Page 38 of The Romantic Agenda
Fox has turned his face firmly toward the window, hiding his mouth behind his fist. Malcolm is wheezing now, crying for Jesus to help him.
“I thought we were having a serious conversation!”
“I’m sorry, but it’s kind of funny,” Summer admits, unable to hold back her giggles anymore.
“It’s not!” Joy’s mouth is slightly hanging open in performative shock. “I don’t get it. I feel the same way about people sending nudes. Like, the one time I tried a dating app on a dare, my inbox gotfloodedwith dick pics. Why?”
Summer recovers first. “Oh, unsolicited dick pics are super gross across the board. But. Like. If I’m dating someone and I ask for it, that’s different. Then it’s okay.”
Malcolm has started staring into space. Every few seconds he almost loses the battle to another laughing fit.
“But why would you ask for it? It’s just a picture. I don’t get it.What am I supposed to do with that? What is that supposed to do for me?”
Fox comes back and says, “Use your imagination.”
“I’ve been doing that for fifteen years. I’m tired! I just want the answers! Give me cheat codes.”
“No,” Fox says, a mixture of frustrated and... embarrassed? Why would he be embarrassed? He runs a hand down his face. “I mean, that’s what you do with it. You use your imagination. Sexting.”
Joy watches him closely, processing what he’s said. Softly, she replies, “No.”
Malcolm loses it again.
“Will you stop?” Joy demands around her own pleased laughter. “Help me explain it to Fox and Summer, you jerk.” She throws a pillow at Malcolm, who catches it.
“Okay, okay. Wait, hold on.” Malcolm has to take several deep calming breaths before he begins. “Let go of the pictures for a second. Let’s say you’re with someone and they get naked. And then so do you.”
“Hold on, let me stop you right there—”
“No, no, no. It’s fine. I’m gonna explain it for them. There is absolutely no miscommunication, you both know what’s happening, but this is where things stop for Joy. Seeing a naked someone, thinking about them being naked, does nothing for her. It doesn’t happen even if there’s an emotional connection between them. They’re just naked.”
“But if you know nothing is gonna happen, why would you get naked?” Summer asks.
“Because I don’t care?” Joy shrugs. “Yeah, that trips a lot of people up. I like being naked. It truly doesn’t bother me.”
Malcolm tosses Joy’s pillow back to her. “She’s practically a nudist.”
“Since I was twenty. Living in a dorm profoundly changed me. I’ll get naked right now and be perfectly comfortable.”
“And just to clarify,” Malcolm continues, “nothing will happen without an active decision to have sex on her part.”
Summer asks him, “Is it like that for you too?”
“Mostly. I’ve leaned demi enough times to make me question it.”
“That’s so strange to me,” Summer says. “I understand what you said, and it makessense, but I can’t reconcile it in my brain.” She makes a motion of trying and failing to link her fingers together.
Joy says, “And now you know how I feel. Two different sides of the same coin.”
End scene.
Joy’s seen that lightbulb moment so many times she’s lost count. She became a pro at explaining by accident. If she treated everyone else like the special unicorn, if she pretended to be fascinated and baffled, if she stopped pleading and begging for them to understand, it stopped the questions. It makes them think. It’s simply less emotionally exhausting to center their experiences.
“So you never think about sex? Ever?” Summer pushes.
“Oh, I think about it all the time, because I have to.”
Understanding visceral sexual attraction will always be out of her wheelhouse. But she does try to understand it on an abstract and physical sensation level, like how Malcolm did. Sex is everywhere! It’s inescapable! A lot of the time she felt like if she didn’t get on the bandwagon she’d be left behind to die of cholera on the trail.
