BUTT END
LOVE IS IN THE AIR. PHOTO: KEVIN CALLAN
The Canoe Virgin
MAKING LOVE IN A CANOE IS MORE CHALLENGING THAN YOU MIGHT THINK BY KEVIN CALLAN
THE FIRST TIME I attempted a ca- noe-borne romantic escapade was shortly before an article I wrote on making love in canoes hit the newsstands. The article covered all the bases—but I had yet to do ac- tual primary research. I was okay with this. It was my
wife, Alana, who wasn’t going to stand for it. She believed journal- istic integrity demanded that we make love in a canoe. Alana left me to fi gure out the details while she put our three-year-old daugh- ter to bed. Getting out on the water was
going to be impossible. We live in the middle of a city and didn’t have a babysitter. At fi rst I thought a quick (though not that quick) solution would be to just fl ip the canoe over on the back lawn. But I worried the set-up would lack romantic quality. Instead, I put the 16-foot boat through our back window, rested it beside our fi re-
38 ■ C ANOE ROOT S summer 2008
place, placed two glasses of wine on the bow seat and put a CD of nature sounds in the stereo. The mood was set. I sat in the
stern, wearing only my bathrobe, and waited for Alana to return for the big surprise. Before long she did, but with our daughter in her arms. Kyla had a slight fever and needed comforting before going to bed. There was no getting around the
embarrassment, but Kyla saved me by asking if we were going camp- ing. I spent the next hour playing camp-out with Kyla and her dolls. So there I was, still a canoe vir-
gin and, according to Alana, also a complete idiot for hauling a canoe
into the house and thinking she’d be up for a romantic encounter in a boat resting on a shag carpet. The good news is my daughter thinks I’m the coolest dad ever for bringing in extra props for her dollhouse. She cried the next morning when I took the canoe back outside. So did I. The problem was, I had to write
another piece about making love in a canoe for my next book. And the publisher wanted photos. I decided to buy a blow-up doll.
I went to a joke gift shop and, since I had Kyla with me and the infl atable dolls were on display in the back near some rude sex toys, I asked the sales clerk to retrieve
My wi fe bel ieved journal i s t i c integr i t y demanded that we t r y i t in a canoe
one for me. As she went to fetch it a woman from Kyla’s daycare wan- dered into the store. When the woman stopped to say hello, the clerk yelled out, “Which model do you want?” I panicked and blurted out, “The cheapest one.” “The androgynous one it is, then,” came the reply. I slinked out of the store with
my doll double-bagged, hoping to never see the woman from Kyla’s daycare again, and wondering how I would photograph a moment of passion involving an infl atable her- maphroditic canoeist. For better or for worse I’m still
a canoe virgin, but I was lucky enough to have a neighbour who really wanted to help me out of a tight spot. If that’s not why he of- fered to pose for me then I don’t want to know the real reason.
KEVIN CALLAN does not recommend infl at- able dolls as a substitute for a proper PFD.
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