by: Emily Heist Moss
Note: This piece was originally featured on Role/Reboot and republished with permission. You can find the original here. Having a period is a natural part of a woman's body, so Emily Heist Moss wants to know: Why are some men so afraid to have sex during a woman's period?
"It's a timing issue, if you know what I mean..." I told him, gesturing toward my pelvis.
So every now and again I (drunkenly) talk to Italiano no 1, who, in case you forgot, is back home in Italy. His last day with me in the states he told me all about italy and how I would love it there and of course I should come visit. I get that a lot, what with all my international friends. That pact I made to visit Paris the next summer? Still haven’t been. My Turkish fling is still awaiting my arrival with a thong bathing suit he bought for me. So I went along with it. Yes, of course I’ll visit.
A few months later we’re talking again and he’s like come visit so again so I’m like ohh yeah ok, as long as you’re paying haha. But he’s serious-he’s paying. He wants me to come for three fucking weeks. No way I could take that much time off work, so we settle on 10 days. He’s a typical sneaky Italian so what he said would be all paid for by him was actually somewhat funded by my father. He travels a lot (my father) so always has a ton of miles, so somehow he ended up using his miles to cover my flight. Mildly annoying. We picked a date that was only three weeks away and to get to him I had to fly into Rome then take another flight to his smaller, random city. Italiano no 1 did pay for those though which was nice (and sent me all the flight info in Italian…..). So my flights are booked to and from Rome. 10 day trip. Easy. Until he tells me he has to go out of town for Easter with his mom, cutting my trip down to 5 days. Fuck that shit, I’ll be in Italy, I’m not going home after 5 days. I decide to stay in Rome for the second half of my trip and use the glorious site Couch Surfing. (Which is fantastic and everyone cool should do it, but I had some interesting experience which I shall elaborate on soon). Couch surfing has references, pictures, and you can talk all you want before you meet. I like to think (and nothing has convinced me otherwise yet) that the couch surfing community is full of truly good people looking out for other good human beings.
So with that I got on a plane to the land of pizza, pasta, and vino. And dreamy-eyed, passionate men all lined up to stick their dicks in me. I have an 8 hour layover in Rome so a couch surfer picks me up and we go for lunch. He’s Spanish actually but his Italian is almost perfect. In conversations before we met he suggested after traveling I would be tired and we should go get massages-his treat. I should warn you, he tells me, this place isn’t like America, we’ll have to be naked. I’m not a typical American, I say. So he takes me to this hill on the West side of the city where I have this amazing view of everything. It was the perfect introduction to Rome. We go out for lunch and gelato, away from all the tourists and I begin my tradition of stuffing my face at every single meal, washed down with many glasses of wine and limoncello. Then we’re off to get massages….annnd it’s closed. One of the great things about Italy (and other European countries) is nap time. Let’s all just close up shop in the middle of the day and chillax for a bit. So we did not get our massages, but we still had a wonderful time and then I was en route to Bari.
In my mind I had this grad vision of how happy and romantic my reunion with Italiano no. 1 would be. This was a combination of jet lag and vino and a true testament to how seductive Italy really is. He just smiles and takes my bag to the car. On the drive he takes off my shirt and unbuttons my pants. Much more like the guy I used to know. He checks me in to my hotel and then we’re off to dinner.
We had talked before I left about sleeping with his friends. I don’t know why he would offer for this to go down, but I agreed. What the hell, I knew I’d end up sleeping with more than one person in Italy so it might as well be them, right? So we leave the hotel and leaning against a car is one of the oddest, most Italian looking people I’ve ever seen. Tall, thin, long dark hair, thin moustache, nice clothes. Not my type at all, but ehh, whatever. We had so much food and alcohol that night, holy shit. Some of the best food I had in Italy. Obviously the point was that I would be well fed and drunk enough to not have any hesitations.
I wish I had been more sober so I could recount more details of my first threesome. It was awesome. I didn’t have to do any work, I just stood there while four hands did their thing. Nothing was awkward, which I wonder was due to their level of intoxication, previous experience, or cultural differences. Oddly enough, that was the first time I had sex with Italiano no 1. Funny that I can’t remember too much about that part of the night. I do remember him behind me, doing whatever, and then however long later I look around and he’s gone. What the hell? So I get confused and upset and obviously the only logical thing to do is throw up. Which freaks out other dude, so he leaves to. Whoa. Bizarre end to a night that should have ended in double spooning and all I got was a really awful hangover.
