Sex in the Title (14 page)

Narc’s acceptance of the nickname “Chiggah” was the only exception to his sensitivity about race, and it wasn’t until college that he would lighten up about the issue. Early in Narc’s first year of college, in the fall of 1989, Evan accidentally caught a glimpse of Narc’s eight inches of manhood and blurted out, “Wow!...Now I understand the origins of the Wang family name…”

“That’s not funny,” Narc snapped defensively at his roommate.

“Whoa, Narc. Don’t take offense, man. You’re representin’ as they say. Next time I hear anyone say that Asians are small, I’ll have them see you.”

With that exchange, Narc became less protectively paranoid about his name, and started to take pride in the fact that he could personally undermine the stereotypical notions that people had of the Asian physique. When he and Evan went out together, he sometimes even referred to himself jokingly as a “Wangman,” if he was doing a particularly good job of making Evan more appealing to the women they approached.

Nevertheless, he stuck with the nickname “Narc” throughout college and afterwards, after growing attached to it. Evan and Narc’s other college buddies welcomed the name because it seemed short for “narcissist,” which – in their view – aptly described the stylishly dressed, mirror-obsessed college student. When he spent too much time getting ready for a night out or admiring himself in the mirror, they would pronounce his name “Narse” to tease him about his vanity. Narc in turn nicknamed Evan “Libby” as shorthand for “Evan the libido” and – when Evan was particularly out of control – Narc would call him “Whiplash Libby” to describe the neck injuries Evan suffered any time an attractive female passed by.

Although Narc had the grades and test scores to enroll in Princeton, he chose the slightly less prestigious but more liberal Brown College because it was farther from home and struck him as a less WASPy environment. It was a difficult choice for him, given how much his parents wanted him to stay local and go to a marginally more prestigious college, but he ultimately won them over with a promise to study pre-law or pre-med and get into a good graduate school.

While college provides a time and place for many people to rebel and explore their values, it had a certain moderating force on Narc, who had already done quite a bit of exploring and rebelling in high school. At Brown, Narc dabbled in drugs less often and became more intellectually and academically inclined (although he still regularly fantasized about the NBA and played for the college basketball team). In high school, hanging out with the gansta folks was a way to rebel against all of the myopic nerds of his class, but in college, he found that there were plenty of rebels among his intelligent classmates: students with crazy haircuts, whacky political views, unconventional post-college plans, and a drug record much worse than his. There were also plenty of Asians who broke the ethnic stereotype he so actively resisted in high school. Consequently, the need to rebel seemed less urgent, and being at Brown rather than Princeton was, in his mind, already a rebellion of sorts.

During college, Narc didn’t entirely abandon his “Chiggah” status; he still checked in with his gangsta friends at home during summer and holiday visits to Newark, and he had one friend and teammate from the Brown basketball team who was culturally identical to them, but with a high school diploma and stellar SAT scores.

Narc became even more of a “playa” in college, as he discovered how easy it was for him to attract women with his good looks, his mastery of pop and hip-hop culture, his impressive performances on the college basketball team, and his reputation for being extraordinary in the sack. By his senior year, several happy customers fondly referred to Narc as “Big Everlast” after learning from firsthand experience that his body was truly proportional and that he could perform as well in bed as he did on the court. Narc’s “scorecard,” as he liked to call it, improved substantially in college. And Evan, who was equally addicted to and skilled at pursuing women, made for an excellent wingman.

One vice that Narc acquired in college was collecting and consuming pornography. This bad habit actually became a point of contention between him and Evan, who was – despite his oversexed libido – somewhat opposed to the practice, for a variety of idiosyncratic and ideological reasons. Evan had enrolled in a women’s studies course thinking that he would meet enough women there to start a harem, but ironically ended up being influenced by certain feminist ideas – particularly once he started dating Zoe, a fellow student in the class.

Quite apart from any feminist objections, Evan also thought it was embarrassingly tacky to have a pornographic film playing on their living room television. He viewed masturbation as a personal activity, and considered pornography a mindless, masturbatory aid that should be viewed only privately, if at all. He was also somewhat squeamish about the possibility that someone – particularly Zoe – might come over unannounced and notice that there was a porno playing.

