never discuss masturbation with a woman

I explored downtown festivities solo, and during the bus ride home after midnight, I endured a loud, obnoxious and sexist conversation by several university students about masturbation and how women would never understand it because of crazy female insecurity. Two young kids were sitting right there the whole time, which made this conversation inappropriately timed, as well as sexist and generally idiotic. Plus their specific complaint about "One must never broach the question of masturbation with one's girlfriend" was pretty ludicrous, considering with fair certainty these particular guys had a high ratio of handjive compared to breathing female dates.

As I left the bus, one of the group stepped off to the side to allow me to squeeze out of the back bus door. I thanked him, then said, "Hey..." and delivered my insight.

"Here is your enlightenment for the day. Not all women are insecure, and not all women are averse to masturbation - we just don't discuss it in front of community children. In fact I had it on the agenda tonight until a sexist conversation completely dampened my desire to touch myself. (pause, smile, touch the brim of my hat in farewell salute) Spread the word."

And as he stuttered "O-o-okay," I sashayed off on the midnight winds of the cheap-but-effective rhetorical approach of getting in the last word.

she's a girl and she's my friend, but...

Hyungkoo makes extremely clever observations and comments when he speaks in English, but he is still shy in his conversation. There are occasional slips in his vocabulary - such as the time he thought I called myself the Treasure of the House rather than the In-house Treasurer, or when he mixes up whether to call his relative his cousin or his sister. (She is his cousin, but specification of gender can be confoundingly absent in English for neutral words.)

So when he has referred to the young woman visiting him interchangeably as his "friend" or his "girlfriend," no one's questions could quite ascertain whether Sol is his romantic partner or a female buddy.

I thought I had my answer this morning when I heard the sounds of sex eminating from Hyungkoo's room as I passed through the second floor hallway. The masses shall be enlightened! The monkey shall be moved! I thought, thinking of the stuffed monkey in the kitchen that housemates are obligated to move when a secret is spilled around the cutting boards and tea kettles.

Which is approximately when I realized that the sounds I heard were simply the dips and rises of conversational Korean being spoken in woman's vocal register.

Stay monkey, stay.