Today's Salon included a short ramon á clef by a papparazzo named Aubrey Reuben. In his rather short confessional he describes how he was a good Jewish boy who, upon discovering the sexual charms of women, dropped all that and started goofing around with a married woman. Then he found a woman who, by his own description, was a carnally entrancing Latina who bedded him with great vigor. They were married for almost fifty years, and had sex to the end.

 Oh boy.

 Mr. Reuben is not a made-up character or a persona. As some commenters to the article demonstrate with links, he is a real person with a great deal of presence in the modern media world. Last year he was asked to be a judge for the Tony Awards. The man stands out.

 But the question is whether the man is full of it or telling the truth. There's no way of really knowing that, but I think he is telling the truth. And here's why.

Very young men who are introduced to sex by mature women (like your's truly back in November of '83) tend to learn certain...things. If we are also  possessed of what Henry Miller called a "lead bar with wings" - and I think Mr. Reuben was and is - then we are more or less set for life. That's it, and there's no accounting of it because life isn't fair. 

I consider myself a male feminist and always have, but I've never understood the tendency of modern women (especially "third wave" feminists) to consider every man's desire to be somehow repugnant. Would I want to be like Reuben? No, because he has obviously lived a life without the slightest bit of insight beyond "I like hot chicks." But do I blame him for having such a good time? No again, because that's how men of his generation behaved, and do behave. I think men of my generation should look upon such men as cautionary examples.