One time, when Evan was in the shower, Narc went out for some errands without turning off a porno that was playing in the living room. Narc had left the door unlocked and, a few minutes later, Zoe showed up unexpectedly early. When she loudly demanded an explanation from her shower-dripping date, Evan managed to convince her that he was doing preliminary research on a possible paper concerning the degradation of women in pornography.

Later that night, after she had left, Evan confronted Narc about the issue.

“What’s the big deal, yo?” Narc said passively, from the couch. “Watchin’ porn is part of my freedom.” His feet were propped up on the coffee table as he followed a basketball game blasting away on their TV. “It’s something I could never do at home. And the shit is cool. The porn professionals are smokin’.”

Narc looked over at Evan, who was sitting in the comfortable beanbag chair notorious for prompting armchair discussions and wildly speculative theories in anyone who sat in it.

“How can you call them professionals?” Evan objected. “They’re glorified prostitutes for God’s sake. And it’s totally demeaning to women, this porn crap.”

“If it’s so demeaning to women, why do you watch it?” Narc asked, looking back at the game.

“Only because you have that shit playing in the living room, so it’s hard not to notice it. But I would never go out buy a porn flick. And if you’d stop leaving those tapes lying around the house I swear to God I’d never plug one into the VCR.”

“Where’s your self control, you big hypocrite?” Narc asked derisively but lightheartedly.

“Look, I’m a little curious, but I’ll admit that it’s wrong, and I’m ready to swear off porn entirely if you’ll just help me to implement the decision.”

“I can’t believe this sanctimonious bullshit you’re tryin’ to feed me! You don’t think you’re demeaning women every time you go out and try to get laid?”

“That’s totally different.”

“Why?”

“Because there I have to deal with women as people, not sex objects.”

“You are so full of it, Evan! You’re dealing with them as people only so that you can ultimately deal with them as sex objects.”

“No. I’m dealing with them as people only so that we can deal with each other as sex objects. It’s a mutual exploitation. Whereas with porn you’re just exploiting them.”

“They’re exploiting my fuckin’ pocketbook, Evan! They’re profiting from my masturbation, so it’s a mutual exploitation. And it’s a free market system. They don’t have to become porn stars. Clearly, they like it on some level, or maybe the money makes it worth their while. But they freely chose that shit. Just like if you charm some babe into bed, she freely chose to go there with you.”

Evan got up from the beanbag chair and stood up, as if to make his closing argument.

“Look, even if you can come up with some convoluted capitalist justification for pornography, there’s no denying that it reduces women to their sexual anatomy…Imagine if you discovered that your mom or your sisters were in a porn!”

What started as a casual theoretical debate suddenly hit a raw nerve in Narc. He jumped to his feet, walked over to Evan and moved right up into his face, which was two inches below his, and said, “Don’t you ever bring my family into a conversation like this.” Narc looked as if at any moment he might use his lean and muscular arms to give Evan a facelift.

“Whoa. Whoa. Calm down, man,” Evan said, backing up a little.

“My family has nothing to do with this, OK?”

“Of course not. Of course not. Bad example. I think we need a beer for this conversation,” Evan said, backing away from Narc and moving towards the kitchen. “Let’s take my family,” he continued, pulling a six-pack out of the fridge. “Imagine if you discovered that my sister – ”

“Take families out of this, OK?” Narc replied, this time less stridently.

In Narc’s mind, family was sacred and not to be combined with the profane, the sexual, or the morally dubious. As far as Narc was concerned, no man could ever go near his sisters unless he was prepared to be the most loyal, faithful, loving, caring, and providing husband of the best fairy tales he had ever heard. And, as far as he was concerned, his parents had had sex only three times – once to create him, and two more times to create his younger sisters.

While Narc’s parents seemed to him almost mechanically assiduous and asexual, particularly when it came to their laundry business or keeping the house in order, they were very much in love with each other. But their absolute devotion to each other and to their children expressed itself entirely in deeds and almost never in words or physical gestures. Only on a few, exceptionally rare occasions had Narc actually seen his parents become physically affectionate with one another.