Just thinking about it makes me feel a little nauseous, so I’ll save the story for the next night for later.
What’s the opposite of friend-zoned? I’m forever a fuck buddy. I can’t even remember the last time someone asked me on a date. If I were to be asked on a date, it would probably go something like this.
My current man-mission is someone who I’ve hooked up with but-get ready for it-haven’t actually had sex with yet. AND he asked me to stay the night at his place. That’s a big step forward in my book. He’s also the first American I’ve hooked up with in more than six months. When this progresses into something worth writing about, you’ll be the first to know.
Violet
A biography of him says “the Tunisian singer Saber el Rubai has a very nice voice. He is very elegant, sensitive and honest with himself and with his audience.” Just in case you didn’t pick up on that.
These are what my nights with my Tunisian pseudo-boyfriend are like. Haaaa. He actually does sing me this song in the car, but not as good. And we’re always much drunker than those people. Last night we almost got kicked out of a club for reasons I’m still not clear on. Mine is also a lot less sensitive looking, he has a shaved head and very nice muscles.
Italian and Arabic are my two favorite languages (and hey, they’re neighbors!) so I listen to this song a lot. The Moroccan restaurant we frequent has excellent live music too.
If you haven’t read Part 1, check that out first.
A few months after my first Italian…err, boyfriend?…has returned to Italy I find myself at the same popular (ladies drink free til midnight, woo) club. It’s January 1st. I spent my new year’s eve alone with a bottle of Martini and Rossi so I’m ready to kick things up a notch. I did skype with Italiano no. 1 (Italy is 6 hours ahead of me) for a while, long enough for him to tell me how much he missed me, but otherwise it was a little sad and lonely. I was determined to have a good time at Popular Night Club. This club has a lot of the same people and the dj isn’t that great and the free drinks mostly juice. Sometimes to amuse myself I set goals: tonight I’ll make out with three guys, tonight I’ll bring one guy home, tonight just have a girls night, ect. It’s a stupid way to justify doing stupid things. Or a stupid way to show off my honed man-trapping skills. Anyway, I took a trip to the bathroom and came back to join my friends at the bar, not focused on my game. My friend is in town and has volunteered to be my wing-woman. Pfsh, like I need it, but she’s great. I step up to the bar and this tall, beautiful man spots me. My friend is about to pull the good ol’ How I Met Your Mother line “haaaaaaaaaave you m-” but by that point he had already introduced himself and identified himself as Italian. A lot of male names sound like female names when you say them with Italian accents-his is one of those. When I put his number in my phone I hesitated when putting his name in, but he caught on and said ‘I think it’s a girl’s name here.’
There’s something about the Italian language that when Italians speak it it makes their mouths look all sexy. The Italian language when spoken by Italians is also sexy. Italian lips are good for more than talking, in case you didn’t know. So the night progressed from small talk (he lives near Venice, he’s here until October, teach me how to say ‘happy new year’ in Italian) to dance floor fornication. I’m sure those around us were not too pleased with our passionate makeout session and hands down each other’s pants. Everyone needs one of those almost regrettable, retrospectively slightly embarrassing public hookups every now and then.
Like most of my hookups, I end up taking them back to my place. I happened to be having a party that night, so I brought him back to show him off to my other friends. I showed him American drinking games, which he loved. During more stressful moments of beer pong he resorted to Italian exclamations, mostly ‘MAMMA MIA!’ Italians actually say that, isn’t that awesome? Or maybe it’s a Northern Italy thing. I’m experienced enough now to spot slight differences between regions of Italy.
The drunkenness of everyone in my apartment was a comfortable wasted. Which is why no one noticed (or cared if they did notice) when Italiano no. 2 whipped his dick out in my kitchen. I was not content to just look at it, so we made a dramatic exit to my bedroom (meaning everyone got the hint and left) for a 4 hour fuck fest. I honestly can’t remember all the details, but it was wonderful. There was a little bit of everything…cuddling, penetration, foreplay, Italian sexy talk. It was a wonderful night. He had to work early and I don’t let my guests over stay their welcome so I dropped him back home and we made plans for a date later that week.
