Attack of the sugar babies

This was close to a perfect weekend for us. Friday started off tenderly, and that night we had an enjoyable date and were able to talk about some matters "of consequence" in a thoroughly caring and productive manner. We worked together a bit in the garden on Saturday morning and then all took a bike ride for a picnic at a local park. As we threw the frisbee and kicked a soccer ball around, I was giddy with love for my kids and my wife, feeling grateful and peacefully contented to be part of this family.

Then this afternoon, I read a NY Times article about the Craigslist Casual Encounters section section and other related sites, and an article in The Week about a site that matches sugar daddies to sugar babies. The sites--at least on this particular day and from this particular emotional/spiritual place--didn't sing much of a siren song to me. But the subjects did come-hither me enough to hold my attention for beginning to end--especially with reported claims like, "I’ve met some extraordinarily beautiful women, had a few extraordinary sexual encounters that made my teeth itch and my brain sweat"--which left me disappointed in myself. (That the article cited some men roughly my age as being among the Sugar Daddies provided an additional measure of "Wait, am I getting old enough to be a Sugar Daddy?!" indignity.) I guess a preventative measure would be to read only Gospel-related materials on Sunday, but maybe it was good that I confronted these on a Happy Sunday, rather than a Frustrated Tuesday.

And then to top it off, this evening when I went out to my car to head home from a Church commitment, I found this "Cairo Casino" flier on my windshield. It didn't take me a second glance to see that this was probably not something I needed to focus on, but rather than "touch[ing] not the unclean thing" and pitching it (as I do, instantaneously, with all other window flyers, regardless of what they're purveying), I looked it over. More specifically, I looked over her navel, her décolletage and her thigh, and studied her face closely enough to conclude that it wasn't particularly attractive, but that her appeal lay in the overall presentation. I wondered briefly whether this was for a casino, a play, a strip club or a belly dance competition, then decided that any gig featuring a starlet named "Dia Diabolique" is one that--at least on this particular day and from this particular emotional/spiritual place--I need to steer clear of.

That is, after I scan it for my blog.