When Narc’s youngest sister turned ten, and he was a sixteen-year-old who had more than proven himself capable of managing things in the house, his parents instituted a rule that they followed religiously ever since: after 11 p.m., their bedroom door was locked and they were not to be disturbed unless there was a bona fide emergency in the house. Narc always assumed that this was just their private time to sort out family issues, discuss private matters, and spend time alone, without the pressures of their children. It was unthinkable to Narc that anything sexual took place after 11 p.m. in their bedroom. And so Narc developed an idealized, consecrated sense of family as an impregnable, asexual unit of trust and support.

Evan had only an intuitive inkling of Narc’s complex feelings about family, but he realized that he needed to try a different tack if he was going to get anywhere with Narc on the pornography issue. Once they had each downed two beers, Evan tried a direct appeal to self-interest.

“Narc, the real bottom line is that you should drop porn because it’s bad for your scorecard.”

“How so?” Narc asked, in amused skepticism.

“Because it’ll make you develop totally unrealistic expectations about the women you can have, what it takes to seduce them, and what they’ll be willing to do with you sexually.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’ll destroy your pick up skills…After watching enough porn flicks you’ll soon forget that ‘bend over’ isn’t a good opening line.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Narc protested. “It’s just a friggin’ movie.”

“Yeah, but movies have a subtle and powerful influence on the mind. After enough porn exposure, you’ll think that you can go in for a doctor’s appointment, tell the hot doctor you want a complete physical examination and twenty seconds later start fucking her and her hot assistant in the patient room.”

“You’ve gotta drop that women’s studies class, Evan.”

“It has nothing to do with that, Narc. I’m telling you, I’ve thought about these issues on my own before.”

“Then whassup’ wit’ you reading
Playboy
Magazine
and those other rags if it ain’t cool for me to watch porn?” Narc said, slipping playfully into ghetto mode.

“The magazines I look at are totally different. They just celebrate the esthetics of a woman’s body – not its subjugation to a man’s sexual will.”

“I’m not seein’ the difference, yo.”

“Magazines like
Playboy
show the art of a woman’s body in a classy and artistic way. It’s art. Porn flicks are just plain obscene. There’s no artistry whatsoever. No plot. No originality. Just women being fucked. And the camera angles are all from the male perspective, which only confirms that porn is really just another form of male domination.”

“Oh and there’s no male domination when the male photographer tells the woman how to pose for the males like you reading
Playboy
?”

“That’s totally different.”

“Evan, you’re feeding me so much bullshit, that I’m thinking you’re the one who should go to law school. Forget that computer programming crap.”

“I’m serious. The magazines I look at never portray sex itself. Only beautiful women. There’s a big difference there.”

“Evan, what face exercises do you do?” Narc asked, in a calm, matter-of-fact manner.

“What do you mean?” Evan replied, confused.

“You know, those face muscle exercises that you do each night in front of the mirror…”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know, the ones that enable you to spout bullshit like this with a straight face.”

“I’m being totally honest and serious, Narc.”

There was no changing Narc’s mind about porn. Although Evan did manage to win a compromise out of him: there would be no porn tapes lying around the house, and there would be no pornography playing in the living room unless Narc was alone in the house and Evan was expected to be away for at least six hours.

Despite Narc’s good intentions at honoring their agreement, there were a few more accidents. Evan was convinced that these events contributed to the demise of his brief relationship with Zoe.

“Don’t blame that shit on me, yo!” Narc said, after Evan suggested that his porn habit was to blame. “You know damn well she dumped yo’ ass because of that Whiplash Libby fiasco two days ago.”

Narc was referring to an incident in which Evan was supposed to pick up Zoe at the library. Evan was about fifteen minutes late so Zoe impatiently spotted him approaching and began walking towards him. He hadn’t yet seen her since he was looking to the side while walking. A few moments later, when Zoe was about thirty feet away from Evan, she tried to wave to him. But Evan was too busy blatantly checking out a gorgeous girl in spandex jogging by, just as he was crossing the bike path. Whiplash Libby’s diverted attention caused an oncoming cyclist to have a minor accident and set Zoe off into a rage.