Harvard Has Stupid People, Too

I'm not sure we ever doubted this, but lo, there's proof. Today's Times (the print version--I can't find the story online) contains a fantastic story about a group promoting chastity at Harvard. Kissing and cuddling are in. But then the boy goes back to his dorm room. The Times, thankfully, does not press the issue of what might happen after that. The Times is, in fact, very respectful and even-handed, and does not ask half of the truly incredulous questions that people really tend to ask when they find out you're not having sex (whether by choice or by circumstance).

I'm allowed to mock, because I abstained from sex during college. I generally regret it, and I'd go so far as to say that as a policy, it was stupid. I must admit, I don't think it would have been all great experiences if I had done it. There's no particular person I could have had sex with that I think I'd look back at and think, "Well, there was a smart decision. Thank goodness we had sex." But still, I do wish I'd been open to the possibility like a normal human being. It didn't seem like a big deal at 20, but as I've gotten older, I've often thought that I was trying to avoid experiencing pain and looking stupid, when in reality I did both and ended up missing out on a lot of potentially good things (not all of them sex).

I think the smart bottom line is that sex might cloud your decision making. I'm not sure this is univerally accurate--sex is powerfully instinctive, and I think the sexual knee-jerk reactions we have can contain good information that can help us make smart decisions. But for the sake of argument, let's assume that's true at least some of the time. Unless you're joining an order, here's the winning strategy: Get used to it. Pretending you can be in control by not having sex? I'm not so sure that isn't just as stupid as pretending you're in control by having sex whenever possible.

There's a heartbreaking quote by the woman in the piece where she explains that because of the chemicals released during orgasm, people will be sad if the relationship goes wrong. Let me just say that if it were the orgasmic chemicals that caused end-of-relationship sadness, there would, without question, be such a thing as painless divorce. But there isn't. Because humans, ingenious little fuckers that we are, find more than one way to bond with each other--some of them much more profoundly dysfunctional than sex.