Rushing to the Mother Ship
(01/21/10 10:00am)
Sometimes, I feel like I’ve made my way back across the Atlantic to an alien planet.
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Sometimes, I feel like I’ve made my way back across the Atlantic to an alien planet.
Over the course of spending a semester in a non-English speaking country, my friends and I have continually operated under the assumption that no one can understand the inappropriate things we say in public places. Given the prevalence of bilingualism in Europe, as well as the universally comprehensible hand signals that often accompany our stare-provoking dialogue, this is probably a naive postulate.
One: Losing your virginity. The difference between something and nothing. A binary number. Yes or no. Experience or naivete. One is the first important number. You’ve created a formula that didn’t exist before. Plus one. Puberty hits, and suddenly arithmetic is making everyone horny.
I’m sure there are a significant number of people who think I’m going to hell. I am a sinner who writes about sin. I express no regrets. I never ask for forgiveness. With this in mind, I’m surprised there isn’t a group outside my door right now, praying for my eternally damned soul. Perhaps I’ve already been written off as beyond saving.
Internet porn is the most important technological development of our generation. Whether or not this conclusion disturbs you, it’s difficult to ignore the influence of easily accessible graphic content.
It always strikes abruptly, furtively and without warning. A girl waves to a male. A boy takes note of a familiar car at the Belmont. The circumstances vary. Everyone asks the same questions.
By the time you read this column, I will have gone 31 days without having sex. To be more specific, that’s 744 hours, 44,630 minutes or 2,678,400 seconds—and counting. Although the average celibate individual is considered unlucky, an abstinent sex columnist is wholeheartedly pathetic. This indignant irony cannot be absolved by memories of a bygone era of sexual gluttony. I once prided myself on maintaining a solid sexual average of 1.6 orgasms per day, a statistic I wish I had never taken for granted.
I will go on record to argue that some of Duke’s most sexually active people have never had sex. Oddly enough, this realization struck me while watching a Jerry Springer-inspired Spanish talk show, separated from the vast majority of the Duke population by an entire ocean and a faulty Internet connection that has greatly disrupted my Facebook stalking habits. (I should note that I am in Madrid for the semester.) Trying to follow the rapidly shifting talk show conversations, handicapped by a language barrier and a garrulous host mother, I surmised that the program was chronicling a series of “cyber-romances.”
I am a screamer. After years of waking up to awkward and inquisitive glances from strangers down the hall, I could no longer tune out this truth. I guess it all started in the early nineties. It was a different time back then, and everyone was more accepting. In those days, I could scream all the way through Thunder Mountain Railroad, and the worst punishment was a cough drop to soothe a half-day of laryngitis.
People often ask me if I started writing this column because I thought I was an authority on good sex, filled with wisdom to bestow on clueless peers. In reality, my experiences at Duke have probably only made me an expert in awkward sexual encounters and stealthy morning escapes.
Let me make everyone sufficiently uncomfortable right now: this is not an article about threesomes. Microsoft Word's spell check seems not to know whether threesome is a word, but the term isn't relevant today. This column is not about any kinky, dirty or awkward sexual act. At least not exactly.
Standing in the smoke-filled pandemonium of an Istanbul nightclub, I nursed a drink that tasted worse with each sip. As my Spring Break eased into its final hours, I danced awkwardly to the peculiar blend of American dance hits and European house music. From across the elevated table, I tried to ignore the Turkish teenage millionaire entertaining us for the night. Perhaps provoked by a momentary lapse in reservation or maybe just making casual conversation, he smiled at me over his cigarette and said, "I hear blue-eyed blonde girls in America are usually virgins." Before I could divert attention from my resemblance to this description, he chuckled, "Is this true?"
When I was in first grade, my mother sat me down in a laminate IHOP diner booth, looked at me from across the plastic rim of her iced tea as she watched me drizzle syrup over my chocolate-chip pancakes and matter-of-factly spelled out the basics of sex.
If buying condoms from University vending machines is not already a unanimously accepted faux pas, I strongly recommend that it earn such a designation. I'm not sure if it's the idea of birth control being bought through a parentally funded FLEX account or the general annoyance of having to create naked small talk during the lapse in activity that results from such an inconvenient purchase, but there is something decidedly unappealing about buying sex supplies from the same venue one uses to obtain a Snickers (although as long as you're already there, you might as well get the Snickers too).
A few weeks ago, I found myself having the best sex of someone else's life.