The day of our date came and went with no word from him. I text him, in basic English to make sure my point got across, and he responds with apologies about how he doesn’t have time for a relationship. Last time I checked dinner isn’t a binding contract, so I told him I really just wanted sex so he says ‘ok 
i text you soon bacioooo’ (bacio meaning kisses, google translate tells me). But unfortunately I didn’t hear from him after that. Lucky for me, I’m a creep, so it’s not hard for me to track him down. One day I had training down the street from his place of employment so I just happened to stop by for some wine after work. I wasn’t sure if he would remember me but honestly I couldn’t remember exactly what he looked like either. But I walked in and his tall, dark, handsome self was standing in the corner. It was obvious he recognized me, but spent my entire meal skirting around me and making eye contact without actually talking to me. He finally came over (thank god I had a whole carafe of wine in me, all the Italians buzzing around is just too much for me) and we had an intense conversation. “You like pizza?” he asks. If you thought he worked anywhere other than a pizzeria, you are just plain sad. He updates me about his life, says he’ll be out of town for a week but will call me when he gets back. He doesn’t. I am sad.
Fast forward to two weeks ago. I’m at Popular Night Club previously mentioned, denying unworthy men my telephone number, and make my way to the dance floor. It’s hard to miss someone as tall and handsome as Italiano no. 2, so I happen to walk right past him. When he sees me he leaves his bimbo dance partner and gives me a big hug. As best I can with the awful music blasting, I tell him I went to Italy and he wants to hear about it. He’s going to be a bartender at a new Italian restaurant opening soon. He’ll call me tomorrow, he says. All this is happening while bimbo is pissed and keeps trying to pull him back; I win and he keeps talking to me. He actually does message me the next day. He types in all caps, which is awesome. not. But it’s ok because he sends me messages like ‘TI PIACE IL MIO SESSO??’ Yes, yes I do. He’s busy opening the new restaurant, but wants to see me next week. It’s now next week, fingers crossed I get to fuck him sober soon.
Now that you have all the background information on Italiano no. 2, I can get to the eskimo sisters part. In the period between him saying he’ll call me and me running into him I told my co-workers they had to get with an Italian. A few weeks later my wonderful and beautiful friend tells me of her success. He has the same Italian-but-in-America-sounds-feminine name, but it’s popular enough, right? She says his dick is not impressive, sexy time didn’t last more than half an hour, and he gave her cheap wine. Doesn’t sound like the same person.
BUT IT IS!
The next night we’re talking about it again. Does he have a tattoo on his collar bone? I ask……yes, she says. Does his family own a winery near Venice?…..yes. It’s the same dude! Which is actually just plain awesome. I’m happy to share the joys of Italians with others and find it fascinating that we had such different experiences. It’s possible his dick really isn’t that impressive, but drunk me thought it was great. (I also have a low tolerance for big dicks). I’ll report back after I’ve slept with him again, which will hopefully be sooner than later. My thoughts on eskimo brothers has always been ehhh. My mental image is of two bros intentionally scamming some poor college freshman and then high fiving after. Is my situation equally as deplorable? Are eskimo siblings a positive or negative thing? Does the fact that he’s Italian alter the circumstances?
I like to think that my sexual liberation means it’s not a disgusting sex party trick. It’s not like any of us planned this, it was a product of natural attraction mixed with a little alcohol.
Also in the part between when Italiano no. 2 didn’t call and I saw him, I went to Italy! So that’s to come, stand by.
Violet
We’ve already been over my lust for men of the world, but I have a particular fondness for the Italians. By fondness I mean their dicks are magnets. (It works both ways, I seem to naturally draw them in as well). I should skip a blog and just write a book…my stories of Italian lovers are long and far from over.
