DBad's Dos and Don'ts when waiting to hear back from a publisher

As you know I've finally finished my book and it is now out in the big bad world of slush piles and email inboxes with its fate is resting in the hands of whoever happens to be working in the office that day and picks it up to read.

This is a scary and nerve wracking process. The agony of waiting, the creeping doubt and uncertainty that is inevitable when you put your heart on the line and leave it there for someone else to deem worthy.

Once it is out there is nothing much else you can do but wait... And wait...

Here's a short list of dos and don'ts I have come up with to help pass the time and ease the unsettling madness that is sure to creep in once you've sent your baby off to the judge, jury and executioner of your words.

DO send the publisher a quick email or message to let them know you've sent them something and that you look forward to hearing back.

DON'T send them endless emails and tweets and Facebook messages and Instagram pics and phone calls and carrier pigeons asking if they've read it yet and what did they think and don't they know they're missing out on the next JK Rowling and your entire future happiness depends on their saying yes and that you just can't cope with the waiting oh my god won't somebody read it!

DO give it some time. Some publishers can take up to six or even nine months to get back to you. If you don't hear back in a couple of weeks, or months, it's not because they hate you, it's because they have hundreds of manuscripts sent to them and who knows where yours is in the pile.

DON'T wear out your send/receive button and double check your spam folder every ten minutes. Not only will you disappoint yourself and send yourself mad, you will also end up buying penis enlargement tablets and sending Nigerian princes your bank details in a fog of frustrated tears and confusion.

DO find something else to do while waiting. Start another project, write blogs or articles that accompany your book and self promote them via social media, go for walks, take up a hobby, paint your house, fix your garden, take your mind off the wait.

DON'T pull out your hair, curl up into a ball, weep in the corner and eat an entire family sized bag of m&ms every day while you wait. Trust me. It's not good for your skin.

DO remember you're a valid person and your project is valid and that there are other options open to you other than getting published by a major publishing house. Remember JK Rowling was rejected umpteen times for the first Harry Potter book and now she owns a castle.

DON'T lose hope.

Now where did I hide that bag of m&ms...

The Two Parts to Sex Education

As I've recently pointed out in previous blogs, sex education in schools is pretty poor. It's very basic and fraught with problems from outside sources, lack of resources and a whole lot of fear.

Don't tell kids about sex! They'll just run out and have it!

The thing is, sex is multifaceted and such a deep and involved subject it simply cannot be glossed over and treated as an aside to PE or Humanities. It should have it's own specific classes. And when I say classes I mean at least two different ones.

You see, there are two major reasons people have sex and only one of them is ever really addressed (albeit poorly) in schools. The first reason, and the only one we ever really get taught in classrooms is reproduction. Human biology. This, I believe, is suited to the science classroom. We all did our “life-cycle of a frog” assignment in school or the “Birds and the Bees” assignment on pollen and plant reproduction and this is where human reproduction should be taught. Penises, vaginas, sperm and eggs. We should learn about ovulation and periods and the developmental stages of a foetus.

This scientific teaching should, I believe, happen in both primary and high school. In early primary I think learning about the names of body parts and their functions is vital, then in late primary go into more detail about what they do and what they are for, and then into early high school and continuing throughout, we should incorporate the safe sex message and knowledge of STIs and how to prevent them.

If you take the shame and embarrassment and fear factor out of the lessons on body parts and sex with children then you are off to a fantastic start and a way of easier, more open communication as our kids turn into teenagers.

Now we come to the second reason people have sex, and it's actually (according to many surveys world wide) the main reason.

Pleasure. It feels good. It does! It feels bloody awesome. All parts of sexual intimacy, from kissing and touching to having actual physical sex. And, because teenagers are slaves to their own wants and desires, of course they're going to bloody do it! It's what teenagers do. They do stuff that feels good.

Teenagers don't often think of the future beyond the next week. They want to go to a party, they go. They want to eat a cheeseburger, they go get one. They want to have sex, they do it. We can't stop them by trying to scare them or bully them. We just can't. That's been proven time and time again. The rise in teenage pregnancies and STIs in young people is absolute proof that the “don't do it, it's wrong” message isn't working.

I think, like I said in the beginning of this piece, we need to split sex education into two equally important, and yet completely separate classes. Science, to talk about the actual science of reproduction and everything that goes along with that, and an entirely new class that revolves around pleasure, relationships, emotions, consent and all the other things that go along with sex that have nothing to do with babies.

