The Politics of the Cock Block

I think we've all been there.

In the heat of "oh I really really want this person," comes the realization,"but my friends are here." Which quickly turns into, "I can't ask them to leave." Then finally sudden hatred and the thought, "they're COCK BLOCKING ME."

At which point you kind of want to kill your friends, hoping they'll come back to live after you've completed the task. That way, you can tell them all about it.

I believe the phrase "cock block" can be unisex, given that it describes the act of preventing the subject "cock" in the activity of being "blocked" of a specific maneuver (read: "insertion). Though more often than not, it is not used in a mutually inclusive, genderbending context. Typically, it's a man wanting to get into the pants of a lady. Typically, it's the woman's friends preventing this from happening.

Last night, Jab and I went to grab drinks at a favorite local watering hole with our perpetually single cohort named Brian. His reason for being perpetually single is another blog, however, this blog may lend some insight as to the reason for his singledom. Brian decided that we must leave our sacred, and cheap, drinking grounds for Hollywood so that he could retrieve a specific female whom he'd previously had relations with. Jab and I let out a collective, "no way man, that area is a no-no." We just don't like it.

Brian assured us that we'd leave quickly if we were unhappy. Frankly, I couldn't be happier with how it all turned out: we didn't even have to enter some hormone laced establishment. We drove up to the front of Happy Endings on La Brea and Sunset to see a line stretching from the door to the street.

"No fucking way man, we're not going in there."

"Don't worry, don't worry, there she is." Brian recognized his reason for coming here. She was approaching the car with her boobs all cleavagey and her prance all libidinous.

I truly don't mean to sound like I'm judging, we've all done that as long as we could get away with it - and some of us for much longer than was a good idea. I'm so grateful I don't have to participate in the great female on female boob contest any longer. I could never have won anyway.

Brian's potential lady jumped in the car and we were off to another bar. One that we could just waltz into, and get a table, and drink.

Towards the end of our tenure at this bar, Brian's lady made a dash for the bathroom. At which point, Brian unveiled the plan.

"I gotta get her to come over. You guys gotta help me."

I was immediately smashed in the face with a pie of confusion. Do I help my friend? Or do I help my fellow female?

If this were biologically driven and completely tribal, it seems to me that I would help my fellow female. As we don't have brawn, perhaps it is our collective duty to protect each others babymakers?

But this is 2010. This is an era of birth control, taxis, and women having their own money and well...lots of choices. Truly if she didn't want to be there, she wouldn't be. But should I create social pressure to get her in the den alone with Brian and his libido?

I guess what really tipped the moral scales for me was the fact that they had had sex previously. And, I can verify, she was really into it.

So when Brian's lady returned to the table I blurted out my assistance to the "get Brian laid" program:

"Hey, have you seen 'Observe and Report' yet? It's hilarious. It's at Brian's house, we're gonna watch it when you get back there. You should come."

I knew no one had seen Observe and Report. It's funny as well, but it marked the point at which Seth Rogen began to lose his luster in the 18 - 34 year-old male demographic.

"No, I haven't, but my roommate is coming to pick me up in a little bit. He's drunk, so I don't know how long it's going to take."

Then the screams of "LAST CALL" rang through the bar. After much dilly dallying, we finally left.

Brian's lady bummed a cigarette from some fellow patrons. She realized her roommate was still quite far away. She agreed to come with us back to Brian's house and have the roommate pick her up there.

Upon arriving back at his lovely West LA bachelor pad, I was asked to give the confused roommmate directions to Brian's house. I gave proper directions, yet this guy still fucked them up.

When giving the second set of directions, directing the roommate away from the place he'd veered off to, Brian whispered to me "way to cock block, you shoulda told him to keep going the wrong direction!"

He was joking. He would never ask or expect me to do such a devious thing. But it made me go down that line of thinking. If I were to do that, it would be wrong not just because it was deceitful, but because it was deceitful to a member of my own gender.

There are few things, well okay nothing, that I consider to be a woman's duty. However, In this moment it seemed that it was a woman's duty to prevent another woman from getting laid.