Talking to young people about sex

During my graduate school days at ETSU, Dr. Cecil Blankenship was hands-down my most personally inspiring teacher.

More than anything else, Dr. B. taught me to “think” for myself; not to just accept things because I was told they were true, no matter what any so-called “authority figure” may claim.

I remember so well when Dr. B. nearly stopped our hearts in class one day by asking us, “Biologically speaking, do you all know that your primary purpose in life is to have sex?”

His question disturbed me for quite some time, as all the really worthwhile questions do.

I happen to live in a culture that can frown on people who talk openly with candor about sex. Properly discussing such a topic is not immoral (though some with small minds may swear to high heaven that it is).

Dr. Blankenship was right in that sex is what life is mainly about - biologically speaking. It is how you and I got here. Shaking the sheets is how our species has survived and will continue to survive. We are genetically hard-wired to fornicate and propagate. That we take a roll in the hay with someone of the opposite gender is irrefutably integral to the continuation of the human race (again, biologically speaking).

Even the Good Book itself intructs us to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth”. Which, of course, means to have sex - and have it often - in order for mankind to grow and flourish.

All this throws me back to the words whispered to me by a preacher at a church league softball game, at a time when I was a testosterone-laden lad of 19 summers. When the preacher caught me continually glancing at a couple of pretty young ladies about my age who were wearing extremely short hot pants over in the bleachers nearby, he leaned over and whispered to me sternly, “Ben, thoughts of sex are always of the devil, you know.”

The thing was I saw this preacher gawking toward that same area of the stands, too - maybe even more often than I did.

Even at 19, I was enlightened enough to know that deep in his genes (and deep in his jeans) this man didn’t really believe what he had just told me. I knew he only said what he did because of the so-called doctrinal beliefs of the religious denomination in which we both shared membership at the time. Nobody tries to “control” sex quite like staunchly religious folk. Very much afraid of even the word itself, they are. Control the very thought of it, especially in young folk, they strive to do.

Not even flowers would be here without having sex, though they have evolved to do the hanky panky while staying far apart - thanks to pollinators like the birds and the bees. Dang, I wonder if flowers even have any idea that they’re missing out on the most fun part of it all - holding hands and snuggling and all that other stuff.

Speaking of holding hands, I recall a young lady I was dating when I was in college at Carson-Newman, back in the late ‘70s. Girls dormitories only housed girls. Boys dormitories only housed boys. Both types of dorms were separated by a quarter of a mile - and a list of rules about a gazillion miles long, each one intended to prevent anyone from even thinking about sex.

I was picking up my date at her dorm one Saturday evening. Boys were not allowed in the dorm area itself, so I had to wait for her in the parlor-like open area just beyond the main front door.

When my date came to the door, we immediately began holding hands and walking toward my car. An apparently mortified “dorm mother” lady suddenly ran out the door behind us yelling, “What are you two saving for marriage?”

For a moment I was completely speechless. Then I replied, “The other hand.”

My date burst out laughing. The dorm mother did not.

The next Saturday night when I again picked up this sweet young lady, the dorm mother leered at us as we clasped hands and began to skip away. “And just what do you two think you’re going to do together?!” she screeched.