When you single out reproduction in a sex ed class, you completely ignore things like LGBTI sexual relationships, which are equally as important to young people. You pass over things like consent and rape and sexual assault. Where to get help. Who to talk to. How to say no. How to accept no.

We need to focus on the pleasure side. What feels good. Why it feels good. The responsibilities we have in consensual relationships. The balance of pleasure. The fact that there are many other things young people can do to feel that sexual pleasure without actually having intercourse at all. Masturbation is so rarely talked about to teenagers and yet I can guarantee you almost every single one of them is doing it.

We need to talk about the emotional side of sex; boyfriends/girlfriends, lust, heartbreak. The social side like peer pressure, bullying, slut-shaming and the ever increasing online social aspects, cyber-bullying, sexting, online predators.

I also think it's important to incorporate parents and guardians in these teachings (probably not in the same room as their kids. That's a sure fire way to get kids to not talk about anything) but in conjunction.

It really is a huge topic and a massively important one for the future health and well being of our kids, both physically and emotionally.

It's not something we can just slip in at the end of a PE class and feel we have responsibly addressed. That's just plain ignorance, bred from fear and I can tell you, it's costing us a lot more and damaging our children far more than little bit of embarrassment you might get at the thought of telling your teenagers about the clitoris.

Sex Education and the lack of it. Or, Why the hell did I write my book?

I have finally finished writing my book, A Girl's Guide To Getting Off, and other things you won't learn in sex ed.

It all began when I was running a group of skillshare events with a friend about sexual pleasure, sex toys and Gspots and all the good things sex can do and discovering how many women over forty had never had an orgasm or even knew what pleasures their bodies were capable of. They were telling me things like "I wish I'd learnt all this as a teenager. It would have saved me a lot of confusion, self doubt and bad decision making as an adult."
It got me thinking of my own sex education and what I wish for my daughter... And I looked and I looked, and I found very little age appropriate stuff on the matter of sex and pleasure and relationships and all of the things we are supposed to automatically know when we "grow up".
So... Being the go-getter that I am, and a person who knows quite a lot about sex, pleasure and how to get the best out of it, I wrote it myself. And below are just some of the many other reasons this book needs to be out there...

Publishers please take note, and check your slush piles. I'm sure it's hiding in there somewhere

Technology is amazing. I mean, the things we can do nowadays! I can have a live video phone conversation with someone sitting in a grass hut in Africa. I can go on a virtual deep sea dive in an almost inaccessible part of the world. I can read the entire works of Shakespeare and all the Mr Men books and then take a tour of The Louvre while listening to a live Doors concert and I don't even have to get out of bed!

The wealth of information that comes through these little lit-up screens in our hands and on our laps is so far beyond 2000 it's crazy. Everything can be found by Googling it and I mean everything. The good, the bad and the ugly. Really, really ugly.

Yes, technology these days is amazing, but it can be fraught with problems too. One of the main issues that comes from such a huge influx of information is that it can be tricky to separate the truth from the lies, the real from the fake. And, if we lack the ability to process all this information in a way that helps us understand what we are seeing, why we are seeing it and what it all actually means, it can become a very dangerous thing.

One of the groups most vulnerable to the exposure of false, misleading and damaging information are teenagers. The brain is still developing, traits like reason and risk management are still developing or changing, and (as we are all aware) teenagers already know everything, so they can't be logically explained to or told otherwise. And now, with this universe of information in their pockets, they can claim to be experts on almost anything and have the “proof” to back it up.

Now that's all well and good when it comes to the latest Xbox game or the season finale of The Walking Dead, but when it comes to things that can be potentially life changing and damaging we, as adults, parents, friends and members of the universe, have a duty of care to make sure our younger generations are given the right information and tools to move into adulthood with minimum damage. It's fantastic that all this information is out there literally at your fingertips, but giving kids free reign of it all and not helping them process and understand it is as dangerous as letting a toddler play with an oven and figure out for themselves why their hands are getting burnt.

And this is all too obvious when it comes to sex. Proper sex education of young people is in decline. Parents are too afraid or embarrassed to talk to their kids about sex and teachers are afraid of the parents' reactions to their teachings and therefore keep it so basic that nothing is really taught and real questions are not being answered,and so a lot of kids end up in situations they cannot understand or process properly.

It's an illogical circle really. I won't tell my kids about sex, pleasure, orgasms, safety, consent, relationships and then they will never ever do it til I think they're old enough to handle it, and in doing so push their kids to the step of finding it out for themselves and inevitably seeing and experiencing worse.

