Off The Running Track. Enticing Sports-Minded Friends to Swap their Runners For Erotica

Three times a week, I wait on the end of the street at 6:15 in the morning for my friends, the runners. I don’t like running. I am not very good at it. I am not athletic, my body is too large and I can’t speak and run at the same time. I can’t even think and run at the same time. But running is what my friends do. From early morning runs to half-marathons, groups of my friends lace-up, hydrate and run. Together. So I join them.

I enjoy the sense of belonging. I know running is good for me and I have high hopes it will someday transform me from the elephant plodding to a bonafide member of the group of gazelles. But I am not inherently athletic. I fear that no matter how much time and effort I put into running, I will never catch up to the rest of the group.

And this is a problem. Wanting to belong is a universal need. But even moreso is the desire to be an equal member of that group; one who contributes or even advances the group processes. And while my friends are accommodating and even patient with me, I feel like the little sister who is tagging along. And like the little sister, I want to pull on their coattails and loudly suggest we do something else. So, one night I did. I proposed we trade in our sneakers for a pen, some paper, a drink and a stack of erotica.

My idea didn’t come completely out of the blue and it wasn’t entirely the tequila talking. I had come up with the idea when I came across the book Sex, Death and Other Distractions by the Kensington Ladies‘ Erotica Society. These Kensington writers hail from the San Fransisco area and I live in Calgary’s own Kensington as do my running friends. It seemed, at first, a hilarious coincidence, so I bought the book. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to suggest the idea of forming our own Calgary Chapter of the Kensington Ladies’ Erotica Society.
So, one night, I did.

We were sitting on the back deck with our spouses. It was an exceptionally hot summer evening. No one was in a hurry to leave, the children were all playing elsewhere. Everyone was talking, everyone was drinking and relaxing. I pulled the book out.

Why not? I asked. The Kensington Ladies’ Erotica Society was formed 25 years ago. But now they’re in their seventies. While respectfully still vibrant, I suggested it was time to pass the torch. We could carry on the tradition and write our own stories of erotica.

The reaction? Initially, exhilaration. We sent the men and kids home and moved up to the rooftop deck and continued to drink and explore the possibilities. I pulled out a notebook and took notes. Grand ideas of weekend retreats, and great titles like Licorice Whipped, A Proposal of Sorts and from our local horticulturist, Clematis were bandied about. We’d meet, read, discuss, and then write. It seemed, that night, the next adventure we’d embark on together.

I was thrilled. I didn’t know much about erotica so we would start off on an even playing field. It wouldn’t involve cold mornings (unless for some titillating reason we wanted it to). It didn’t involve my non-athletic body. What it did involve was literature, discussion and creation. We could meet at night, with a drink. We could talk and breathe at the same time. We could become philosophical. Just think of the laughs!

For once, I was ready to run. I began the research. Armed with works from Anais Nin, Henry Miller and Nancy Friday I began calling and emailing the others to share what I had found and start pinning down dates to get started. Slowly, I began to notice that no one was returning my calls and that no one was looking me in the eye any more. Slowly, I began to realize that outside the rooftop deck soused in tequila this idea no longer held any merit. Somewhere in the sober mornings I was left standing alone with a notebook and a stack of erotica under my arm.

I was stunned. What I was proposing was not really deviant, was it? I wasn’t, like some of the pulp erotic novels of the seventies, suggesting an orgy among friends. I was merely trying to create another opportunity to get together.

The idea was eagerly brought forward, not for any deviant reason but for fun and to try something new. Like running, we could use each other to check our instincts, be pulled past our natural area of comfort and gain strength in the process. It would also allow us to step outside of our role as wife, mother, teacher, doctor, scientist and athlete. I thought, perhaps, it would be a vehicle to explore not only the boundaries of pleasure from a woman’s perspective, but real issues we face on a daily basis.

Through fictional stories we could discuss issues of betrayal, of jealousy, loneliness, rejection and insecurity. And perhaps at the root of it, I put the idea forward with the chance to create characters who were not perfect-physically or otherwise-but were still desirable.

Friendships do revolve around closeness, but erotica might be just too close. While my younger, still single friend confessed to late night sex talks among her girlfriends, one married, reluctant friend confided she didn’t want anyone to think what she revealed was about her husband. Hmm. Good point. And what about the children? That was a sticky situation I realized myself when my 9-year-old son asked me what this article was about. I didn’t quite know how to tell him and still keep his psyche intact.

I took these issues and presented them to the San Fransisco Kensington women. Surely, the original six had dealt with these issues of uncertainty. Elvira Pearson (a pseudonym, probably not a bad idea) responded. She told me that the members of the Kensington Ladies’ Erotica Society were not originally friends. The idea to explore erotica sprang up at a party when the conversation turned to what men and women thought was sexy. To avoid betraying the men they had in their lives though, the authors wrote strictly about fantasies.

There were other uncomfortable issues, she warned. Like when one of them wrote “My Gorilla” and didn’t want her name on it. Gorilla fantasies, she told me, have their followers.

Gorilla lovers? This didn’t help me. It only aroused my curiosity further. I want to know more. Anyone with me? Anyone?

As with most life experiences I have limped away from this one with more understanding on how the world works. The erotica dialogue has not progressed much, unfortunately. If I ever catch up with my girlfriends on the running track, I plan on throwing the idea out again to see if anything has changed.

But, I confess, I am reluctant to give up completely on this idea. I am still running and still not loving it. And I’m inspired. If those original Kensington gals can be in their seventies and still be thinking and writing erotically, we’ve got a few decades to go to figure things out. I still think it would be a blast and I confess, I am interested in what is up with the whole gorilla loving situation.

The original notebook, along with a secret stash of tequila and erotica is put away together, ready to be pulled out at the first sign of interest. I think our own little Kensington story is yet to be written. I don’t know if it would be any good, but it would be a hell of a lot more fun than running on dark cold mornings.