August 12, 2013
The Shoulder is an Erogenous
Zone
I love to make the people stare; they
know I got that certain savoir-faire.”
-Christina Aguilera from Express
My daily walk turns me on.
Let me be clear. I don’t mean that
the increase of endorphins and serotonin levels resulting from the physical
activity creates a euphoric sense of well being in me. I mean (Here’s
where we cue the familiar background
music from 70’s porn movies---“ bow chicka bow wow”) the walk turns me on. Like another pleasurable pastime adults enjoy,
I eagerly anticipate my walk; I’m totally enthralled in the experience while
I’m doing it; and I’m completely sated when it’s over. Two or three important elements contribute to
making me feel all worked up and stimulated each day by my eighty minutes on
the shoulder of the road.
Spandex is one of the reasons I
feel so good when I walk. When I first
began my daily stroll, I wore loose-fitting shirts and stretch-waist polyester
pants in an attempt to disguise my shape.
As the months went by and I continued to walk and lose weight, I confidently
chose more form-fitting workout clothes, spandex shirts and pants that smooth and
shape and cling in the most flattering way. I also discovered a wide world of
athletic undergarments, including – who knew? – an underwire sports bra. While such a garment might not appeal to some
ladies, I come from a long line of buxom women who proudly display their curves,
so no bosom-flattening athletic bras for me.
I’ve always had an hourglass figure; it’s just that, prior to the weight
loss, the hourglass was extra large. Now
I love striding up and down my hills in sleek, flattering workout clothes that
don’t need to disguise a thing and actually sort of demand, “Hey, look at me!”
While the clothes I wear make me feel
pretty darn sexy during my walk, part of the jazzed up feeling I get also comes
from my posture. Following the sports experts’
advice about effective walking, I’ve focused on how I hold my body when I walk
–head high, shoulders back, chest out, stomach pulled in with rear tucked
under, and pelvis tipped up. While all those
steps sound complicated, they blend together to create a stride that is
powerful, confident, and just happens to show off the body to its best
advantage. Actually, it’s not so much a
stride as…..well, it’s a strut! There’s
no other word for it. Arms and hips
swinging, I strut my way past lines of traffic with a posture that shouts, “How
ya like me now?”
Another factor that makes my walk
such a turn on is the music I listen to.
I’ve talked about my walking playlist in a previous post, but there are
a few songs, in particular, that lend themselves to on-the-road hotness. From her opening lusty grunt to her last
whispered, “Oo la la” in the song, Paris, Grace Potter along with The
Nocturnals demands that a hesitant lover make his move and then boldly
describes what she would do in his place. In
Sexy Back Justin Timberlake’s lascivious invitations to “get your sexy on”
would make any girl tingle all over, but especially when she’s already hot and
breathing hard. The queen of provocative
walking songs on my playlist, however, is Christina Aguilera. In two songs from the movie, Burlesque, Aguilera growls her
suggestions to the listener to get up, strut, and show off those sexy moves. Some
days I get so caught up channeling Christina’s wanton encouragement playing in
my head that I’m just a pole short of delivering a full-throttle runway show
for the folks speeding down the highway.
This newly-acquired comfort with
showing off puzzles me. I’ve spent most
of my adulthood trying to avoid being looked at. I have a reputation for being obsessively
punctual, and even habitually early to events, but people never realized that my compulsive
punctuality was the result of being mortified at the thought of walking into a
room already filled with a large group, searching to find an available spot,
tugging and squeezing my way between rows of seated folks, and wedging myself
into a usually too-small chair, the focus of everyone’s attention. While my deeply buried, internal performer
has always desired attention, the overweight, insecure, exterior me cowered at
the thought of facing humiliating criticism and ridicule. My sense of freedom on the highway shoulder
is probably fostered, in part, by the fact that my audience speeds by at sixty
miles an hour. Whether they approve or
disapprove of my display, the ambiguous honk of a horn fading in the distance
is all I ever hear.
My daily walk is most satisfying. After being all pumped up for eighty minutes
or so, I arrive home from the shoulder of the highway breathing hard, sweaty,
and happily exhausted. It’s a good thing
I don’t smoke, or I’d need to light up a cigarette.