The thing is plenty of teenage kids are going to have sex. Whether you want them to or not. They will. They have been for generations. And will for years to come. It's normal exploration. Telling them not to doesn't work and telling them not to without any good reasons is even worse. Telling them that sex is dirty, dangerous, bad and wrong is also not going to stop them. What it will do, however is make sure they are uninformed, unsafe, irresponsible and completely against coming to you for any help or advice when things do happen that are less than desired like pregnancy, STIs or sexual assault.

I recently heard of a woman who kicked her 15 year old daughter out of her home because she had got pregnant. Her reason? “I told her not to have sex. She didn't listen. What will the community think of the sort of mother I am who lets her teenager get pregnant.”

I'd be more worried about what the “community” would think of me as a mother who throws a young, pregnant vulnerable child out onto the street... But maybe that's just me.

She hadn't taught her daughter about safe sex. About condoms or the pill. About any of that. She truly believed that no information and “banning” her from doing it was the way to go. It wasn't. It isn't. And it never will be.

In 2011 the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society conducted a survey among nearly 300 secondary school teachers of sexual health from every jurisdiction in Australia including government, Catholic and independent schools.

Some of the key findings were:

* Most sex education teachers are female teachers trained in PE and health.

* Sixteen percent of teachers had no outside training whatsoever, and the majority of those who did attended a one day seminar with only a single focus, which was mainly reproduction.

* Only a quarter of all surveyed teachers had external help from organisations that specialise in sex education.

* Most sex education classes are given to students in years nine and ten with very little being taught in years eleven and twelve.

* Less than fifty percent of respondents taught about the pleasure of sexual behaviour/activity which suggests that Australian sex education focuses more on the negative outcomes rather than an overall approach.

* Over half of all the teachers surveyed said they found it hard to fit sex education into the curriculum as it wasn't allocated time.
* A fifth of all respondents cited a lack in training and resources as to why they avoided teaching some topics

* Just under fifty percent said they were afraid of community/parental backlash from some topics so were less likely to teach or talk about them in class. (including pleasure and same sex attraction)

* Topics that teachers said they would like to see included in the sex ed curriculum were: Same sex attraction, pleasure of sexuality, communication and negotiation skills, sexual decision making, respectful relationships and contraception.

* Almost a quarter of the teachers surveyed were unsure whether their school had a sex education policy.

Actual quote from survey:
“Teachers indicated that sexuality education should start in primary school and cover topics such as relationships and feelings, names and functions of body parts and reproduction. For most of the topics listed in this survey teachers stated that they should be taught earlier than they were actually teaching them as per curriculum. ...While the majority of teachers (51%) thought sexuality education was very effective in increasing knowledge and understanding in sexuality and sexual health, they judged sexuality education programs less effective for teaching young people about exploring and clarifying feelings, values and attitudes, developing and strengthening skills and promoting and sustaining risk-reducing behaviour.”

 

It's clear from this that most teachers are aware of what should be taught and when it should be taught but are mostly afraid to do so. Especially when it comes to teaching kids about pleasure which, when you think about it, is what sex is. It is pleasurable. It feels good. It is ultimately why most people have sex - for the sensation.

Telling children it is wrong or bad or dirty or beneath them is the first step to creating guilt, shame and confusion. But it feels good! How can it be bad??
In the same way we teach kids to enjoy chocolate but not be irresponsible with it and eat nothing but junk, we need to be able to tell our kids the same kind of things about sex. Sure it feels good, it can be one of the best things out there, but it comes with risks and responsibilities and ways to make sure you come out the other end undamaged. Just telling them how awful it is, without addressing the things they know to be true (like how good it can feel) is only telling half the story. As adults we know you can't build an Ikea bookshelf without half the instructions, why would we send our kids into the world with only half the instructions and then expect that bookshelf not to come crashing down and potentially kill them?

 Just look at these figures.

STI Rates (taken straight from Australian Bureau of Statistics "social trends" June 2011)

Chlamydia... For women aged 15-19 years, the notification rate increased from 569 per 100,000 in 2001, to 2,228 per 100,000 in 2011
Gonorrhoea... The national notification rate for people aged 15 years and over was 65 per 100,000 population, up from 40 per 100,000 in 2001.
Syphilis... The 15-19 years age group increased by 60%, 35-39 years increased by 84% and 45-49 years increased by 129%.

 HIV AIDS... In 2010, there were 1,031 new cases of HIV among men and women aged 13 years and over, or 5.5 notifications per 100,000 population.