I take you back to November, at a popular night club where I tend to meet lots of hook ups. I’d been eyeing these guys for a while. One because they were attractive and two because they weren’t dancing, just standing and watching. I finally made my way through the hump-happy horde of men to dance on these dudes. I just kinda got in the middle and they looked at each other to see who was getting the go-ahead. The shortest of the three steps forward (worked great for me, I’m on the short side) and asks where I’m from (a very powerful question around here). Me being me, I recognized an accent, which he confirmed by pointing to the Italian flag on his jacket. “Italia,” he says, like I don’t already know. He’s kind of an awkward dancer so we skip that part and go straight to setting up a date. Then leaves. The next few days I get a barrage of texts about wanting to be in my bedroom and how he really needs to fuck me. While I’m usually all for it, I met this guy for all of fifteen minutes and can’t really remember what he looks like. Fortunately it’s very easy to facebook stalk the shit out of everyone in my very large company, so I could confirm that he’s good-looking and my drunk self wasn’t just attracted to his beautiful accent. I did take me about a week to convince him to take me out for a drink first, and that proved successful enough to end in a trip to my apartment. I pulled the whole “I don’t fuck on the first date” excuse, not sure why though. Despite trying to tone it down, I did end up swallowing, which I really can’t stand. I don’t mind blow jobs, especially if he’s already gone down on me, but I always verify with my partner that his cum does not go in my mouth. I’m not a cum dumpster (I just wanted an excuse to say that. Cum dumpster. My favorite euphemism for slut, or whatever). His English isn’t super great, but he understands. And then bam, shoots his load right in. I half swallowed, half gagged and spit the rest in my sink. He didn’t seem to notice he had done anything wrong. If he hadn’t performed magic with his tongue minutes before I would have been pissed. Eh, he’s Italian (that’s my new excuse for all sorts of odd behaviors).
We saw each other off and on for a few weeks. He was really good at canceling last-minute due to a variety of excuses, so sometimes I pulled the same card. The third time he came over he whispers in my ear “you’re mine now.” Oh? He puts his arm around me and explains that he wants me, so I’m his now. I ask what happens if I see other guys. He tightens his grip around my neck, pretending to choke me and nonchalantly and jokingly (maybe?) says “well I’ll just kill you both.” He doesn’t strike me as the violent type, but he does have the Italian passion. Eh, he’s Italian, he won’t actually kill me. (spoiler: I’m still very much alive).
The next night I go with my friends to this Italian-restaurant-turned-night club and of course he’ll be there, he’s Italian. I invite him over to pregame and he says sure, but of course doesn’t show up. I eventually run into him at the ‘club’ and he gets me a drink, but is not acting like we’re in the magical relationship he conceived the night before. Very drunk me starts being clingy so he leaves. Later I see him chatting with another girl at the bar. Sneaky double standards. Somehow I end up in a full-fledged makeout sesh with this other guy who has been into me for a while. Obviously with the intention of my Italian seeing this and causing a scene. No such luck. I end up bringing makeout guy home and then I get these texts from my fake Italian boyfriend about how he’s locked out of his apartment (I find this very difficult to believe) and him and his roommate have nowhere to go so can they come over. Sure, I’m a good person, I have stuff for them to sleep on. But no, he wants a threesome. Or that’s what I took from the conversation. Who offers up themselves and another male friend? (I know the answer to this because it keeps happening to me. A lot of men do, that’s who). So I pretend to fall asleep and stop responding.
I see him once after that and then we sort of lose touch. Except I keep facebook tabs on him so I know what he’s up to. I would like to see him before he goes home to Italy, but it doesn’t work out. Well, it was good while it lasted. Then the next week I get a call from him to ask if he can stay with me. Guess he didn’t go back. He was just hanging out in Mexico and then was in town for a few days before going to New York. I did kind of miss him, so I let him stay with me. It felt like having a puppy that I forgot to put in its crate before I left…I would leave him alone in my room while I ran errands or went to work or whatever (unbeknownst to my roommate) and was always prepared to walk in on him doing something totally strange. I don’t think he stole any of my dirty panties; mostly he just slept. Over lunch one day I’m asking him about Italy. You would love it, he tells me. Come visit me sometime, I’ll show you everything. Sure, sure. I always make these half-hearted promises to visit all my international friends.
BUT THEN HE ACTUALLY BROUGHT ME TO ITALY.
