I know a guy who once told me that he never (to use his colourful language) “choked his chicken” to anyone other than his girlfriend.
That is, his mind has never wandered, his internet browser has never been employed, and the dirtier parts of his National Geographic’s remain a dirty yellow instead of, well, an off-white.
This is frankly unfathomable to me.
In middle school, where talks of googling frankly outrageous terms like “smut gremlin” and watching free previews of dirty channels after dark were the norm, this friend of mine would have been socially ostracized.
We live in an age of immediate hardcore, of videos (for free, no less) which cater to any sick and twisted fantasy you could possibly imagine — what kind of person wouldn’t take advantage of that?
This type of instant sexual gratification borne out of the immediacy of pornography on the internet has spread to young adults. Suddenly, “taking it slow” just isn’t enough for us.
Those of us raised on a diet of one click ordering on the internet, instant communication, and complete reliance on our Blackberries have changed the sexual landscape as we know it.
The internet may well have globalized production, allowed friends and families to reunite and provide a secure storage place for basically the entirety of human knowledge, but I think it is safe to say that the greatest gift the internet has given Western culture is the blowjob.
In the 1950s, fellatio was considered more intimate than traditional sexual intercourse, and it is only in our generation that the two have flipped roles.
Again, I feel that much of the forces which led to the lifting of the stigma over oral sex has been the easy and instant access to as much porn as you can stomach on the web — videos which frequently depict oral sex as a standard, if not a necessity.
But Michael, you ask, literally getting your knickers into a twist, what about woman’s lib? Surely sexual promiscuity comes not from the explosion of pornography on the internet but instead from ladies rejection of the idea of a girl being a ‘slut’ if she gets with a lot of guys?
And you’re right — women don’t have society’s chastity belt fastened over their privates like they used to. But I feel that the immediacy which we demand from all aspects from our lives in today’s technologically driven world is a more potent factor in the makeup of how modern sex works.
And it is through this immediate portal into the world of porn guys are presented with when growing up that creates this standards that girls feel (to an extent correctly) that they must adhere to.
So where does that leave us, as male Hopkins students and the first members of the adult community who live by the values that were instilled in us as foolish middle schoolers awkwardly typing “hot girls kissing” into Google?
It leaves us in a state of flux — romance is becoming a thing of the past, as candlelit dinners and walks on the beach give way to casual sexual encounters and random hook ups.
Right now, we reap the benefits. It’s probably never been easier (except during the drug addled 1960s) to have a smorgasbord of sexual experiences at college than it is now.
But consider this: In ten years, are you going to want to marry a girl who has had more sexual partners than you? Who has done some of the crazy kinky things that you’ve always wanted to?
Guys are programmed to have double standards, and although it might not faze us now, this casualness and immediacy that has transformed our sexual landscape will come back to haunt us when we begin searching for a good, decent girl to settle down with.
To be frank, there’s going to be less and less girls that meet our outdated criteria for a serious relationship. And when that criteria changes, and it will, we’re one step closer to that brave new world.
So is my friend really a freak for never watching pornographic videos on the internet or sneaking a peek in a magazine?
Unusual? Yes. Weird? Probably. But my friend still subscribes to a set of values and cultural norms which our society is leaving in the dust — and in twenty years, I think the rest of us are going to envy him.
