Teatime.

My associate, Karen, and I attended an Entertainment Weekly Party that promoted the prospective choices for their 25 Hottest under 25. Ten minutes into it, Karen found an unnamed Disney star vomiting in the ladies room from too many jello shots.

“Jello shots?” I snarled at her. “What are we? Twenty-five?”

“And under,” Karen reminded me. “Don’t forget.”

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Famed socialite and life and styles writer, Candace Bushnell, once championed that “There are things worse than being 35, single and female in New York. Like: being 25, single and female in New York.” While most people in a ladder-climbing city like New York can probably attest to this, there may not be such a unanimous consensus in L.A. Especially if you are like me and work in the entertainment industry.

One day, I posted my facebook status to read as follows: “Why do people want to look 25 forever? Frankly, the thought of looking like someone's assistant and looking like I am stupid in relationships doesn't appeal to me. Embrace wisdom, society.”

The immediate result? Three likes from male friends and protests from two female friends. And finally, one of my female friends responded with, “because, my dear Miko, we women need to be attractive to all those older wisdom-enhanced and fingers-crossed, have-made-their-fortune males who only want young, cute, stupid-in-relationship things they can impress.”
The 25 versus 35 battle is a prominent one, but one that is made more prominent when you are in the female gender.

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I met with a good friend and gender studies professor at Stanford University, Dina Wilcox. I wanted to get her genuine, facts-aside opinion on the matter.

“I can’t put facts aside, Miko,” she tells me. “For an intelligent person, facts shape opinion.” (Sidebar: While I agree with this comment on the surface, I sorely believe that Dina is being black and white about intelligence. So don’t hate me. Hate her.) “Look at all the women who openly embraced their 30s: Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Portman, Kate Middleton. They all look ten times better at 30 than they did at 20. Now look at all the women who capitalized on their 20s: Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and so on. Your attitude shapes your physicality. And you can definitely tell the girls who valued 25 from the women who value 35.”

“I find it funny that I asked about 25 versus 35 and you mentioned only female examples,” I said to her.

“It shouldn’t be,” she responded. “But it is different for men than women –to society at least. Even in a purely superficial sense, I know it is a taste thing, but women don’t realize that they are esthetically more defined, shaped, and filled-in in the face at 35 than they are at 25. Skin quality aside, 35 is superior. If you really think about it, most public figures DO look better in their 30s. Think hard. Think Angelina Jolie or Drew Barrymore. Not to mention the attitude and confidence that informs those physical features. So logically, aside few features, yes. 35 is better in that sense. And even if you value those few features that are better in 25 so deeply, 35 is NOT that much physically different than 25 anyway. Most smart women know this.” Revelation. She is sort of right.

“So why do women value 25 over 35 in the entertainment industry?”

“Because, subconsciously, they are psychological slaves to gender roles. I wish I could be less blunt than that, but it’s true. At 25, a woman is at an ample age to be wedded and still give birth to her husband’s son. At 35, not so much. They may have to do something awful, like adopt. Sorry, tangent. But that’s the reality. I’m sure I will have a lot of girls protesting my 10 years of research because they value being cute. But you don’t publish real names, right?” Oh Dina. Why didn’t I go to Stanford?

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Back at the Entertainment Weekly Party, Karen and I overheard an unnamed Nickelodeon star have the following conversation with her pink-hair-streaked, Diesel-wearing twenty-something friend:

“I want to be 25 FOREVER!”
“Snap! Girl, I wish I was still 17!” Cue high-pitched giggles.

We had to leave immediately. After some jello shots.

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“You know,” Karen said in the car. “I guess I can’t fault the 20somethings for being foolish in that sense. I was a smart girl at 25. I had a master’s from Princeton for God’s sake. But I still feared 35. It wasn’t until I turned 31 and moved to New York for a year that I realized how wonderful my 30s are; how I still had 90% of my physical youth from my 20s and how I did in fact look like a sleeker version of my 20something self; only I was smarter and wasn’t a stupid idiot in relationships.”

“Are we having a moment of compassion for these jello-shooting office assistants, Karen?”

She laughed. “Like I said. I wasn’t stupid when I was 25. But when I was 25, I would fall in love with a boy after one or two good dates. Then my heart would be broken because we didn’t last forever. Holy CRAP am I glad that’s over with. “

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Dina approached the age battle from a physical stand-point, while Karen approached it from a standpoint of differing mindsets. As a piece of relief to all the girls in the entertainment industry fearing 35, I have concluded that the two approaches are indeed related. Moreover, as a man, let me tell you, that I do indeed prefer Kate Middleton to Miley Cyrus.

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“That intern’s going to fuck me,” Jennifer whined between cavernous puffs of her waning cigarette. “I know it.”
“Why did you sleep with your boss’s brother? And why did you tell the intern?“ I replied.
“I get overly trusting after sex.”
“You slept with the intern?”
“That’s not the point Mickey,” Jennifer spat. “If that damned kid tells the boss I slept with his brother, I’m over! So over! Unless... Hm. Never mind. I have a solution. And it’s simple. I’ll totally just fuck the boss. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!”

