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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!gymble!beth
From: beth@gymble.UUCP (Beth Katz)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Sex and college students
Message-ID: <12@gymble.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Oct-84 13:56:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: gymble.12
Posted: Tue Oct 23 13:56:15 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Oct-84 19:03:12 EDT
Reply-To: beth@gymble.UUCP (Beth Katz)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 57
Keywords: birth control, sex too early, friends and SOs
Summary: 

Way back when, my mother said that the only reason she would refuse
to condone a marriage of one of her children would be if the only
reason the child was marrying was that someone was pregnant.  But
then again, I have a mother who discussed birth control with her
kids.  When I wanted to go on the pill in high school, we discussed
why I wanted to do this, and she made an appointment for me with her
gynecologist.  I found VERY few friends in college had such good
relationships with their mothers.

Did I start having sex too early (17 years and 10 months)?  Probably,
but I thought I was in love and I had been dating the guy for over
two years at the time.  I soon discovered that I had a lot more in
common with my college friends and that his friends and interests
were not really my friends and interests.  I went into conquest mode.
I was under the mistaken impression that everyone jumped into bed with
everyone else. :-)  Not really; I was selective, but after the first
year, it wasn't any big deal to have sex after a couple of dates.
It was much more fun to really get to know people as people.  Sex is
so much more fun and meaningful and fulfilling if you know how to
have sex with the other person's mind as well as his body. (Wow, that's
pretty weird. :-) )  I guess one advantage to starting early was that
I got all the running around out of my system and had the chance to
really meet people as people.  Sex isn't as important as it was five
years ago.  Oh, I haven't sworn off it or anything like that, but it
isn't the focus of any dating situation.  (Does he want to go to bed
with me?  It's been so long since I've had sex; I wonder if it will
be tonight?)  I can relax and have a good time.  If we end up going
to bed, okay, but it's no big deal.

It seems like a lot of people emphasize sex in their relationships.
It's only one aspect.  Yes, it has to be right between you, and no,
I would never marry anyone without going to bed with them several
times, but feelings and thoughts and mutual interests should drive
a relationship, not whether you've had your allocation of sex for
the week.

In another vein, I have dated some guys that didn't fit in with my
friends.  One person in particular was rather unintelligent (remedial
classes in high school), but a nice guy nonetheless.  He just didn't
fit in with my friends and after I thought about why I liked him, he
really didn't fit in with my interests at all.  (I think I was rebelling
against my parents and their values.)  I think that you need to have
your SO meet your friends and make them his friends if appropriate.
I've never had to handle the traumatic breakup, but my roommate once
dated an ex-boyfriend of mine.  It was uneasy for a while because I
didn't think he was good enough for her (that's why I dropped him,
he wasn't good enough for me), but we eventually worked it out.
She would have started dating him if she had met him first; my bringing
him home just introduced them.  They really had a number of interests
in common.  In my closest group of college friends, we interdated for
a while just because we had a lot in common.  If a new person was brought
into the group, other members had no qualms about asking them out.
Looking back on it, it was pretty funny keeping up with who was dating
whom.

					Beth Katz
					...!seismo!gymble!beth