Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Who Would You Rather?

I think about sex a lot. Being a woman that’s supposed to be unusual.

It’s supposed to be men who think about sex. There’s a statistic that says men think about sex every seven seconds. Thats about 8,000 times a day. That’s not actually backed up with any research. We all know the real figures are more like every two seconds.

Even though the age-old stereotype is that men are oversexed and women are pretty well frigid in comparison, it’s clearly not valid to compare people’s sexual thinking based on gender alone.

In a recent study on sexually oriented thoughts it was found that men’s and women’s sexual thinking was expectedly variable from individual to individual and in men it ranged from one to 388 times a day and in women from one to 140 times a day. That meant that the average number of sexual thoughts for men every day was 34.2 and for women it was 18.6. Pretty well the same amount of thoughts allocated for food and sleep. Eating, sleeping, and Fucking. That’s what we’re here for.

I also think about cushions. Eating fucking and sleeping. On cushions. I wonder what actually constitutes sexual thinking. When I say I think about sex it’s not really always strictly sexual – in a lust-filled desirous way. It’s very often strange pornographic musings that my brain performs for my private amusement. Like the way you doodle on paper when you’re distracted. Except, well I can draw a doodle without a biro. It’s curious, and kind of random. And I’m sorry, its’ not consensual. I haven’t asked you if you mind being the subject of my subconscious seduction. It’s very useful. It can make people who are intimidating seem a lot less so.

Like when I got pulled up for speeding recently. As the cop walked towards the car I imagined him with his wife and her saying, ‘slow down slow down… is there any reason you’re going so fast?! Use cruise control, you idiot!’ His hairy humping body collapses in a heap.

I imagine what his orgasm face looks like. What sound he makes. I imagine him sweaty and red with his face screwed up. I might lose a few points but not as many as him! It’s the evolution of the technique someone once gave me for dealing with onstage nerves. ‘Just imagine everyone naked,’ they said. Well I did that. And then the naked people got busy.

When you have an imagination like mine you don’t need pornography. Porn is never as bizarre, erotic and unexpected as what pops up in my head. Although sometimes it’s disturbing and I wish I could get it out. Like when I imagined Malcolm Turnbull in a gimp suit. Or Barnaby with his Akubra on and the classic strip song playing You can leave your hat on…

One of my friends and I have even made our inappropriate sexual thinking into a game. It’s an adult game for long car trips. Kind of like I Spy, but it’s really I Root. Or more precisely, if you had to choose between two people you don’t like whom would you choose? We don’t call it that. That would be tacky. It’s called ‘Who Would You Rather?’

What we do is cast two people we don’t want to have sex with and then we have to realistically choose one. I don’t know why we have to, it’s just a game of choice, like if these were the last two people on the planet. And it’s not just hetero. You can cast anyone. That’s the fun part of the game. You want to come up with the most unfuckable (well to you) people you can think of. Like Who Would You Rather… Prince Charles or Clive Palmer? Pauline Hanson or John Laws? Donald Trump or Kim Jong-un? It’s impossible to choose. It’s the lesser of two evils.

Suddenly I imagine Donald lying on his tummy on a black satin doona covered in a soft orange fuzz. His toupee sits in a glass by the bed… he’s wearing a nappy. He’s an adult baby.

Kim’s only wearing his coat. It falls open. He’s got a tiny, tiny missile. So has Donald. Oh this is tough. Then I think of poor beautiful Melania. She’s been playing this game for 13 years now. So I choose Kim. He’s disappointed. He chose Melania.