The honor to affix my friend Jennifer’s sexual practices is up for debate. She had been working as an editor for an entertainment trade magazine for a good five years and this is not the first time she has used her feminine wiles to her advantage. What is clearly not up for debate is the quotidian nature of her actions.

As it has been historically, there is noticeable disparity among the sexual practices of descending classes in any contemporary first-world society. Behind every great man, for example, is a great woman and in front of the man, positioned there so she does not see, is his mistress. Another remarkable phenomenon within differing sexual practices of our class-based subcultures is the fact that, while homosexuality is accepted and even praised, and sometimes feigned for fun, in the educated upper middle classes, the leadership classes see debacles such as that of former Senator McGreevey’s of New Jersey. All that to say, whether one believes in Eve being forced to shoot children out of her vagina as punishment or in the Neanderthal of the Pleistocene era clubbing his mate over the head to claim sexual domain, sex, at the core, has always and will always have a relationship with power. It is the dynamics of the interplay between the two faculties that have faced organic mutability.

I attended the Gloryhole Uncut party in West Hollywood with Jennifer; a celebration of the contributions of famed sex toy shop, the Pleasure Chest. It was an orgy of porn stars, adult entertainment executives, socialites, celebutants, and press. Naturally, I use the word “orgy” figuratively. Well, pseudo-figuratively in this case. Multi-AVN and multi-XBIZ award winning porn star, Bella Donna, performed aerial fabric acrobatics achieving feats we were only used to seeing her do in adjunct to another person.

“I don’t do porn anymore,” she told me. “It’s a ‘veni vedi veci’ kind of thing. It was something I loved to do that ended up becoming a means to an end. And now I am in a place where I can explore all sorts of other entertainment easily.” Veni Vedi Veci? It is true. She came, she saw, she conquered. Then she came again.

The excessive ease of the Gloryhole had me wondering. Here was an event where thousand dollar Champaign was free to its attendees; where regular cocktail drinking joe-shmo writers, such as myself, can talk to Billy Idol and Jenna Jameson about their favorite sexual position in such a cavalier manner that we could have been talking about the weather; where one uses toilet protectors in the bathroom to protect themselves, not against waste blowback, but blow blowback.

In copious ancient societies, it was perfectly normal for the peasants to practice sexual humility while those in power indulged in hedonistic lifestyles that were not representative of common moral attitudes. While a blacksmith in 1900 BCE Itjtawy could conceivably be killed for adultery, male pharaohs such Amenemhat I as well as female pharaohs such as the famed Cleopatra have been known for their multiple affairs. Ancient Roman leaders, including our Belladonna’s beloved Caesar, practically invented the orgy. It is clear that our ancestors used power for sex. Conversely in today’s society, Jenna Jameson, Sasha Grey, and Ron Jeremy are extreme circumstances exemplifying the fact that now people use sex to get power.

“Power is attainable to anyone in a meritocracy. Sure, it’s easier to get for some than others, but impossible is nothing. Moreover, unlike in ancient societies, sex is readily available everywhere you turn,” Jennifer said, as she peaked into the gloryhole installation. “Oh look, it’s April Floures masturbating with two vibrators.”

Readily available? More like pounding on your door. Simplifying today’s formula for sex and power, I have grasped the following: Sex is available to everyone. One can work to attain power they were not born with. People like sex, especially those in power. Those in power can bestow those without power with power. Hence, those without power can give sex to those in power in exchange for power. So this simple formula explains why I, to reiterate -a regular joe-shmo writer, am at the Gloryhole party. And then I realized –when did I ever sleep with anyone?
“Did you ever sleep with your boss?” I asked Jennifer.
“I gave him a handjob in his car.”

With the aftermath of the Gloryhole hanging over my aura, I supported my friend Tom’s gallery opening downtown, as he was visiting from New York. His subject matter is depictions of intercourse, close-up, in very particular lights.

“Some say,” he said. “That the man stabs the woman. But I think that the woman devours the man. That’s what I wanted to show with my paintings.”
“Have you ever used sex to feel powerful?” I asked him.
“I think men just feel powerful during sex in general. I never did. Hence the paintings. Women in my life understood full well that sexuality can make people feel powerful, at the very least even in terms of dress or attitude. They used that more overtly than using sex as a tool to feel powerful. Consequently, I think only very few of them were evolved enough to not suffer emotional repercussions afterwards or conversely, to use sexuality as a tool because of an emotionally distraught past.”

Since everyone can have sex, and everyone in the progressive meritocratic first world is free to do so, everyone can live like a ruler of the ancient past. But let’s not forget the one unifying quality these disparate hedonistic ruling cultures had in common: they all fell from grace. Hard. Fact is, we have evolved to be a tribal society. We may not physically need the aid of others anymore, but given the nature of our evolution, it is not easy to shed the psychological need of company –part of the reason why those in the first world continue to procreate regardless of overpopulation. As such, there will in general, be ultimate emotional repercussions in using sex for power. Whether the detriments outweigh the benefits is an individual issue, naturally. Furthermore, there are two, and only two, solutions to the problem: Either we put a moral boundary against the interplay, or we simply evolve. 