by Rudy Cheeks

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

Me and my buddy were at the beach the other day, and we noticed a number of girls who were wearing "navel rings." We figured that maybe we could have sex with some of them. What are the chances that any of these girls are virgins?

Chuckie

Dear Chuckie,

What are the chances that you and your buddy have a lot of time on your hands, time you choose to fill by speculating not with your minds (which many believe to be the organ best suited for such tasks), but with your undoubtedly ever-dependable fun-boy appendages?

You also may want to ask yourself, Chuckie, what the chances are of anybody older than 16 still being a virgin. You don't need to subscribe to Venereal Disease Digest to know that these days, the odds run strongly against virginity.

Let's see if Dr. Lovemonkey has cracked the code and read between the oh-so-nuanced lines of your missive: you and your buddy assume that just about any female who pierces her navel also must have, shall we say, rather flexible sexual standards.

This may not necessarily be the case. Body piercing is popular with a wide variety of people, including a number who eschew sexual promiscuity, especially sexual promiscuity with mindless oafs. This is a specialty kind of thing, like S&M or bondage.

What you boys seem to be looking for are females with long blond hair and low self-esteem. There's a lot of that going around, even more than pierced navels. By the way, I don't know of a magazine called Venereal Disease Digest. I made it up.

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

I've been involved for a couple of years now with a woman who is much younger than I am. Seventeen years, to be exact. I'm 45, and she's 28. We're considering getting married, but I'm apprehensive about the age difference. Not that it's a problem or anything. I just know that a lot of people are skeptical about relationships between people with major age differences, and I wonder if you think there's any inherent problem with such cases?

Gary

Dear Gary,

Big age differences need not be problematic. They are for some people, because of the patterns and roles they can fall into. But if you two have been together for a few years now, you should have a fairly good sense of the dynamic between you.

It's pretty tough to sustain a balanced, healthy, and (please pardon this frightening slide into therapeutic babble, but I can't think of a more accurate phrase) mutually empowering relationship under any circumstance. But with a distinct age difference, there are a few typical behavioral patterns.

The older person will sometimes act like the mentor or teacher and/or the younger person will behave like the student. This is not unusual, because people are often attracted to the student/mentor relationship. But while this is also not necessarily a bad thing, it does not naturally flow into the kind of partnership that marriage symbolizes, since the student/mentor thing is not inherently balanced.

What you want to do, Gary, is talk about this with your girlfriend and see if you think this is a major element of your relationship. Oftentimes, the older partner will be impatient with the younger partner. You'll want to look and see if that's the case with you.

Basically, the age difference is not unbridgeable at all. The problem is that we tend to get stuck in patterns with people from other age groups, and we can find it hard to get past these. That's why when Fred Hone, the Rhode Island grammar school teacher, married one of his former 6th-grade pupils a few years back (he did wait until she was in high school at least), it didn't work out. Well, actually, there could have been other reasons as well.

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

I like to sing along with certain songs when they come on the car radio, but my boyfriend really hates it when I do. He now shuts the radio off, and it pisses me off. Is this fair?

Karen

Dear Karen,

I believe that in cases like this, there is a need for some measure of reciprocity, some give and take. It also depends on what songs we are talking about here.

For instance, I would certainly enjoy hearing you sing along with "In the Year 2525" at the top of your lungs -- as long as you agreed that as soon as the song was over, you would allow me to pour a can of lighter fluid over you and apply a blowtorch.

Although Dr. Lovemonkey doesn't drive and therefore rarely hears the car radio, I recently heard the big hit song "Butterfly Kisses" for the first time. Immediately, my thoughts turned toward the lighter fluid and blowtorch, but in that case, I did not want to involve the middleman -- the person sitting in the car and singing along with the radio. Instead, I wanted to go directly to the source and find the guy who wrote and performed the song. But that's me.

The rule should be that if you're driving and it's your car, you certainly should be able to sing along. If he's driving and it's his car, you must curb your vile tendencies.

In the meantime, if someone will send Dr. Lovemonkey the severed head of Michael Bolton (and now that the UPS strike is over, this should be easy), I will send them a box of fine cigars.

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