Suzanne Portnoy

History is fascinating, don’t you think? The way that one minute everybody seem quite happy and the next minute they are making home made placards and painting their faces and marching down the the streets. But of course the truth is that most history is not so spontanous. Historians can point to a variety of circumstances that lead to such extreme measures. Most people (except for the really nutty ones) have to be pretty fed up before they want to paint their faces or go on marches or do anything outside their comfort zone.

Women got all steamed up in the 1960’s when they no longer wanted to be seen as second class citizens and starting protesting and burning their foundation garments and shagging around and going out to eat a lot more instead of putting a three course meal on the table for their husband. Gay people got really angry in the 1970’s when they reacted against having to hide their sexuality from their family, friends and business colleagues. They marched down the streets of San Francisco, New York and other cities and now a man can dress like a woman, kiss his boyfriend on the street and get a job doing whatever he/she wants to do (provided the job actually exists and is available). Ok, I’m being trite but you know what I mean.

These past few weeks I’ve noticed a feeling brewing amongst the women I know and others that I read. Maybe it’s not as cataclysmic as the gay rights or the womens movement but it’s there all the same. Middle-aged women are fed up. They are fed up with men who say they are available when they are not. Men who dive into relationships and then backpeddle quickly when the word ‘commitment’ comes up in conversation. They are upset about  being lied to both online and offline. They are just fed up. I’m not sure what will come out of all this discontent. At the moment the women I know are still at the grumpy stage.  Nevertheless, I can feel the beginning of a movement.

And if you don’t believe me, I’ve compiled some evidence. Over to you, lady bloggers…

http://womanofexperience.blogspot.com/2009/02/men-emotional-dieters.html

http://womanofexperience.blogspot.com/2009/02/sorry-forgot-i-was-married.html

http://ponitaslife.blogspot.com/2009/02/unavailability.html

http://sexagenarian07.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/barack-and-me-and-jerome-kern/

http://barbedwireboudoir.blogspot.com/2009/01/no-excuse.html

http://www.suzanneportnoy.com/2009/01/25/the-dark-side-of-dating/

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

There are many times when I have thought that should I ever want to give up being a publicist I could become a life coach or the type of person that other people go to when they don’t know what they should be doing. Take the other night. I was out with my girlfriend Carol at a world music club in the West End. The band came on and within a few minutes Carol was whooping and hollering and throwing her hands up in the air. There were a couple of businessmen who looked over at her as if she might be insane and a few women sniggered too but then I realised that what she was doing was revving up the crowd. By the end of the night lots of people were whooping and hollering and dancing too. This is Carol’s usual behaviour when we go out.

‘You should be an audience motivator,’ I said. ‘Promoters would hire you to get the show started and make sure that the audience had a good time.’

She laughed. ‘I could do that.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And you’d get paid depending on the size of the gig. So if it was a small gig, you could stand in the crowd and if it were a stadium gig you could have a mic and be on stage.’

‘You know,’ she said. ‘That might really work.’

‘Just think,’ I said. ‘You would be the only audience motivator in the U.K. and after a while you could start your own agency of people that like to whoop and holler at gigs. You could hire actors and people like that.’

We both laughed but actually I didn’t think the idea seemed so far fetched. Last night I went to see a flamenco based musical and the guy sitting next to me, a Spanish dancer, was whooping and hollering during the musical numbers. During the last number the audience was on its feet clapping along to the songs. He was an audience motivator too.

I create imaginery jobs for my friends all the time. Carol’s favourite saying is, ‘I want to find a man to inspire me.’ On reflection, I’ve done quite a bit of inspiring but rarely have I been inspired by anyone. That’s not bragging, it’s just a fact. Maybe I’m a bit too scarily confident to attract the kind of people who like to inspire others or maybe it’s just that when I want to do something, I just do it.

Just recently my new lover started blogging after I suggested he might enjoy it. I told him what to do and now he’s writing an entry a day. Actually, it’s rather good. The last time he came over I gave him a book about screenwriting and now he seems to be into the idea of making a film about his life after I suggested that it had all the components of an award winning movie. Frankly, it’s such a great story I wouldn’t be surprised if one day it gets optioned for a few million quid and he ends up living in Hollywood in a big house with a big pool. He’d look good with a tan.

Last night I did a bit of a mental checklist of men I have inspired and those that have inspired me. On the Inspired Them side I counted about 10 and on the Inspired Me side I counted 2, my New York ex and a friend I’ve known for a decade and whom was indirectly responsible for some recent changes I’ve made to my work. About the same score then as the number of men whom have told me I give world class blowjobs and the number of men who have given me world class cunnilingus. Are you seeing a pattern here?

Thanks to the Daily Mail for managing to twist my words, producing an article that implies that we are still living in Victorian England. Still, as my editor says, ‘If it helps to sell more books…..’

Comments please!

P.S. Bizarrely all the positive comments that were on the Mail’s website this morning have been replaced with negative ones.