The topic of the presentation was: Freeing the Woman Inside You. I didn't have anything else to do that afternoon, and the kids were with grandparents, the talk was at the Memorial Building, three blocks away, and I had finished writing thank you cards for our anniversary gifts. My husband was hunting with his buddies, and I was curious about that woman inside me.
Did she need to be freed? I was willing to listen. We had been married for twenty years and what was once frantic sex, had slowed to 'make it fast I want to finish this chapter' kind of sex. We had sexual intercourse like the phases of the moon, and it was rarely full. I wasn't sure the topic of the talk was sex, but I was hopeful.
I arrived twenty minutes before the speaker was to start, so I listened to the women around me and chatted when spoken to. "She's written five books," one woman next to me was saying. "She thinks every woman should have at least one lover," she announced gleefully to those around her.
Sure, at least one, I thought. "I would need at least three," the woman holding court was saying as she laughed at her own joke. Most the women standing close laughed, although it was mostly an embarrassed snicker.
"Is she married?" I asked.
"Oh, yes, and her husband agrees with everything she says," the woman said.
"Probably thinks it frees him up to play golf," a woman behind me said. "Happy wife, happy golfer. My husband would drive my lovers to the door if it got him on the golf course more," she said.
"Do any of you ladies have lovers?" I asked. There was an embarrassed giggle, but they all said no.
One woman sitting alone said, "My lover is a lawyer and keeps me happy while my husband works." The ladies around me tittered, like they thought she was making it up but secretly hoping she was not. If one of them was able to lift herself out of the doldrums of married life by vicariously getting a thrill of freedom and adventure from someone else, they'd be all for it, I thought.
I was interested in the young woman who professed to have a lover, and I watched her. She was quite beautiful, with full lips and an even fuller bra, with a sophisticated air that made you think she just might have a lover at that.
The speaker began by introducing herself. "My name is Dr. Alicia Hastings. I have a husband, a Labrador retriever, and a lover, and I recommend the latter to keep the heart healthy." She waited for the laugh to finish, then went on. "I have a degree in psychology and three books on female sexuality. Ladies, there is a fairy tale going around about animals that mate for life, but that is just not true. Monogamy is not as natural as you've been told. Even the human animal doesn't seem to mate for life, the divorce rate proves that. My message today is to take care of yourselves."
She paused and looked out over the crowd. "In societies all over the world, women are treated like property, used as sexual objects, and for breeding purposes. However, it may be time to change things around. There is a woman in New York City who has two men who she lives with and who consider themselves her husband and who hope to father a child with her.
"She is a new kind of woman who is leading the way to a different era. My job is to show you a way to make your life more enjoyable, richer, and more satisfying," she said. The audience was quiet, listening intently. "It is not true that the greatest sin is to have sex with more than one person. The greatest sin is to limit yourself because society tells you that you must commit to just one partner.
"You need to commit to yourself. No one will care about your sexual pleasure as much as you do. Let me ask you, have you ever felt guilty for a thought about your physical pleasure? Of course you have. For centuries the most serious crime a woman could commit was sexual infidelity, but for all that time men were excused from such offenses or given the right to have harems or multiple partners without any recourse."
As she spoke I saw many women in the audience nodding their heads in agreement. I looked around the auditorium and could see smiles on the faces of the women near me. The woman who had announced that she had a lover looked enraptured. I felt strangely empowered by her words and I thought of my own situation. My husband never cheated on me, as far as I knew, but he considered me his, and he expected fidelity to be his entitlement, for me to be loyal and devoted to him for life. The truth is, I do have a sexual fantasy world of my own, and I savor it.