Spontaneity is sexy!

If you happen to be in a canoe already, that’s different

Aaron Levere staff

Well, it’s that time of year again, when I reveal too much information about my personal life to make some romance-related point in honour of St. Valentine, all for you, the faithful reader. Gather round.

As you may recall, last year my muse and I went to our local health clinic to be tested for all manner of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) because — as we all learned — responsibility is god damned sexy!

Two more-or-less chaste weeks later, our test results came back giving us the green light, and away we went! In the dark, on a train, in a park, in the rain, in a tree, in a house, with a mouse (well, not with a mouse), in a box, with a fox, here or there or anywhere. Over the course of the past year, we got it on in seven different provinces (only BC, New Brunswick and PEI missed out).

But despite our roving enthusiasm for the nature-state, there remains outstanding the famous Pierre Berton quip that a Canadian is someone who “knows how to make love in a canoe.” Canadian or not, that’s gotta be worth a try.

And so we did . . .

. . . try, that is.

The fact is, all men of any age will have difficulty getting it up on occasion (or non-occasion as the case may be). There are a number of possible reasons for this. A very small percentage of men have some sort of mechanical problem, something physically preventing erections. Many men have difficulty if it is cold or if they have been drinking too much alcohol (and possibly also caffeine, though this is not as conclusively proven). However, the vast majority of men experiencing untimely flaccidity likely have one psychological block or another. These can range from ‘stage fright’ to depression to just plain old turned off.

A case in point. It was a brisk fall afternoon as we paddled with purpose to the far end of the lake where the tall rushes promised privacy and shelter from the autumnal breeze. A good pointer: if you can jam your canoe between some sturdy clumps of reeds, it makes the canoe that much more stable while you’re jostling about. Perfect for, say, unbuttoning or de-gitching, or maybe even for building a makeshift bed out of life jackets.

Finally we had it all figured out, clothes piled in a dry place, position established, condom at the ready. But as fate would have it for whatever reason, by the time the jostling gave way to rocking, there was, well . . . no where to wear the condom, shall we say.

Maybe it was from dangling in the damp, dusk air too long. Maybe it was the precarious balance, knowing that a cold plunge was just as likely to be the climax. Maybe it was the fact that I had been so drunk the night before that I woke up on a trampoline in some stranger’s back yard somewhere en route between the bar and my bed. Maybe it was simply the fact that sex in a canoe inevitably brings to mind the wrinkly, anti-sexy image of Pierre Berton. Or maybe it was the protracted build-up during the extensive conspiring, strategizing, arranging, nudifying and manoeuvering.

Expectations can kill the mood faster than any uninvited dead historian in a bow tie, and the anticipation of this moment had swelled larger than my manliness could manage. A bit of afternoon lovin’ had taken on mythical, Canada-sized proportions. Beavers, bush, j-strokes and softwood lumber taunted me with their double entendres.

I suspect that despite the tippy canoe, the tipsy night before, and the nippy breeze, it was really the fact that I had just had way too much time to think about it.

Whatever the reason, it happens. And there’s not a lot I can do about it. It’s humbling.

If I learned something from this experience it’s that spontaneity, like responsibility, is also sexy. The moment was motivated more by the idea of sex in a canoe than by the usual overwhelming drive to squeeze our sweaty bodies together. It was too planned.

One way or another, sex is all about surprises. You might surprise your body or it might surprise you. Whatever happens, there’s nothing like a little creative adaptation to keep things spontaneous.

More than enough said, I’m sure.