Teddy Bears and the Good Woman Blues

I make no bones about it, I am a dirty old man. I like looking at pretty women without their clothes on. I like it when they portray passion for me, some longing so deep there simply is no substitute for the lover they dream of, somehow it is a reinforcement of the idea and ideal of fidelity between hearts. But almost as much as I enjoy my little touch of voyeurism I enjoy watching how others respond to the same subject, the same stimulus. There is a great deal to be learned about people, individual and culture alike, by what they find attractive where the sexual meets the social in the realms of the erotic.

It never fails to amaze me how many different things end up getting set into that realm, how many things really totally unrelated somehow find representation there. It is also such a comment on our society how much the spectators often reveal of themselves to no more of a prompt than a pretty girl willing to forego physical modesty and be undressed in the sight of others. It says how much is locked away behind some outer covering, be that covering cloth or conventions of silence and propriety.

Often enough what emerges out from under those covers is cause for a chuckle, as often as not at myself as well, and in truth I've learned a good amount about myself from dissecting some of those chuckles. Other times what emerges can set such a poignancy, put a deep touch on things far more a matter of the common humanity than anything from the playful and risqué. One time in particular has stayed in my thought, a time my muse was being 'mother' to one bunch of her boys, a rainy day mother entertaining her kids in the house. For the final fifteen, twenty minutes of a two hour show she'd had probably twenty guys, grown men all, fawning at her feet behaving like spoiled little boys trying to out-do each other to win favor from the momma figure she was portraying. The subject was her collection of teddy bears, she was filling time by taking them down off the shelf one by one to show them to the camera, and the boys were competing by trying to remember each bear, its name and when acquired, trying to demonstrate their devotion with the details.

It came time for the end of the show, the traditional bye-byes had been said. It appeared she was reaching to cut the feed and end the broadcast… but she missed, or the command didn't take… the video stayed on for another couple of seconds before she realized she was still broadcasting. What came onto her face, when she thought she'd restored her privacy, was shocking. Not a shock of vulgarity or anger, it was the shock of seeing something you might have hoped for, but not expected. I saw her wearing all the signs of a case of the good woman blues, that sad little smile that turns down just a bit at the corners, the soft shake of the head. For those few seconds it was so clear, so unmistakable. If it was deliberate, an act, then she deserves an Oscar. It was just hanging there in ten foot neon to be read by anyone willing to suffer with understanding what they saw.

…What am I to do with this? They are so lonely, so desperate. They ask after everything, anything really, they memorize the names of my teddy bears. What am I to do with this, what can I do with this? They memorize the names of my teddy bears…



…from the dreamweaver archives…