what does a boner feel like

an exercise in eroticism without indecency

Above all, the approach of a boner is heralded by the weakening focus of its bearer.

As a function of being, a man in his day-to-day ought to have a strong and immediate grasp of the reasonable. Words like firm and ramrod and solid should describe his association to reality, as he is a sensible being with sensible thoughts and a lifelong inclination to that continued seriousness. A boner is none of these things.

Exposed under the floodlights of an onlooker’s gaze as a panting, expectant thing, it’s silly, and it asks for attention. A boner signals that terrible, terrible thing — an imminent departure from treasured stoicisms and heavy focuses. Every kind of boner is reliant on this slipping, tripping weakness and that includes the romantic, the inadvertent and the lecherous. All boners require a turning head and a sudden temporary ineptitude at maintaining the here and now. But I’m lurching too far ahead, to slippages and things held strenuously.

‘What does a boner feel like’ is an incomplete question. How can it be answered in isolation? Its reason must be part of the answer. There is no action without cause, no bruise that blooms without a hit. No man is an island, with sole palm tree curving up into the sun. What does it feel like?

Depends what its made of.

When you have romantic feelings for a woman, your grip on the reasonable is constantly at risk. Many girlfriends will relish this recurring insanity in you. They’ll giggle and tease you with indecent words or pry at you with mischievous hand – and when you burst into life under this influence, she will proudly attribute it to her reaching fingers, or her bite at your ear. She will remain blissfully unaware that it could have been her laugh.

Romance is inescapably erotic. Caring, being cared for. Comfort. Familiarity. What does a boner feel like? What does loving someone feel like? It is a thing that insists. But romance allows for a special kind. Really liking someone rewires the brain-boner connection anew, in a Pavlovian jumble too sweet to understand. Affection is an opportunity, measured in the number of new ways its giver diversifies his lust.

I was in a mall one day, and walked past a woman wearing a perfume my ex-girlfriend had religiously used. I loved my ex-girlfriend, and I’d buried my face in her neck a thousand times. I remembered her laugh, and her cheeks when they were flushed. I plunged into that terrible, terrible thing, and forgot what I was about to buy, and strained against myself, and took an unusually long stride. A side effect of my daydream. What does that feel like? I think it feels good to know. It’s also embarrassing, to have your body publicly, hungrily reply to a memory. But it’s romantic, and it insists.