 

 This, all of this, is why I have written my book. I believe there is a great deal of information our teenagers are not getting due to parental ignorance or embarrassment, teacher and school restrictions or lack of guidelines on what can and can't be taught.
There needs to be a place where kids can go to get all their information and knowledge from that is not only age appropriate, but correct, respectful, fully inclusive and spoken in a language they understand. They don't need to be told “no”. They need to be told everything, and then make up their own minds as to what they will do. I truly believe if we want to raise intelligent adults, we need to start with having informed children.

Why can't you just be a MOTHER??

I am about to do something I never in a million years thought I would ever do. Ever. I am about to stick up for Kim Kardashian. I know right. What the fuck?

I will admit it was only about a year or so ago that I found out exactly what a Kardashian was. Seriously. I thought it was a clothing line or a dog breed or something to do with Paris Hilton when I first heard the name. I don't follow celebrity news, I don't read or buy trashy magazines, and I have no interest in watching Entertainment Tonight or any of those things. So yeah. I didn't know who she was or why she was famous or even THAT she was famous. But I digress.
The second thing I am about to do that I never thought I would is to use a Kardashian in the same breath as feminism. I know. Strap yourself in... This IS going somewhere I promise.

I have (apparently) odd views of feminism. You see, I think of feminism as a thing where women can choose to be and do anything they put their minds to. Whether they decide to be a sex worker or a brain surgeon, if they have made the choice to be who they want to be, good on them. Power to you! Yeah sisterhood! I put “apparently” in brackets because I couldn't tell you the number of times I have been told that I am not a feminist because of the work I do, or I am just some silly little brainwashed thing who has been tricked into thinking I'm making my own mind up but really I am just a product of false consciousness and must be saved. Yawn. Yeah, whatever.

So, back to Kim Kardashian. She recently published a photograph of herself online. It's a pic of her in a pretty small leotard, posing butt-popped in the mirror. It's an okay picture. She has a fantastic booty. And, considering Kim Kardashian is famous for being famous and her butt is one of her most famous assets, I say whatever. Enjoy. Wish I had a butt like that.

Enter moral crusader and saver of women and identifier of all things feminist and otherwise, Mia Freedman.

Sitting up on her morally perfect high horse she writes of this picture “Are you a Mother or a Porn Star?” and then goes on to not only shame and ridicule the photograph but deem her some sort of bad mother because, god forbid, she has a body she is proud of and wants to show it off.

Well here is a big hearty fuck you, Mia. Who died and pronounced you god of motherhood and what mothers should do?

I bet you a hundred bucks if it was a picture of a woman posing post baby showing stretch marks or wobbly bits, Mia would declare it “brave” and “beautiful”. If it was a woman of plus size wearing a bikini and posing sexily Mia would post a blog on how wonderful it is that women are loving their bodies... But for some reason this offends her. She talks of the “whip lash” she got from looking at the booty pic and then a pic of Kim's new baby basically saying that, to her, a woman must be one thing once she has a child: A mother. A demure and pure and non sexual thing without any thoughts or ideas of personality beyond that of motherhood.

She goes on to deem the photograph “desperate and sad” because, you know, someone who is famous for having a body like that and showing that they still have a body like that after having a baby is somehow going against what we all know the Kardashians to stand for? Um... No.

You know what IS desperate and sad? The fact that Mia Freedman makes a hell of a lot of money shaming and judging other women for being whatever they choose, under the guise of some kind of concern for the children (won't somebody think of the children!!!!) and saying nothing of any real value or importance other than “look how morally upstanding I am and how shameful and wrong other people are who do things I deem shameful and wrong”.

The thing is, some mothers ARE porn stars. Some mothers are truck drivers. Some mothers stay at home and do the housework. There is nothing in the world wrong with a mother doing things other than being a mother. I know, from my own personal experience, if I was ONLY a mother I would go fucking crazy.

The biggest kick in the face really is the fact that unfortunately some mothers are not very good. Some mothers drink the grocery money and leave their children in dirty nappies and squalid conditions. Some mothers ship their kids off to everyone they can so they can have a social life and do not love or care for them the way they should. Some mothers abuse their children physically and sexually. This is where this outrage should be placed. Not on a picture of a woman (who happens to also be a mother) showing her butt off in a leotard.

I find the whole thing utterly repulsive. How dare you declare, in your oh-so-distateful way, that mothers cannot be sexy or proud of their sexuality. How dare you slut-shame. And, more importantly, how dare you make me get so pissed off I end up writing a blog in defence of a Kardashian! How very dare you!

