Ekstasis - Opportunity

Opportunity

I am not naturally any sort of business woman, but when I’m in an airport, every time, I practically quiver with the vision of the profits that could be generated. Restaurant after restaurant advertises vacant and rumpled men, alone and looking hollow, or sitting with coworkers at the bar and ordering 11am drinks. Travel at the right times, to and from the right places, and you will see maybe one woman for every ten men. Ok so an airport brothel is too much to ask. But what about an airport strip club? A peep show booth? Right between the Fox News store and the TGIFridays imitation.

Rarely do these travelers look capable of genuine arousal or any type of interest in another human being. They live on sodas and snack food, shower with hard water and sleep on bleached tight sheets, see face after white middle-aged face that looks identical to their own. But trying for a turn-on would at least be familiar and distracting. My suspicion is that most would gladly pay to forget who they are, where they are and where they’re going.

“…Rarely do these travelers look capable of genuine arousal or any type of interest in another human being…”

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ll say this: It’s when I’m the most tired, when I’m traveling alone and have been up all night and find myself drinking in an airport bar in the morning, that I feel the most ravenous. Blurry as the world may be, everyone I see becomes someone I could potentially duck into a bathroom with. My mind absolutely races in such public spaces, in such circumstances. Something about the liminality of those places, about the particular kind of stress that traveling induces, sets me off. I am, perhaps, alone in this respect, but I’ll bet I’m not.

I realized a long time ago (and wrote about it somewhere, though I can’t find it now) that stress makes me horny. The feeling that sweeps over me when I’m traveling is the same one I experienced, for instance, while staying up all night during finals in college. I don’t think it’s a matter of simply craving distraction…I’m perfectly capable of providing myself that, without fucking…but, rather, something about the isolation of those circumstances. That’s a guess. I honestly don’t know what the root cause is. I can tell you, though, that this is a legitimate business model.