Transcript

I’m Ada Limón and this is The Slowdown.

One of my favorite mysteries of the universe is what turns us on and why? When I talk with anyone about crushes and sensual pleasures and desires, what always impresses me is that everyone is different. We desire different things. Different attributes turn us on and make us ready to rip our clothes off and run through the streets. It makes sense that that’s the case. Everyone is so unique. Every crush is so unique.

It’s always so individual, sometimes it’s impossible to put words to. Over brunch we say things like, “I don’t know, there’s just something about her, or him, or them.” And suddenly we are blushing and trying to find language and that’s when we know the crush is real, there’s no explaining it, it just is.

When I first met my husband, we saw each other from across the bar at Cornelia Street Cafe. I remember liking the way he stood. I don’t think I’ve ever said that out loud, but there was something sexy about the way he carried himself, the way he leaned against the bar. We were friends for six years before we finally got together and I still remember staring at him across rooms, “making eyes at each other” as they say.

I had a friend once say that when she met her wife, she knew it was real and so she ran away. She literally ran away down the street. I love imagining her slow realization that she had met the “one” and then just taking off down the street to escape.

And those are love stories. To talk about crushes, oh don’t even get me started. When I lived in Brooklyn and was in and out of relationships, I always said the best way to get over someone is to find a good crush. You didn’t even have to act on it, just imagine it, just remind yourself what makes you feel ignited again. Of course, the crush sometimes would backfire into a whole new whirlwind of romance and heartache, but no regrets right? It’s good to be reminded we are alive.

In today’s irreverent poem, we see an exploration of what the speaker finds sexy. It blooms into a whole new imaginary world, all in the service of desire.

I Imagine the Butches’ Stripper Bar
by Jill McDonough

At my butches’ stripper bar you can watch butches
fold laundry, iron. Objectify them while they
slowly refinish a rolltop desk, take off a trailer hitch.
They file taxes, wear waders, bake you a layer cake.
I’ll lay her cake, my imagined patrons mutter. I think
of who I eroticize, how: they’re always getting stuff done.
At real stripper bars women just dance—so many things
they could be checking off their lists. I guess men don’t want
to see women work? They get that at home? In my Champagne
Room the butches plant bulbs, build bookshelves, clean
basements, write checks to the ACLU, retrain
your dog. Fantastic grow the flannel plaids; they lean
and squint, lick pencils, adjust a miter box. They
make box lunches, chicken stock. The butches make your day.

"I Imagine the Butches' Stripper Bar" by Jill McDonough, from HERE ALL NIGHT by Jill McDonough, copyright © 2019. Used by permission of Alice James Books.