Dear Sasha, I’m an older woman, a “baby boomer” in fact, and survivor (I think) of the ’60s and ’70s. Now that I have more time to reflect, I’m doing just that and decided this morning to write down the names of all my lovers. For some reason, I thought the number might be as high as 50, but after composing what I believe to be a complete list, there seems to be only 26. I’m both relieved and surprised, as frankly they seemed to appear as a looming wall of more or less faceless contenders. (I swear you had to beat them off with a stick at times. I have to admit I was pretty damn cute. Oddly, now that I am a much better person, I remain largely unnoticed. Let me tell you, that is not necessarily a bad thing...)
What I would like to know is this: we all know the reputation that the ’60s has, with “free love” and so on, and it’s certainly true that with birth control and a relative amount of experimentation and just all-around cultural chaos, we of that generation had much more experience than our parents. But how does our “free love” compare to what’s going on now? Does anyone out there have the time to make lists anymore?
—Zoza
Dear Zoza,
It’s a valid question, but what I find most interesting about it is the fact that, since time began, we’ve been unable to talk about young people without wringing our hands over their depraved sexual habits. As soon as we humans become teenagers, the most significant thing about us, self-imposed but also to the adults scrutinizing us (fearful that their own sexual relevance is becoming obsolete?), is our sexuality.
We compulsively analyze and monitor teen sex behaviour, but to what end? If we persist in approaching the topic as though it’s predominantly damaging (pregnancy! STIs! Rainbow parties!), what are we offering young people as a legacy and is the sieve through which we filter their behaviour even helpful or positively affecting our general understanding of sexuality? When do you ever hear about teen sexuality discussed with respect and pleasure in mind and not in the context of a moral panic? Every generation is horror-struck by the conduct of the one that follows and yet we react without a proper grasp of why it even matters so much.
The fact that you are relieved your list is shorter than you imagined says one thing; that fact that we make them at all says so much more. We learn early that our sexuality is unacceptable and our pleasure nugatory—is it any wonder we begin taking inventory, to affirm our viability and our experience, if only to ourselves? (And to our snooping mothers according to one of my friends, who said hers reacted to finding her list “as though I had slaughtered a small village.”)
There is a word frequently attached to young people and fucking these days and that is “oversharing,” so much so that it was the Webster’s New World Dictionary 2008 Word of the Year (newworldword.com/overshare/). While I have to agree that oversharing can at times be excruciating and without linking to the countless tell-all freshman slut blogs, the expression, when used pejoratively, is just another way of unproductively critiquing promiscuity, another word that hasn’t exactly enjoyed a positive reputation. Oversharing is also often closely aligned with narcissism, yet another term in poor standing. Clearly though, we are keen to be perceived as sexual creatures so it’s no surprise that people make attempts, often gawky and poorly received, to be self-seeking, experimental and proud. The tacit acknowledgement of this craving is the genius behind something like Facebook, the social networking site and the latest subject of uninterrupted distress, which I used myself to answer your question, do people still make lover lists? Here is one of several responses:
“No, I don’t count anymore. I stopped when a) my list got too long with too many “that dude from the record shop” type entries and b) when I started sleeping with girls and thought that meant that I’d have to go over the back catalogue of every dick I ever had in my mouth and count them too.” So to answer your more fundamental question, yes, young folks are still busy with the perilous, thrilling task of being young folks while we watch on with uneasy envy.
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