(Because I have no intention of giving her any more traffic I have not posted a link to the offending blog here. If you want to see it, Google is your friend... But I won't lead you there.)

Norma-Lising Bigotry

You know those times when someone goes spouting off on a subject they know very little about and, as someone who DOES know a bit about it, you start to get cross that they're misusing information, twisting facts and not really giving out proper, correct information?

Yeah, I hate that too.

Then, imagine that person getting paid to spout these views to a mass of people who really don't know the truth from the lies and so take this person's drivel as truth because, well, they've been PAID to say it in a national newspaper so it MUST be true?

Yeah.

Yeah I really hate that too.

Dr Caroline Norma (a lecturer on Social Sciences at RMIT) has done just this with her poorly researched Op Ed piece in the Age on June 19 2012.

Dr Norma's Piece

Her condescending tone and disgust for the profession is apparent within her first sentence with the obvious use of quotation marks wrapped around the term Sex Worker. Like it's not really a real word. Just one the workers have made up for themselves to feel some semblance of self respect...

She then continues on with her "better than you" type of attitude throwing out "facts" about an industry she has no idea about, as if she were feeding breadcrumbs to pigeons...

Oh wait. She is. Little breadcrumbs of misinformation and bigotry to a bunch of people who really have no idea about the truth.

On the day she wrote her awful piece many sex workers both past and present, both male and female, stood up and said "Hang on,. This isn't right! Can we talk to you about this. Can we offer some real facts, real information, real firsthand actual knowledge..."

And Caroline went silent.

She was appealead to over twitter, over Facebook, over blogs. She was contacted via phone, via email, via calls to her place of work.

Nothing.

For example, Holly (@HollyInAlbury on Twitter) a sex worker from regional Victoria appealled to Caroline in her blog to leave the speaking about sex work to the people who know about sex work. I mean, we wouldn't let a plumber talk to us about heart surgery would we?

You Can Read Holly's Piece Here

Male sex worker, and well-known sex worker rights activist Christian Vega (@ChristianBVega on Twitter) appealed to her on social media and his blog, putting forward a notion that many people don't actually think about (Dr Norma being one of them) that sex workers are not ALL female and that generalisations are harmful and damaging and that stigmas and stereotypes are wrong and can really hurt the movement for acceptance and better laws and regulations.

Christian's Piece is here

Newcastle-based escort Luscious Lani (@LusciousLani on Twitter) has tried to not only talk to her over Twitter, email and phone, she has also extended an invitation to Dr Norma to come to her home. Visit a real sex worker. Talk to her and others about her piece and the ramifications it has to our industry, our jobs and, to be blatantly honest, our emotions (being told you're a down-trodded exploited woman can be quite confronting when you know you're not).

You can read Lani's invitation Here

Has Caroline RSVPd to this invitation?

No.

Has she acknowledged this outcry from Australian sex workers?

No

I too would like to offer myself to Carloine Norma as someone within the industry who spends a great deal of time talking to and talking about sex work and sex workers and who is quite happy and willing to explain some things to her that seem to need explaining.

Like her lack of understanding on the things that most of us Aussie sex workers do NOT have to deal with...Like pimps. Like exploitation. Like drugs. Like sexual abuse. Like danger. Like rape. Like every other bad thing she put through in her piece without acrtually speaking to a single person involved in the Australian Sex industry.

Has she seen that a hell of a lot of us are university graduates and can hold an intelligent conversation?

Does she realise many of us are in relationships and have children and families and great ones at that?

Does she realise that very few of us are drug addicts and do this as a last resort attempt at earning money?

Well, if she doesn't, she will soon because there are a lot of us and we are not happy. All you have to do is search Caroline Norma on Twitter and you will see the army of sex workers, clients and their supporters who have stood up to say "We will not allow your bigoted narrow-mindedness stop us. We will fight for what we believe in and we will prove you wrong."

If you'd like to join the fight for the rights of sex workers not to be exploited and misrepresented in the media by people who claim to be intelligent beings, please head over to Lani's Website (Yep click it it's a link) and look to the left at the "rants and ramblings" tab and add your voice along with many other sex worker supporters, whether they work in the industry, use the services, or just support us as workers in general...

Happy Hooking! - DB!

Love Me, Love My Kink

This is a People Magazine piece that I've re-jigged and is part of a chapter in my book.

