Alef: The NEXT Conversation

It Takes More Than Making Out

By Will Newman

When I graduated high school sexually inactive, my grandfather was terribly disappointed.

“This is because you went to Catholic school,” he told me. “They messed you up.”

The fact I went to Catholic school bothered my grandfather, who was concerned that I was turning my back on my Jewish heritage. Jews, he explained, are not as conservative sexually and thus not haunted by whatever evil spirit was keeping me sexless. So, in an attempt to show him that I hadn’t betrayed him, I made a concerted effort to lose my virginity in college.

Here’s a tip: When trying to sleep with college girls, don’t mention that you’re trying to bed them to prove something to your grandfather. This “creeps them out.”

So, unable to reason with women, I tried the next best thing. I got really drunk on cheap beer and tried dancing at frat parties. And where there’s cheap beer and dark rooms and loud music, there are dance floor make-out sessions. After a steady record of evening tongue action, my grandfather was still not convinced of my commitment to our faith.

“How is most of America having sex by your age and not you?” he asked, rubbing my sexual insecurities in my face. “You damn Catholics are too afraid of hell.” To rectify this, he told me, he would set me up with some easy women.

Fun fact: if you strike out with a girl your own grandfather thought was “easy,” you may not be cut out for sex.

I was about to explain to him that it wasn’t the fear of hell that kept me a boy and not a man. Instead, the opportunity just never presented itself. But instead I got set up on a date with a girl that made it clear in the middle of dinner what her intentions were.

“I’m hoping to get married as soon as possible,” she said.

That didn’t make me feel comfortable. Though her demeanor during dinner was very cold and professional, she invited me back to her place for some of the most robotic kissing I have ever had. It was like kissing a vibrator whose batteries were dying. Since I was not a sexual connoisseur, I really only had refined tastes in kissing and assorted other “hookup things to do.” And, call me a snob, but I needed more than the Kissbot 9000.

I tried to explain this to my grandfather when I told him I didn’t want to date that girl again.

“My God, what is wrong with you? Do you know how old I was or your father was when we lost our virginities?”

Important knowledge: never ask that question and, if that question gets asked to you, never ever say yes.

So it turns out that my father and grandfather lost their virginities before I did — my grandfather pointed out that this took place before the birth control pill. I wanted to tell my grandfather that there was a whole ocean in between celibate and sex, and while I hadn’t yet slept with someone, I had my share of fun. But the problem is that while it’s occasionally appropriate to talk with family about sex, it’s nearly impossible to discuss the many other sexual things naked people can do. When these are the only other things you’re doing, it makes it hard to communicate that you’re not joining the priesthood and letting your Jewish ancestors down.

“Don’t you want to have children?” he asked me. “Do you know where children come from?” I wasn’t at the top of my college class, but I had an inkling. So to placate my grandfather, I let him set me up again.

This next girl and I had a lot in common. We liked the same movies, read the same books, and had the same grandmother. As it turns out, she was my cousin. When I had this realization, twenty minutes into dinner, I grabbed my cell phone and called my grandfather.

“Is this girl my cousin?” I asked.

“Yeah, by marriage. So?”

“This is gross.”

“She’s pretty and she’s smart and you of all people can’t be so picky,” he said. He had a point, but I wasn’t going to stoop that low. Perhaps I was a virgin, he suggested, because I was too choosy. If I disqualified women for such petty things as looks or being related to me, I would be a virgin forever. My grandfather insisted I could do worse. Best of all, he pointed out, she was Jewish.

I still said no, carefully reasserting that it wasn’t because she was Jewish but because she was a little too close to my tribe.

I eventually did have sex with someone outside of my family. But by the time I did, I had learned to appreciate the other aspects of a good hookup. Which made the pseudo-bar mitzvah my grandfather had for me bittersweet. So after the whiskey and celebratory prayers, I told him about some of my other adventures, trying to use as respectful language as I could while still getting my point across. He put his arm around me and told me he was proud.

Will Newman hosts a weekly podcast about making out which he, unabashedly, calls “Making Out With Will.“

Photo licensed under Wikimedia Commons.

Read more articles from Issue 08: “The Sex Issue.”

Tags: making out, sex, virgin, virginity

Posted by Sarah, Friday, February 26th, 2010, 12:34 am, The Sex Issue.