Hey Kids, Have Lots of Sex -- It's What Your Parents Did at Your Age

By Jeff Schult, AlterNet. Posted June 13, 2009.

Melanie, my dear: You asked me to the Sadie Hawkins Dance, and I went even though I was pretty sure that you were in love with Roger, who had dumped you. You kissed me ... as though I was Roger, perhaps, and I kissed you back. Terese -- we went to the prom. It was not my idea, or yours. We were set up. But we went. Thank you.

My first weekend of college, I had a date. I hitchhiked to Long Island from Bethlehem, Pa., and met Deborah at Roosevelt Raceway. We camped out in line overnight with 80,000 people, and in the morning they let all of us in. Jesse Colin Young, the Beach Boys, Joni Mitchell and Crosby Stills Nash & Young played for us. Deborah left me during Joni's set for a guy who had pot. If you're reading this, it's OK, Deb. Debbie. Deborah. Whatever. I kept your letters in a shoebox for years, though, along with all the ones from Melanie, Joyce and that friend of Philip's from Delaware. Correspondence, handwritten, was precious back then.

Despite all this dating, I did not technically lose my virginity until what would have been my junior year in college, had I not decided to drop out and go to Africa. I was 20, a little late to fucking. Life was not the same afterward. Back in school again … mysteriously, I had become fuckable, which was part of feeling young, beautiful and immortal. Dating? That was so … high school.

Sex was OK. Drinking was OK. Drugs were OK. It was the '70s. We did not date. We had serial relationships, punctuated by single debaucheries and sleeping around, or being lonely and celibate, when we were "in between."

We made out, hooked up. Once, I woke up in a college dorm coatroom with my jeans around my ankles, wearing, painfully, a used condom. I had a hangover and only vaguely recalled the events of the night before, past a certain point. It was not my college. It had not even been my condom. I pulled up my jeans and left the scene, hitchhiked home, without speaking to a soul. That girl … well, we can guess what became of her, right? If you are young, you might think she was "a slut." Or you might think she was disgusted with me. I'm older, and I think she got over it. I think she probably had a lot of sex, a nice career and got married. I think she might be your mom. Don't hit me. We used a condom.

There is plenty of time for dating, after college.

There will be Internet dating, dating for sex, dating for relationships, dating for marriage. Don't be so eager. Take your time, relax and have sex. Regardless of what they told you, that's what most of your parents -- and your parents' parents -- were doing before they got married.

And look how well we all turned out!

See more stories tagged with: sex, gender, dating, sexuality, condoms, 1970s, safe sex, hooking up

Jeff Schult is a journalist and author living in Haydenville, Mass. Into Temptation: The Armies of the New Sexual Revolution, is his next book. The blog for the book is at www.intotemptation.net.

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