I'm A 42-Year-Old Man Who's Never Gotten A Hickey — And I Want One
For the love of God, can someone give me a damn hickey already?
courtesy of the author I've secretly wanted a hickey since I was 12.
Yes, I get it, you probably think hickeys are creepy or gross or white-trashy. They're forbidden fruit, and as far as I can tell, pretty much the only Red Badge of Sexual Conquest you can wear at the mall or shootin' back shots at the bar.
But I still feel robbed that I've never had one.
I've managed to live a pretty damn sexual life for decades now, engaging in pretty exotic exploits/flirting with space-age experimental positions/utilizing extreme voltage electricity and homemade lasers in the bedroom to kinky effect, but STILL.
Not one damn girl ever found me to be as deserving of a hickey, as just about every teenage carnival worker I've come across.
(Side note: Have you ever walked around a carnival or county fair, looking for hickeys? It's soul-crushing, if you've never been on the receiving end.)
Hickeys are oddly titillating, a monument to pure unfiltered lust. Like you're walking around wearing a huge "Sexual Olympics" gold medal for kinkiness or, even better, flashing a wonderful A+ report card stapled to the side of your damn neck.
Sure, some will argue that adults who sport hickeys are, shall we say, less than "desirable," and I can't lie, I've prejudged Hickey Folk in my time.
It happens.
You hit the Walmart on the right Saturday morning and you see a lot of raw humanity. Emphasis on the raw.
And even as a closeted fan, I've gawked at strangers' necks before, especially when those bruised necks are attached to respective shopping carts full of Kool-Aid, Ding-Dongs, and Limited Edition Duck Dynasty Band-Aids. I admit: I have thrown up a little in my mouth.
But despite the grotesqueness of it all, the undeniable truth of the vampire kiss is that someone got crazy with someone else last night. And that's beautiful.
(By the way, if my daughter ever comes home with a hickey, I will hunt down the boll weevil who gave it to her, even it takes me on a global goose chase that stretches across years and deserts and jungles and seas. But that moment hasn't come yet.)
At this moment, I am a 42-year-old grown man who still wants what he wants and wants what he doesn't necessarily need.
It's basic human desire.
So consider the challenge proposed, the bucket list written: My neck is available for sucking.
I can't go to the grave having never inspired somebody somewhere to plant a real honest-to-God love stamp on my neck.
It just seems lame and wrong, like I was cheated out of my carnival stripes. (Or that I cheated someone else out of the joyfully, mindless bliss of giving me one.)
So here's to the hickey. Long may you run, you beautiful freak. And ladies, give me a call.
Serge Bielanko is a blogger who writes about parenting, relationships, and music. Follow him on Instagram.