The S Word

When the lovely Colin and Tracy asked me over appropriately, err, lubricating quantities of beer, to put together a piece on sex on the road, for Christine, I was a little tentative.

I mean, how long does it take to say, “Nada, nish, zilcho, nothing since January last year, thank you… And, before you ask, none on the horizon, either…”?

Opportunity Knocks?

There have, in fairness, been opportunities to, err, break my duck, including a couple I’d have certainly gone for in my 20s. But, aged 36 – or, as 30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy would probably have it, “65 in man years” — I’m pretty much through with the ships-that-pass kind of deal.

It just feels, well, rather a lot of effort for a goal one could attain solo (not that I’ve been doing much of that, either: it’s not just gentlemen to whom travelling, and often sharing a room and a bed with my son functions as the walking, talking equivalent of bromide in the tea).

Not to Mention The Culture Thing…

More seriously, as a Western woman engaging with some fairly traditional cultures where tourists are very rare and single female tourists unknown, I do feel beholden not to queer the pitch for single women who come after me by behaving as, in local terms, the ultimate Whore of Babylon.

So, yeah, sexually it’s been…

A Bit Frustrating

Sometimes it’s plain annoying. Solo with a child in places, like Thai islands, that see a lot of tourists, you’re a walking target for beach boys. I’ve had a couple of uncomfortable evenings with some aspirational Romeo spoon-feeding me tidbits.

At others it’s just frustrating. Picture Dodola Island, off Morotai in Indonesia. One of the most beautiful little idylls on this earth, a tiny, uninhabited white sand atoll, luminescence in the water, palm trees…

I spent the night there with Z, our guide and an Aussie guy, my sort of age, but with a girlfriend back home. Drinking beer, cooking over a campfire, chatting into the night and swimming semi-naked in the luminescent water before retiring to our abandoned chalet to…

Well, err, sleep, actually. End of.

Though Try Explaining That to the Locals…

The look of horror on our guesthouse owner’s face when Z and I returned to our regional base after a week or so out of town with a strange man in tow was a sight to behold.

Matched only by her daughter’s expression when the two of us headed out for an evening’s tour of the town’s finest “nightclubs” (AKA brothels) – sans Z.

Or Lelei island. More of the same. Fishing for dinner, cooking over an open fire, swimming a mile there and back off the white sand beach to snorkel fan corals off a tiny island in the bay with my son and a single, male travel buddy, my kind of age, to whom I would have liked to have been attracted…

Or Halong Bay, Vietnam, one of the most dazzling karst landscapes on this earth, sleeping entirely platonically on the roof of our very own junk with my son and his, err, father.).

Not to Mention the Question of Timing…

There have been opportunities where the timing wasn’t quite right. The Filipino academic who’d have made the perfect temporary fling on Coron, in the Philippines (where Z and I had a gorgeous gang of dive buddies who’d have been more than happy to babysit while mum got some, err, “her” time).

I met him, well, the night we’d booked our flight out for the next day, while down to our last ten bucks of local currency on an island with no international bank facilities.

And opportunities where, well, I’m just too bloody old. Can I really be arsed, at the age of 36, to stay upright till 4am responding to dancefloor moves in Sydney from a cute guy not yet quite young enough to be my son, deliver in the boudoir, then get up and work the next day, before flying to another city and delivering an extended family Christmas?

Nope.

Then there’s those instances where the culture’s wrong.

And I Do Mean Wrong.

Am I going to respond to tentative, romantic, touching of hands from an extremely good-looking, phenomenally well-educated guy of my kind of age who’s great with my son?

Well… Not in this instance, no.

Firstly, he was married, a no go zone for me. Secondly, should I have been tempted, the awareness that he and his wife come from a culture which entitles her to hack both of us to death with a machete should anything untoward occur functions as one of the most effective anti-aphrodisiacs on this earth…

Cougar? I Think Not.

Because Z and I often do quite hardcore indie adventure travel, we often land up travelling for stints with guys, many of them quite a lot younger than me.

There’s more solo or duo male travelers than female travelers out there, particularly in the more untrodden territories we’ve visited. Plus Z really enjoys hanging out with young guys of college, pre-college or post-college age, and, once they get over the shock, it tends to be mutual.

Let’s face it. Which gender’s going to be more enthusiastic chatting about online gaming, wild adventures, guy films, waterparks or how to home-make fireworks?

This leaves me, often, feeling less like a cougar, or prospective cougar, than someone who belongs in a home. An old folk’s home.

Crikey! I Could Be Your Mother!

Here we are, completing an especially hellish bus/boat/truck journey from Sapa in Vietnam to Udomxai in Laos: you know you’re in trouble when you’re stuck behind the truck that’s rebuilding the road…

We’re sat at a table. My spawn is chatting about the different merits of Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead and trading bus journey war stories (“36 hours?! Tschaw! That’s nothing…) with some guys on their British pre-uni GAP year.

And two things dawn on me. First, they are closer to his age than mine. By a long, long way.

And secondly, I could, at 36, quite feasibly have been their mother.

And, if that isn’t going to put a woman off her stroke, just ask my son. I am, according to him, officially middle-aged.

More Sexy, Sexy Stories

For tales of sex on the road from travelling families who are actually, erm, getting it – albeit, generally, rather quietly — do stop by Almost Fearless, Vagabond Kids and Our Travel Lifestyle.

And may I wish you a more exciting Valentine’s Day than mine. Which won’t be very difficult.