In study-abroad semesters of yore, our obligatory romance-language love affairs could be peacefully left behind once USS EAP pulled from the foreign shore. After a single tear-stained wave goodbye, those carefree months of tumbling through daisy fields and licking spaghetti sauce off each other’s noses could blip into no more than a fond coming-of-age memory — or damn good fireside fodder for the grandchildren.
Then came Skype. Disguised as a nifty gadget to be enjoyed at one’s casual convenience, equipped with video chat and a next-to-free international telephone, this Big Brother of a desktop shortcut negates every possible excuse you could ever have for losing touch with someone. Making it — in all its friendly bubble noises and happy green buttons — the terrifying second coming of the great ball and chain.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Because, as everyone who has ever been in a Skypelationship knows, the temptation to revisit one’s exotic fling will be far too great to overcome. Call me weak, but Latin sex — even of the penetration-less variety, unsexily transmitted over invisible ozone cables — is better than anything I’m going to scrounge up at this sterile laboratory of a university. (Not that lab sex can’t be hot; just that, as they say, it’s the motion in the ocean.)
If you do find yourself ever returning to that pixilated apple of your eye — sentiments swathed in nostalgia butter (barf), rose-colored by the distance — chances are you’re riding on the memory of some pretty hot sex. Accordingly, you’ll likely only tolerate a couple nights of “I Spy” and kissy-faceoffs before the itch will be triggered by a phallic lamppost in the immediate background, and somebody will most certainly ask to see somebody else’s boobs.
Which brings us to Skype sex, first base: the striptease. Take this opportunity to let free the freaky foreplayer you were always too horny to be. Put those Frederick’s of Hollywood impulse buys and junior-high sleepover workouts to “Carmen Electra’s Aerobic Striptease” to good use, drawing out the show as long as possible. Really, what’s the rush? Especially considering the great anticlimactic (hehe) Skype clincher: No one’s getting laid tonight.
(In case you buried yourself in the schoolyard gravel pit first through sixth grade, your very own stripper moniker can be generated by combining the name of your first pet with the name of the first street you lived on. Groovy.)
Once cloth-stuffs are strewn sidescreen, nonchalantly adjust the lighting to accommodate the lumpy aftermath of international In-N-Out withdrawal. Love handles may be endearingly grabbable in the dark backseat of a Cuban Caddy, but long-distance eroticism is based on visuals. Absence never made the heart grow fonder under wormy fluorescents.
That’s not to say you should turn the lights down too low, either — laptop glow hugs double chins (among more intimate bulges) like a shot-elastic cat suit. If you notice, via self-cam thumbnail, that you’re starting to take on a scary-story flashlight look, dink your screen’s brightness down a couple notches — unless, of course, you’re shooting for all-American Paris Hilton.
What’s the best angle to achieve godliness, you ask? In bed, with your computer peering up at you, almost no position you can attempt is flattering. Apple may have slam-dunked business-conference convenience with its embedded laptop webcam, but sex-simulating perspectives are obsolete (unless you’re down to sort of sit on your keyboard; sorry, TMI) and motion never quite transcends the erotic appeal of a robot-gator flapping its jaw. Which could be groovy as well, I guess.
It will probably be a rare moment in which all your housemates have vacated the premises, allowing you to take part in this sick form of quasi-masturbation (though it is a step up from instant-messenger sex) in peace. So, in order to keep your pathetic excuse for a relationship alive and healthy, you may have to get creative seated inconspicuously among the unsuspecting studious in Geisel. Take the director’s chair for a heavily narrated under-table adventure.
No one’s trying to pretend an awkward Skype-gasm can replace the real thing. In fact, it usually just leaves you craving human contact (of the sweaty, naked variety) more than ever before. But hey — at least you won’t be popping out a little multicultural family anytime soon.
Special how-to requests? Contact the guru at [email protected].