That’s a whole other set of sketch conditions and didn’t happen for a few months later. The in between time consisted of fucking another Italian and old Italian sending me raunchy messages and apologies for being a weirdo.
The lesson here is that you should find yourself an Italian. Not Italian-American. Not anyone from the Northeastern US, but straight up Italiano.
Pitbull doesn't have shit on me
I’ve spent the last few months embracing the multiculturalism of my city and traveling the world. I feel very fortunate that when I ask guys where they’re from the answer isn’t often America. At this classy club a few months ago this guy pulls me aside. I don’t respond well to arm grabs, but I can see that he’s clearly not American so I let it slide. I ask where he’s from and he gives me this sly look and says “Texas,” with an Arabic accent. I’m not sure if he meant it as a joke or if he was trying to convince me he was American. Anyway, he’s from Tunisia. Who the hell is from Tunisia? He was quite the gentleman and hunted down my purse after I left it at the bar it was stolen. And the night didn’t end in sex, it ended with hash browns and water, which is a pretty decent alternative.
A few days later we meet after work for a drink. I’ve set myself up for ruin because I picked a bar that is only a few blocks from my apartment. So that night does end in sex. He’s 10 years older than me, shaved head, muscular so I had in mind something a little better than what I got. Mediocre at best but the really pitiful part is he thinks he’s fantastic. I use present tense because it hasn’t gotten much better. The first orgasm he gave me was a few weeks ago when I gave him detailed instructions on how to get the job done.
My recent thing is that I’m trying to develop relationships outside the bedroom. I did ok with this one. I work nights so it’s hard to schedule dinner dates, which is why I frequently end up with booty calls. But he was happy to meet me for dinner after work, which ended in sex. He never spends the night, which is how I roll. But occasionally droplets of odd information would fall into conversation. “Let’s go to the beach tomorrow,” he says, “oh wait, I have my son tomorrow, we can go another day.” A child? Yes, a two-year old, but he hasn’t been in the states for that long. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to give me any more information so I don’t pry.
One of my many man talents is compartmentalization so I had no problem ignoring the strange parts like how/why/when he got to America, his job, his child. The parts that mattered to me were that he made me happy and always paid for me. His philosophy is that a man isn’t complete without a woman. That a woman is a work of art, able to stand on her own, but a man needs to have a woman to give him purpose. If an American dude had said that to me I would have laughed in his face but it felt genuine and comfortably romantic coming from him. Which may be strange considering the Muslims aren’t on the tippy top of women’s rights. So it felt kind of nice knowing that to some small degree I was giving his life purpose. That being said, I understood we weren’t in an exclusive relationship. I went on a ten-day vacation recently, where he knew I would be sleeping with other foreign men, and he was right there waiting for me when I got back. When I asked him to drive me to the airport he said “baby, I’d do anything for you.” (I also got texts that said things like “i’m horning, can i come over 2nite,” This was only excusable because I think Arabic is a beautiful language).
The point I’m getting at here is that I got very mixed signals about the nature of/future of our relationship. I was in no hurry to make things ‘official’ or more serious. I picked the parts of him I wanted off a buffet line, I didn’t want to stuff my face with all the parts of his life I wasn’t ready for. I’ll pass on the baby mamma drama. What does it say about our relationship when I know his itunes password but not his last name? The last conversation we had about ‘us’ was that as long we were happy we wouldn’t push things in any direction, but last week I wake up to this text about how I’m cool to hang out with, but he thinks I’m looking for a relationship and he’s not. Awesome. Don’t bother talking to me about it, assumptions are always a great indicator of the truth. I asked him to take me on a cruise the week before, maybe he was like shit, I need to get rid of her before I have to declare bankruptcy.
What’s my move? It’s not like he was breaking up with me since we were never together. I don’t want to be together so this really shouldn’t bother me. I need someone to take me out for hookah and give my boobs Arabic names. I got really used to having him yell in Arabic to his Moroccan friends and then have all these great things appear at our table, which I of course never had to pay for. Every other night I get a booty call from him. For some reason he keeps adding ‘lol’ to all of them, like it’s some sort of apology? Who knows what goes through the minds of men.
Stay tuned for my adventures in Italia,
Violet
