The summer before I left for college, my mother randomly said, "I hope you're not the type that's going to be promiscuous."
This was the woman who, only months earlier, had announced at the breakfast table, "Is that a hickie on your neck?" I clapped my hand to my neck and quickly replied, "No, but it really itches." I began to scratch my neck, which proceeded to make it redder. "Oh no, it's getting really red. I hope it's not a spider bite," she concluded. Her idle wish for my chastity seemed to signal my transition from high school silence about my sexual behavior to the openness I pride myself on in college.
Being honest about your sex life isn't easy in high school. You don't know who's lying, what people have actually done or what others are saying about you. While that does not completely go away in college, at least people don't treat sex as a constantly competitive source of humiliation and popularity.
OK, so that is complete bullshit. Sex will always be used as a gauge of how we feel about someone and where they fall in society. We use it to justify breaking up and making up with friends and lovers.
Before I left last fall for London, I was involved in a very brief affair. Even though we had only just met and I was set to depart in a few days, it was some of the best sex of my life. Though we made no firm commitment or had any grand illusions that we'd remain faithful to each other, there was an unspoken hope that we would someday be back together. While I was away he began dating someone else, I dated half of London, and then it was his turn to go abroad. The voice of the unspoken hope dropped to the faintest whisper.
So you may be able to understand my surprise to find myself sitting in his apartment last week. A short conversation online and I was headed downtown. He is still attached, and I knew that it was a bad idea to be alone with him, but my moral fortitude was on vacation. The next morning, as I shuffled to the Metro, the amazing calm that follows good sex seemed to make it absolutely worth it.
As we veture out on our own, we are given permission to explore new areas of the sexual arena with less fear of judgment from our friends and family. In college there are no parents to monitor when you get home late or not at all. Sure, we have roommates, but there is no one to answer to about the company we keep or our whereabouts. It clearly didn't take me very long to willingly share my laundry list of sexual encounters, crushes and heartbreaks with the masses.
High school and college both provide many opportunities to make mistakes, especially when it comes to sex and relationships. It is, as they say, the only way to learn. Sometimes you even have to make the same mistake again and again before you finally learn.
The most important thing to remember as you embark on your own journey of sexual development is that you have to be able to look one person in the eye each day - yourself. You know yourself better than anyone else, and you'll know when you've done something you shouldn't have. If you can still hold your head up at the end of the day, then you're doing just fine. We must own our failures as well as our successes. It will ultimately be the lessons we learn from these decisions that shape our relationships as adults.
I thought my messy hair and wrinkled clothing would be an obvious giveaway as I sneaked into my building the next morning, but no one seemed to notice at all. I only realized the previous night's activities might not have gone unnoticed when at lunch my co-workers inquired, "Is that why you have a huge hickey on your neck?" At first I was embarrassed and returned to work with my collar popped, but then I folded my collar back down. I might have looked juvenile for having a three-inch suck mark on my neck, but I had absolutely nothing to hide.
Now! You ask! Blair Bryant answers! Email your sex queries to:
blairbryant.nichols@gmail.com
