Normally the title is the last thing I write, but today for some reason it was the first and I felt that the planned post just wasn't equal to it. That may be because when I was thinking about this post today talking about sex wasn't part of the plan, but it also may be because the title seems to hint that I have some sort of grand unifying statement to make about these three seemingly disparate elements.
And indeed they are disparate. A connection between politics and sex is clear enough; I don't know if being in power gives politicians (historically mostly men) a feeling of entitlement or if the strain of politicking lends one to bend the moral principles so many of the political class say they have written on their hearts, but from Alexander Hamilton's affair with Maria Reynolds to Grover Cleveland's bastard child to the social media savvy Anthony Weiner, US political life increasingly marches to a rather booty shaking drumbeat of sexual scandaliciousness.
The connection between coffee and politics is also clear. European coffee houses were places were people of all classes and outlooks could discuss the matters of the day, and became associated with republicanism and equality. Some authors suggest that it is not coincidental that coffee houses were established in Europe just before the Enlightenment began, suggesting a cause an effect relationship as coffee allowed European thinkers to liberate their minds from a perpetual haze of alcohol. Closer to home, coffee replaced tea in the colonies as our forefathers and mothers tried to distance themselves as much as possible from all things British after Parliament placed taxes on tea and gave the British East India Company exclusive access to the colonial tea market.
Today there are coffeehouses that seem diametrically opposed when it comes to politics (if we think of politics as an extension of our beliefs and cultural makeup). On the one hand you have the locally owned Bollos Bakeries of the world, where crunchy anti-establishment types meet up to do their crunchy anti-establishment things. On the other hand you have your five friendly local outposts of the global coffee capitalist Empire, where the establishment goes to get their pumpkin mocha latte fix because Starbucks has drive through, Bollos does not, and the establishment has shit to do. We don't have time to sit around all day scrawling poetry in moleskine journals and contemplate the holes in our sweaters. Here is your $5.95. Give me my damn coffee and let me get on my way. Oh, is that a new Bruce Springsteen Album? Don't mind if I do.
But sex and coffee? That is a tough one. Coffee is not, in my experience, and aphrodisiac, and it doesn't lower the inhibitions. In fact, as it sharpens the mind, it makes it less likely that you are going to go home with that librarian sitting in the corner eyeing you up over the top of her Kindle.
Before I go on, just let me say that the Kindle and other e-readers seriously fucked up my game. In the old days, if a woman was reading a book and you were interested in having sexual intercourse with her as soon as humanly possible, a safe opening move was to go over and say "Hey, is that the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, Italian sculptor and general renaissance man? What do you think of it? Do you like it?" 6 months to 10 years later, after a long, careful campaign with many highs and lows, you're checking the expiration date on that old dusty box of condoms and rummaging around for your Best of James Brown CD (don't you have an Ipod yet?) because you, Sir, are a sex machine and it's about to be too hot in the hot tub.
But now? You just don't know. Is she reading 50 Shades of Gray and imaging all the things she could do to you? Or is she reading Jane Goodall's 1986 classic The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior and comparing you to the protagonists? You just don't know.
Returning to the matter at hand: we still seek a link between sex and coffee. As I said previously, coffee makes it less likely that you are going to hook up with that librarian because you will start analyzing the consequences of your actions and decide that its not really worth it. You got an exam in a couple weeks, after all, that you have to study for, and in the morning you really got to get the cat to the therapist because she finally steeled herself up for the much anticipated confrontation with the Roomba and she lost in a split decision. It's really effected her self-esteem, and she just hasn't been the same since. She may need some kitty Zoloft or something. If you are up all night banging the bejeezus out of some librarian you met at Starbucks, well, you won't have time to do all that really important stuff. So you pass it up, order your latte, and be on your busy way.
Alcohol is way better for all this. I mean, if you go to the club and some girl has her bootie poppin in front of you and you got some Jose Cuervo in you there is only one thought on your alcohol addled mind, and it isn't how things might have turned out different for Sweden during the Great Northern War if Charles XII hadn't been killed during the siege of Fredriksten in 1718. You are more likely to risk a proposition, she is probably more likely to accept, and in the morning you'll be making pancakes. I hope you save some of that syrup.
Coffee shops may also have cute baristas, but if a cute coffee barista asks me if I want another coffee I am going to say no, because too much coffee gives me the jitters. But if a well endowed bartender asks me if I want another beer, I am certain to say yes; beer and boobs in any combination are my kryptonite. I shudder, dear friends, to think of the amount of money I have parted with simply because of a strategically unbuttoned button or a well practiced lean across the bar and a nice smile. Probably enough money to buy a good friend who is moving to Indiana a snowblower or two.
Coffee has one good thing for it though, when it comes to sex. If you are married, and if you are subject to the perpetual exhaustion of children, drinking coffee at night increases the chances that you are actually going to be awake enough at night to have sex with your spouse, provided of course that you are willing to stop checking on the status of your fantasy football team and she is willing to stop taking over the world.
Well, I think that is about it. It's been a long slog, I have failed to link it all together (though I might take a shot at it mathematically), and I am going to bed....to sleep. Because tonight I have not had my coffee but rather been sipping on a jigger of excellent rum, and I find that the combination of alcohol and perpetual exhaustion have made sleep seem preferable to all other activities that one could engage in at 11:41 PM on a Sunday night, except maybe getting together with some buds and singing a jaunty tune, such as this:
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Godiva was a lady who through Coventry did ride.
To show all of the villagers her lovely white hide.
The most observant villager, an Engineer of course,
Was the only one that noticed that Godiva road a horse.
