On a shelf in the PS's, courtesy Josh Wilson

Yes. The pussy is freaky. So says the card. So say we all. I hesitated—a second's worth of considering and dread—before googling it on my work computer. A year ago I searched "ass clap" per my students reference, and it is perhaps what you'd expect, not the half a zen koan you might be thinking of. Go ahead and search for it online. It's all there online. How easy parenting's become! If the child wonders you just type it in and koosh, the answer comes. It may not be a good answer but it's better than the lies your parents half-baked for you yesteryear to get you to cease spidering the world with thought. A lot of good it did them: you kept looking. Now you're an essayist, profiting from your strange meanders through the holes you open in the world. It's grandiose to think of what you do like this, but isn't it a good description? Maybe "profiting" is where you took it wrong. But any wander into the thicket can become an adventure, can offer information, a path not traveled often enough down the etymological tunneling of linguists discussing, say, the history of "hedge your bets," or the hiccup fetishists who haunt that other corner of the web. Isn't all this muchness much for you just yet?

If those who gorge themselves on your search history were to query you about your query or look at your trail of them you would stand accused of esoteric wonderings, at the very least, if not outright perversion. Your argument, that the essayist must court perversion, is strong and gets stronger as perversion slips its way into the culture. It will only get more perverse. That's not the worst thing that could happen, though.