I grew up in that strange, beautiful, and completely fucked-up pocket of the 80s where nobody had really figured out how to raise a kid, but everyone was damn sure they were doing it better than their parents. It was the era of the latchkey, the hose water, and the quiet, unspoken agreement that as long as the house didn’t burn down, everything was fine.
And that’s how I ended up in the living room of some girl who was way more developed than I was—emotionally, physically, spiritually, hell, probably legally. I was a freshman. Tall, skinny, clueless, with limbs like wet spaghetti and a brain that was mostly just static. And she… she was the director. She didn’t take “no” for an answer because she’d already written the script, cast the roles, and sold the tickets without ever consulting the damn actors.
She pulled me along like a mother dragging a reluctant kid into a timeshare presentation. “Come on,” she said, with that terrifying, beautiful confidence. “It’ll be fun.”
And there I was. On her couch. She’s positioning me like a mannequin, moving my hands where she wants them, choreographing the whole thing like a high school production of Caligula. I’m terrified. I’m excited. I’m confused.
And then, the mother walks in.
A single mom. Post-hippie, post-boom, pre-“find myself” era. She’s got a cigarette in one hand and a weariness in her eyes that could crush a coal into a diamond.
She sees her daughter, jeans unbuttoned. She sees me, looking like a deer in the headlights of a semi-truck. She sees the situation for exactly, brutally what it is.
And she just… shrugs.
“Oh, hi, sweetheart,” she says, taking a drag. “I’d rather you two do it here in the living room where it’s safe. God knows I had to do it in the back of a Plymouth.”
She said it like she was talking about leftovers. Like this was the natural, boring progression of a Tuesday afternoon: Puberty -> Homework -> Hormones -> Living-room Foreplay While Mom Warms Up a Lean Cuisine.
And that wasn’t even the last time I saw that kind of parental supervision-by-neglect.
There was Gina.
Jesus Christ, Gina. Half-Filipino, all beauty, and raised by a single mom who subscribed to the philosophy of “Do whatever you want, honey, just don’t stain the sheets and tell me if you used protection.”
Gina took full advantage of that freedom. Her house wasn’t a home; it was a goddamn teenager amusement park. Bump-n-grind rides, rubbing sessions, shirts ruined, hormones thick enough to chew on.
And me? I’m standing there, an idiot with a hard-on and a conscience, apologizing to her mom for “the laundry situation.”
And her mom? She’d just walk in like a hotel concierge checking on the mini-bar. “Everything good? Everybody safe? Need more Capri Suns?”
I didn’t know what the hell was happening. Nobody taught boys anything back then. You just got thrown into the deep end of feminine chaos and hoped your dick didn’t get you killed.
Years later, the world changed. Women started giving lectures about “consent,” about power dynamics, and suddenly the entire male species became the villain in a story we didn’t even get to write. We were the aggressors. The predators.
Meanwhile, I’m looking back at my life, remembering the women who looked me dead in the eyes, pulled me into their bodies with the strength of a longshoreman, and whispered, “I hope I get pregnant, but I never want to see you again.”
And then they’d leave. Like they’d just clocked out of a shift.
Four times. Four.
Men may be dogs, sure. We’re simple. We bark, we chase cars, we hump the furniture if we get excited. We’re honest about our hunger.
But women—some of them—they’re cats.
Cats with agendas. Cats who slink from one lap to another, purring when they want something, scratching when they don’t, and leaving you sniffing the air, wondering what the hell just happened. I’ve seen women go from doing anal twice a day with me—screaming, scratching, feral—to smiling sweetly at their boyfriends an hour later like they’d spent the afternoon baking banana bread.
And I’m not judging it. Christ, I’m impressed.
I’m just saying: if you’re trying to figure out the logic using dog rules, you’re the wrong species.
Cats don’t explain. Cats don’t apologize. Cats don’t feel guilty.
They meow, they strut, they take the cream, and they leave you holding the empty bowl, wondering how the hell you got there.
Maybe that’s the whole story of the 80s. The boys were dogs, chasing anything that moved. The girls were cats, running the whole goddamn show.
And the moms? They were just tired adults, chain-smoking in the kitchen, trying to pretend they weren’t the ringmasters of the circus they created.
