Amazing graze

My ever-punctual mom, who just had our Christmas tree taken down two days after Chinese New Year, warned me, "Anak, do not ever touch women without their permission."

"Awww, mom, even yaya?"

"Yes, especially yaya. She is still undergoing therapy. If you touch women without their permi-ssion, your fingers will burn."

"Is it like the kind of burning I feel when I pee?"

"Even worse, anak. Even worse."

Thanks for that piece of advice, mom. I will remem-ber it well. Especi-ally since you only told me about it a week ago.

And as my finger burns continue to heal quite nicely, I’d like to welcome you to the next stage of the flirting game. After Stage 1 (The Attention-Getting stage, a.k.a. "Kulang sa Pansin" stage), where a woman demands more attention than the Kris Aquino-James Yap controversy; Stage 2 (The Recognition Stage, a.k.a. "Closer you and I" stage) where the woman evaluates your D.O.M. (dirty old man) potential by how high you wear your pants on your waist; and Stage 3 (The Talk Stage, a.k.a. "Words get in the way" stage) where your most offensive orifice is your mouth, we come to the penultimate stage in flirting: Touch (a.k.a. "You’ve Got The Touch!"). There is a very thin line between flirting and perversion for most men, and this line is as solid as an electoral campaign promise.

In flirting situations, the language of touch can be used to convey a surprising number of subtle messages. For example, touch can convey agreement, it can convey support, it can convey that this is the way that you make your dog happy, and it can convey that you will stalk a woman mercilessly if she doesn’t give you her cellphone number. And this is really the point of touching in the flirting process: it is used as a form of negotiation to achieve a level of intimacy that you could never get with text messages or late-night trysts involving webcams and pass-a-loads.

When touching is done appropriately, it can help advance you from your current state as a social pariah to near Tim Yap-status. But when touching is done inappropriately, it should be performed only on yourself and in the privacy of your own banyo. According to the Social Issues Research Center, the center where getting a date is as much an urban myth as clean elections, there are only two ground rules to appropriate social touching:

You can touch, but make sure you have a good lawyer. For the non-Tim Yaps out there, women are much less comfortable about being touched by an opposite-sex stranger than men are, so men should avoid touching women in ways that may seem remotely threatening or overly familiar. (But this is not to say that men are much more comfortable about being touched inappropriately by strange men, unless these men are three times your size and have enough money to buy off whatever shame the inappropriate touching may cause.)

And, need I again remind my three female readers, men are idiots. Any man will most likely misread any of your innocuous gestures towards him as a sexual invitation. This means, my fellow idiots, that if a woman makes physical contact with you, like kicking you in the groin, this does not mean she is attracted to you. Even if it does involve your groin. But in the likely event that you misinterpret her groin assault as a way of getting to know you better, you can always ask your lawyer to blame your ignorance on psychological incapacity, the lack of proper toilet training, or devil worship.

Social touching is restricted to visible body parts, preferably on the upper torso. Touching any body part lower than that, even if it is visible, may require emergency castration. And, more importantly, make sure to do all of your touching in highly visible venues where there are witnesses who can testify on your behalf in case any other body parts are also rendered inoperable. Again, a good lawyer is essential. Medical insurance would be good, too.

Dr. Helen Fisher, author of The Sex Contract: The Evolution of Human Behavior, says that all social touching begins with "intention cues" — these are early-warning signals that men give out before they try anything that is remarkably stupid. Though men are very much aware of these "intention cues" (a.k.a. "pa-simple techniques"), these cues are almost imperceptible by female standards. In fact, the Secret Society of Macho Macho Men (which dates back to the time of Eddie Garcia) has sought to keep these intention cues as suppressed as the Melo Report. I even risk getting the last three hairs on my chest shaved off by these revelations.

Amazing graze. Ah, I remember those idyllic rural afternoons, the sunlight prickling my face, the skies painted azure, as I lay down on the back of my beloved heifer Babushka as she grazed on the lush pasture… Oh, sorry; my bad. The type of grazing I am referring to here has the subtlety of a bullet. The book Flirting 101, a highly referenced manual among PBA players and game show hosts, insists that "grazing" is one of the most subversive tools used by DOMs and DITs (DOMs-in-training) on unenlightened females. "Grazing" occurs when the male initiates a seemingly casual but calculated brushing of body parts. This move is not advised for the fainthearted or for those with a common sense of decency.

Grazing is frequently used in tightly-packed venues where there isn’t much room to maneuver. This way, your "pa-simple technique" can appear to be as accidental as FPJ not winning any votes in Cebu. The more packed the venue, the more pasture you can graze. But when you graze, try not to graze indiscriminately because not all women are ignorant of your "imperceptible" Macho Macho Man moves. Think about those times when you "accidentally" grazed past a woman as you snaked your way through the dance floor while holding onto a bottle of beer. You must have thought that you were slyer than chief executives sidestepping impeachment trials — only to end up hearing the woman scream like a Wowowee backup dancer as her boyfriend grabbed you by your genitals and shook you like a cocktail. Men, learn to practice some self-restraint: if the woman is not someone who is worth being shaken like a cocktail by the genitals for, then it is best to keep your beer tucked snugly over your crotch.

Unlike DOMs, some DITs are not yet ready to lose all sensation in their groin area. So instead of grazing themselves against women, these DITs often linger beside a female until they are close enough to see the blackheads on her nose. After several futile efforts to avoid looking at her cleavage, the DIT will attempt to start a conversation by uttering those three magic words: "Please, I’m desperate."

But DOMs frown on such crude tactics. "You young ones think you know better just because your techniques are morally acceptable!?" rant these battle-hardened cleavage watchers as they apply ice on their family jewels. These veteran DOMs claim that the subtlest methods to graze a woman would be with an arm to arm, leg to leg, or even torso to arm contact. However, the most brain-deficient move I would like to attempt, if my mom ever gives me permission, is what most incarcerated DOMs call the "golden graze" — which is the breast to breast or pelvis to pelvis contact. I hear this move is guaranteed to get me at least 15 to 20 years in Muntinlupa. Often, the initiator of this type of contact will feign a coy laugh then apologize profusely for his Midas touch after which he will ask the woman for her phone number. The woman, in turn, will also try to reciprocate this brush by using a knee to the groin, hand through the stomach or teeth-tearing-apart-the-jugular-vein contact.

Sigh. Apparently, any type of grazing of the female anatomy is acceptable only if you are Piolo Pascual. The rest of us will just have to settle for that burning sensation when we pee.

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Next column: "Touch Me in the Moaning," or "What are the other ‘intention cues’?" For comments, suggestions, or if you know the whereabouts of Babushka, please e-mail ledesma.rj@gmail.com or visit www.rjledesma.com.