looks.”
I assume he’s heard this many times before.
We talk about what I can expect to happen after our session; what sort of “aftercare” I might like. Will I want a hug? A cuddle?
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ll probably just want to talk about it. When I’m nervous I talk a lot.”
“We’ll have a dialogue,” he says.
Seth tells me to make sure I have a bottle of water on hand. I say that I’ll have one for each of us.
It occurs to me that maybe I should have some snacks on hand. I mean, I dunno. Should I offer him tea when he arrives? Coffee? Should I put together a cheese plate? (Insert joke about cheeseboard paddle here.) A bowl of mixed nuts? I consider making a Trader Joe’s run. Who knows, maybe I’ll even run into the other guy from the sex party!
After we get off the phone, I text Max a picture of Seth’s open toy bag.
“LUCKY!” she writes.
Later, we talk on the phone.
“This guy hit the jackpot with you,” she says.
I write this down.
“Can you stop taking notes?” she asks.
“No,” I say.
Max suggests that I try the eye mask or silk blindfold as part of the “play” with Seth. She wonders whether being able to see his face will distract me from my experience because I’ll be thinking about his. I tell her this is a great point.
“What do you want to achieve from this?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I just want to be exploratory. I’m curious if I’ll get high the same way I did when Antoine spanked me.”
“It’ll be interesting if you can achieve the high without intimacy,” she says.
I tell her I’m not sure what she means.
“Are you saying the high is intimacy?” I ask.
“Your control group is intimacy,” she explains. “Antoine and you have a real connection. Many people have BDSM experiences without that.”
I tell Max I have plans to go hiking with Holly about an hour after Seth leaves. She bursts into laughter.
“You’re going to be tired,” she says. “All those chemicals running through your body.”
Max also suspects I’m going to be hungry. Maybe even depressed. A come-down. I tell her I hope not. I have things to do, people to see!
“Are you going to lock the cats out of the room?” she asks.
I tell her about the one time that my male cat, a 20-pounder, sat on the end of the bed watching me have sex. I guess he was just trying to be protective. But I can’t have that happen again. Max agrees.
“They don’t need to see this,” she says.
She suggests I pick some music to drown out the sound of the thwacking.
"Oh, is it loud?” I ask. Then I feel silly for even asking the question.
Old school Belle and Sebastian boys are a-okay with me. But I get it. Definitely little chance of a smack or thump with that type 😂