IKEA, Tentacles and Other Sexy Sexy Things

After a few months of In Bed With Married Women, I thought I was getting somewhat savvy about what's going on out there in the world of sex. But as it turns out, clearly I have no fucking idea. None.

Like, just today, I learned that there is a whole genre of art, animation and storytelling focused on tentacle eroticism, which is the desire to enjoy sexual congress with particularly fetching members of the octopus or squid family. The fetish is traced from the early 19th century woodcut, The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife (aka,"Honey, I had a really weird dream last night," shown above) by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, (a man who, as Nathan Reed put it in Cracked.com, "Liked him some tentacles.") The tentacle love was inadvertently furthered when Japanese censors banned depictions of penis penetration but weren't forward-thinking enough to ban depictions of tentacle penetrations as well. (I am pretty sure they assumed such a ban wouldn't be necessary. And, to be fair, if I had been sitting there in that censorship meeting, it's not like I would want to be the one to be bringing up the subject of tentacle/personal orifice contact.)

Hey Sailor, do you like IKEA?

As if that weren't enough--and I'm quite sure it is--there's this whole other thing I learned regarding IKEA and sex. And, no, I'm not referring to the almost sexual rush of finding stylish throw pillows at an Impossible Price but rather actual sex at IKEA. Apparently there's this whole sex thing going on at IKEA--meet-ups in the parking lot, stolen moments for bathroom hand jobs, furniture assembly/masturbation dates--or so it would seem according to Nerve.com's Best of Craigslist: IKEA Sex, a compilation of hook-up/sex ads that mention IKEA. One ad reads: "Going to IKEA? What you cock sucked?" Yes, "what you" cock sucked. I know this is illogical, but if I had a cock and indeed wanted it sucked at the IKEA, I would want a cock sucker with better grammar skills. I'm picky like that.

Writes another aspirer to IKEA sex:

I bought this IKEA table and I can't assemble it. Come over and put it together for me and I'll masturbate while you do it. With a dildo. And I will serve you unlimited iced tea. I'm 37 and not amazing looking but totally serviceable. 

I especially love the touch of the unlimited iced tea. I'm mean she/he has already offered to masturbate--with a dildo--but somehow feels the need to sweeten the deal. "Hmmm," she/he pondered while composing the ad on the floor, next to the mockingly still-unassembled IKEA table, "What does everyone love besides masturbation (with a dildo)? Iced tea! And not just one puny glass of iced tea--unlimited iced tea."

What especially wigged me out about this IKEA sex thing is that one of the IKEA sex ads is for a meet-up at the Costa Mesa IKEA, that is, my IKEA. Which means that I'm not just missing on this trend in a general sense, but in a very literal sense at my own damn neighborhood IKEA. While I'm in blissful ignorance eating attractively-priced gravalax in the Costa Mesa IKEA cafeteria, someone's probably a couple yards away in an ergonomically-designed bathroom stall smearing lingonberries all over a stranger. This is unsettling news, to say the least. But...I do love IKEA and I'm ashamed to admit that I'm not sure that decadent sex between poor grammarians going on all around me as I obliviously shop for housewares is enough to make me stop going there.

I will, however, draw the line at having sex with a tentacle. As mentioned above, I do have standards. Although if the tentacles offered furniture assembly, excellent grammar skills and unlimited iced tea...