weekend, but I was dumbfounded and couldn’t respond.
Michael and I started eating lunch together regularly, and soon we were in an ongoing dialogue. He could ask me anything, even the most personal question, and not seem like he was prying. Never before had I had such straightforward discussions. We talked a lot about sex, but we also talked about movies, politics, books, his college courses, my family, his family, our dreams for the future, and everything else under the sun. Yet, if our conversations were forthright, they weren’t always honest. At first I told him I was a virgin because I feared he would think less of me if he knew the truth.
Michael had been suspended from Boston University for taking tests for other students. When he was caught taking an exam for a business major, he was called before the disciplinary board. He defended himself by pointing out that the student who had hired him was a future captain of industry who had made a sound business decision by finding the best man for the job and hiring him. Needless to say, the board wasn’t persuaded and slapped Michael with a one-year suspension.
Nothing about Michael was conventional. He kissed me before our first date. We were in the elevator descending to the ground floor for lunch when he reached out and gently pulled me to him. He planted the most sensuous kiss on me that I’d ever received. It was tender and erotic at once. There were never any half-measures with Michael. Everything was done with passion, and that kiss was no exception.
With Michael, I started to flourish. I grew out my hair and bought a new, sexy, Michael-approved wardrobe. He gave me a reading list and suddenly I realized I was smart and had insight into literature that none of my teachers had been able to evoke. We dabbled in marijuana and psychedelic drugs. Sexually, I explored even more. I had and gave oral sex for the first time with Michael, and I also had my first orgasm with intercourse. Just as important, I made love for the first time with the lights on, and I had conversations about what I liked and didn’t. It was a time when life teemed with possibilities, and together we set out to explore them.
For Michael, most of what I had been taught about sex was barely worth taking seriously. “Ridiculous,” he laughed when I told him about the prohibition against masturbation and other Catholic dogma that had passed for sex education in my childhood. “It’s about control. Keeping you scared and ashamed is how they control you,” he declared. He even seemed angry that I had been subjected to so much hurtful misinformation. Could it be that the problem really wasn’t with me, but with the doctrine?
For the first time in my life I had the opportunity to have open, nonjudgmental, and genuinely frank discussions about sex. Michael approached sex from a secular perspective that was new to me. Now, not only could I challenge what I had been taught, but I could also arrive at alternative opinions and ideas that actually made sense to me. One night, long after I had come clean about my sexual past, I told Michael about my last experience in the confessional. “Idiotic,” he sniffed. “Why do they have such a hang-up about virginity? It makes no sense,” he added.
I explained how I believed God was watching as I wantonly dismissed the rules, and my fear that when I died, he would act. Michael scoffed at this. After all, he wasn’t Catholic. He was Jewish. At the time I had no idea what that actually meant. All I knew was that he didn’t seem to think of God as some kind of cruel schoolmaster.
Only weeks into our relationship, Michael and I maintained separate addresses on paper only. I was nineteen and shared an apartment with two other women in Boston, but I spent most nights at Michael’s place. My parents knew about Michael and we had what I considered to be an unspoken agreement to avoid the question of whether or not we were sleeping together. They didn’t ask
Michael and I started eating lunch together regularly, and soon we were in an ongoing dialogue. He could ask me anything, even the most personal question, and not seem like he was prying. Never before had I had such straightforward discussions. We talked a lot about sex, but we also talked about movies, politics, books, his college courses, my family, his family, our dreams for the future, and everything else under the sun. Yet, if our conversations were forthright, they weren’t always honest. At first I told him I was a virgin because I feared he would think less of me if he knew the truth.
Michael had been suspended from Boston University for taking tests for other students. When he was caught taking an exam for a business major, he was called before the disciplinary board. He defended himself by pointing out that the student who had hired him was a future captain of industry who had made a sound business decision by finding the best man for the job and hiring him. Needless to say, the board wasn’t persuaded and slapped Michael with a one-year suspension.
Nothing about Michael was conventional. He kissed me before our first date. We were in the elevator descending to the ground floor for lunch when he reached out and gently pulled me to him. He planted the most sensuous kiss on me that I’d ever received. It was tender and erotic at once. There were never any half-measures with Michael. Everything was done with passion, and that kiss was no exception.
With Michael, I started to flourish. I grew out my hair and bought a new, sexy, Michael-approved wardrobe. He gave me a reading list and suddenly I realized I was smart and had insight into literature that none of my teachers had been able to evoke. We dabbled in marijuana and psychedelic drugs. Sexually, I explored even more. I had and gave oral sex for the first time with Michael, and I also had my first orgasm with intercourse. Just as important, I made love for the first time with the lights on, and I had conversations about what I liked and didn’t. It was a time when life teemed with possibilities, and together we set out to explore them.
For Michael, most of what I had been taught about sex was barely worth taking seriously. “Ridiculous,” he laughed when I told him about the prohibition against masturbation and other Catholic dogma that had passed for sex education in my childhood. “It’s about control. Keeping you scared and ashamed is how they control you,” he declared. He even seemed angry that I had been subjected to so much hurtful misinformation. Could it be that the problem really wasn’t with me, but with the doctrine?
For the first time in my life I had the opportunity to have open, nonjudgmental, and genuinely frank discussions about sex. Michael approached sex from a secular perspective that was new to me. Now, not only could I challenge what I had been taught, but I could also arrive at alternative opinions and ideas that actually made sense to me. One night, long after I had come clean about my sexual past, I told Michael about my last experience in the confessional. “Idiotic,” he sniffed. “Why do they have such a hang-up about virginity? It makes no sense,” he added.
I explained how I believed God was watching as I wantonly dismissed the rules, and my fear that when I died, he would act. Michael scoffed at this. After all, he wasn’t Catholic. He was Jewish. At the time I had no idea what that actually meant. All I knew was that he didn’t seem to think of God as some kind of cruel schoolmaster.
Only weeks into our relationship, Michael and I maintained separate addresses on paper only. I was nineteen and shared an apartment with two other women in Boston, but I spent most nights at Michael’s place. My parents knew about Michael and we had what I considered to be an unspoken agreement to avoid the question of whether or not we were sleeping together. They didn’t ask
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