Hi gang! Here is one of my favorite essays from Nerve. It came out some time ago, but I wanted to share it with you all. To sum up, it's about the backlash against young women actually making good on their sexual liberation, being instigated chiefly by second-wave feminists who are maybe a little jealous. It's from the perspective of a recent college graduate, and it's both thoughtful and frank, with an appropriate dash of glib thrown in. An excerpt:
My friends and I often put nice boys and romantic love on the back burner, because they demanded the time we had already allotted to theses and volunteer programs. Hooking up with someone on a Saturday night didn't require us to follow up with brunch on Sunday, which worked out well, because we had a lot of homework to finish before The O.C. came on.
[Please keep in mind that I think a "Golf Pros and Tennis Hos" party sounds like the lamest thing ever, but if I insert some of the parties I did frequent at Wesleyan*, my alma mater, it makes sense.]
The essay pretty much speaks for itself. But basically, I'm tired of this shit, of Katie Couric going on TV and decrying blowjobs, tired of articles that remind me of the Feminine Mystique-era studies saying that college education made women unsatisfied with being house wives, so maybe they shouldn't go to college. As my good friend Alden once said, "I sort of can't understand why people wouldn't like hooking up. It's like not liking ice cream." Of course, an excess of ice cream can sometimes be bad for you, but everyone has their own limit. And people don't cluck their tongues at you if you eat ice cream without wanting to marry it.
How does this apply to me, you may be wondering? I don't like to get TOO autobiographical, but suffice it to say that I don't date much, and my number of belt notches, if you will, is totally sane and reasonable and also way higher than that of almost everyone I know. To my mind, my sexual history is no better or worse than my friends'--in college, as now, I hooked up on my own terms; sometimes drunkenly**, sometimes randomly, always safely and sans victimization. There are some hook-ups that seemed stupid later on, but I never actively regretted them. "Walk of Shame" was always considered a tongue-in-cheek term, as it most often seemed a Walk of Gloating. (The morning after I lost my virginity I got to walk home in heels, a long black evening gown, and a big ol' Austrian crystal choker. Oh, and a big ol' smirk. It was a red-letter day and I wanted people to know, damnit!)
I have a problem with this idea that sex should only be had with someone "special." Cuz, you know who's pretty special? Me. Sex is often better when BOTH parties are special, but that doesn't make it the only brand of peanut butter on the shelf***. I'm now thinking of the recent Onion article, "Study: Casual Sex Only Rewarding For First Few Decades." And again, smirking.
I hope I'm not sounding OPPOSED to people who don't have casual sex. But now that not everyone I know is a Wesleyan kid, I've run into people who are weirded out by those of us who DO. I don't get it, guys--what's the big deal?
*Naked Parties, The Sex Party, Queer Prom, in general most parties at Eclectic, that one Chi Psi party I randomly went to and announced my plans to get "drunk as an unrequited poet" (and succeeded, with shady results...)
**if by "sometimes" you mean "usually"
***What?
[Please keep in mind that I think a "Golf Pros and Tennis Hos" party sounds like the lamest thing ever, but if I insert some of the parties I did frequent at Wesleyan*, my alma mater, it makes sense.]
The essay pretty much speaks for itself. But basically, I'm tired of this shit, of Katie Couric going on TV and decrying blowjobs, tired of articles that remind me of the Feminine Mystique-era studies saying that college education made women unsatisfied with being house wives, so maybe they shouldn't go to college. As my good friend Alden once said, "I sort of can't understand why people wouldn't like hooking up. It's like not liking ice cream." Of course, an excess of ice cream can sometimes be bad for you, but everyone has their own limit. And people don't cluck their tongues at you if you eat ice cream without wanting to marry it.
How does this apply to me, you may be wondering? I don't like to get TOO autobiographical, but suffice it to say that I don't date much, and my number of belt notches, if you will, is totally sane and reasonable and also way higher than that of almost everyone I know. To my mind, my sexual history is no better or worse than my friends'--in college, as now, I hooked up on my own terms; sometimes drunkenly**, sometimes randomly, always safely and sans victimization. There are some hook-ups that seemed stupid later on, but I never actively regretted them. "Walk of Shame" was always considered a tongue-in-cheek term, as it most often seemed a Walk of Gloating. (The morning after I lost my virginity I got to walk home in heels, a long black evening gown, and a big ol' Austrian crystal choker. Oh, and a big ol' smirk. It was a red-letter day and I wanted people to know, damnit!)
I have a problem with this idea that sex should only be had with someone "special." Cuz, you know who's pretty special? Me. Sex is often better when BOTH parties are special, but that doesn't make it the only brand of peanut butter on the shelf***. I'm now thinking of the recent Onion article, "Study: Casual Sex Only Rewarding For First Few Decades." And again, smirking.
I hope I'm not sounding OPPOSED to people who don't have casual sex. But now that not everyone I know is a Wesleyan kid, I've run into people who are weirded out by those of us who DO. I don't get it, guys--what's the big deal?
*Naked Parties, The Sex Party, Queer Prom, in general most parties at Eclectic, that one Chi Psi party I randomly went to and announced my plans to get "drunk as an unrequited poet" (and succeeded, with shady results...)
**if by "sometimes" you mean "usually"
***What?
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4 comments:
i would probably marry ice cream, though. (insert your own "why-buy-the-cow-when-you-can-get-the-milk-for-free" joke here.)
I <3 Liz.
Not to keep the echo chamber going here, but I'm continually surprised at my current totalizing institution by the fact that *marriage* is the norm, and not the way more fun kind of stuff you're describing. I can't speak authoritatively on it, but my strong impression is that for most folks here the "walk of shame" is, indeed, shameful. And I gotta admit, that sets me back in my understanding of how to deal with communication on many levels... That is, there's such a basic difference in my view of the world ("yay, sex is fun and should be had as much as possible if there's no bad stuff involved") and everyone else's ("sex is bad, shameful, and only allowed in committed relationships! Whoa unto me, etc etc") that I question my ability to put anything into terms they'll understand.
That may be overstating the case, but that's the feeling.
That essay really is amazing.
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