Do you have something sexual you're unable to discuss with your partner? How do you deal with it? What do you do?

 

Fantasies and fetishes, we all have them, it’s just the way sex is. Everyone has that special little something that helps them reach total sexual fulfilment. If you’re lucky you find a partner who shares your fantasies, or one who at least allows you to indulge, and you never have to worry about unsatisfying sex ever again... But, of course, things are rarely that easy.

Because of the way mainstream society makes the general public think about any kind of sex that isn't straight, hetero, missionary style sex - as in it is dirty, wrong and shameful - people are forced to keep these things inside, quite often to the detriment of their health and happiness

When it comes to marriages and partnerships and commitments it never ceases to amaze me just how many people are afraid to tell the person they love just what it is they need and desire. I always thought one of the best things about being in a relationship with someone was the sharing. The getting to know them. The working out what makes them tick. But, when it comes to sex and fetish, so many people tend keep it to themselves and find alternative ways to satisfy themselves, usually meaning they end up lying, cheating and generally being deceptive to the person they're committed to.

Take Clint for example. He was a guy I used to see almost fortnightly, who absolutely loved it when I'd wear cowboy boots and sit on his back pulling his hair and slapping his arse. Okay sure, to some people that might seem silly (and to be honest it did feel a little silly to do) but it gave him a fantastic orgasm and sense of satisfaction and, when you think about it, it’s totally harmless.

Clint was so afraid his wife would think he was a freak that he kept it to himself and spent hundreds of dollars for me to do it instead. To be totally honest, I think his wife would be better off yanking on his thinning locks and shouting “Yee-Ha” every couple of weeks rather than discovering their hard-earned superannuation was paying my school fees… But hey, maybe that’s just me.

Actually, from the number of people I see who keep similar secrets from their partners, I know it pretty much is just me, and it’s sad to think there are so many people out there lying and sneaking around because their (supposed) soul mates don’t understand or refuse to accept them.

Yes, of course in some instances there will be that moment when someone’s secret, kinky desire swerves off the “normal” tie-me-to-the-bed-and-spank-me path, and there may well be a moment where you do a double take and have to put on your very best poker face, but I honestly don’t know if that’s worth ridicule, contempt and in some cases divorce. I mean sure, if it's really something you're not into yourself and cannot possibly see yourself doing, there are other options and, as part of a committed relationship, these sort of things should be discussed together and then a solution worked out. But I'm an idealist, and I know when it comes to sex, that is rare.

Gary had a greying moustache, a beer belly and lots of tattoos. He looked like he'd have been most comfortable on the back of a Hog, tearing up the country side with a bikie group and pictures of him around the place proved that he was. He was really friendly and chatty when I arrived, offering me a beer and making sure I was okay and, when I was, he asked me if I minded him slipping into something more comfortable.

Since he was in baggy trackies, Ugg boots and a t-shirt I didn’t think he looked uncomfortable but I just smiled and said “Of course not.”

I used the phone to sign on at the agency I was working for at the time and then went into the bedroom where he said he'd be waiting.

I found him reclining against a stack of brightly coloured pink and purple pillows, wearing a beautiful red lace teddy, thigh-high fishnet stockings and suspenders, and a pair of fabulous red heels.

“Great shoes,” I said, sitting next to him on the bed.

“Aren’t they?” he exclaimed, lifting his foot and turning it around to show me every angle.

That evening we spent about three hours together. We painted each other’s nails and watched Pretty Woman, which, at the end, had him sobbing, “That could so be you one day, Babe.”

He told me, as I brushed his hair, that his wife had left him after he’d confided in her and revealed his secret. He said it had been one of the hardest things he'd ever had to say but he felt he owed it to her. Felt they had been through enough. Felt that the time was right and together they could work through anything. Not so.

He had told her in the morning, had cried and confessed and begged her to understand. She said she needed some time to think so he had gone out to run some errands but when he'd come home a couple of hours later, she was gone. He had not seen her since and that had been two years ago.

She’d been the love of his life for nearly thirty years. They had seen the world together, raised a family and a bunch of dogs. They'd built their dream home together and had suffered through the loss of a child together. And then, after his confession, she’d gone, just like that. A lifetime of love and happiness demolished in the flutter of a false eyelash.

I couldn't help but wonder that perhaps if Gary (like Clint and so many other people I see) had snuck around, and lied, and cheated, he would still have the love, companionship and support of the woman he married for better or worse, in sickness and health… But apparently not in racy red heels.

Sad really. Just very, very sad.