What Being 15 Is Like
"I met another guy who was funny and went to film school at NYU. He was twenty-two and had a tiny apartment on Great Jones Alley and I thought he might make a suitable boyfriend, or at least a suitable deflowerer. He was older, he’d done it before, and, I had been told, all men were dying to have sex at all times, so it would be easy enough to get him on board with my project. It was harder than I thought. He was eager to make out and grope, but to my surprise and disgust, he seemed very uneasy about engaging in actual intercourse once I admitted—in the most blasé terms—that it would be my first time. It is possible this young man had located the term “statutory rape” somewhere in the back of his head. Or, perhaps his father or mother had warned him that girls get attached to their first lover—you break it you bought it, or some such. But his reluctance was no match for my romantic poetry: I told him that he didn’t have to worry about me falling in love with him, and that if he wouldn’t sleep with me I’d find someone else who would. As it happened, we split the difference."
—When you look back at the things you did when you were 15, from an age when 15-year-olds are indistinguishable from 12-year-olds, you may or may not find yourself shocked.
FYI: I'll be offline for a couple days, during which I'll be dragging my NYC tweens out of school by their hair and moving to Omaha. They don't have sex or drugs in Omaha, right?
@C_Webb: Are you kidding? You think Warren Buffett lives there for the climate?
@C_Webb Totally no sex or drugs! Except meth. There is soooo much meth.
@Moff i don't actually know where Omaha is. Near Narnia, I assume.
@HeyThatsMyBike Yeah, i did some research. Even the school bake sales are pretty much just meth.
@C_Webb
Anyplace that can be described as "semi-rural" or is "suburban" but with the nearest city unreachable by public transportation, is a going to be a hotbed of teen sex, binge drinking, and experimentation with all sort of controlled substances. There isn't anything else to do!
Signed,
Former Suburban Teenager
@City_Dater: Also anyplace that can be described as "inhabited by teenagers."
@C_Webb my daughter isn't even a year old yet and this kind of shit is freaking me the fuck out. it doesn't help that i live right down the street from a middle school. the things i see tweens doing outside my living room window make me blush. did we do that shit in the 80s and 90s? AM I ALREADY THAT OLD AND OUT OF TOUCH?
@iantenna Wait 'til the first time a grownup slimeball checks out your 11 year old. Makes you rethink your opinions on gun control, because you need one immediately even though you are DERANGED WITH RAGE.
@C_Webb @iantenna OMFG my daughter is 9 months old soooooo consumed with anxiety about this.
@all I'm reading my fetus the penal code on statutory rape right now.
I'm sure she will find lots of willing men here: http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/nsor/
This is pretty much like the experiences of most ladies I know, except for the part about neither her nor her boyfriend having sufficient lust at the age of 14 to have sex, which, whaaaa?
@MikeBarthel Might have been one of those "relationships" in which young close friends feel confusedly obligated to "go out." I had one of those from 12-14. Later found out he was boning his stepsister on weekends. Gross.
@C_Webb I was unaware of this as an option when I was a tween! (And stay out of Oklahoma, there's literally nothing else for tweens to do there aside from drugs and other tweens.)
@MikeBarthel I'll stay out of Oklahoma if you stay out of your stepsister.
@C_Webb You're not my real daaaaaaad.
This is closer to me at almost 27.
@keisertroll We had fun though, right KT?
@hman Greatest summer of my life.
Ariel Levy is very attractive. That is all.
@sigerson Particularly if you consider the amazing things she's written! Seriously, I am crazy about her and am happy to have this opportunity to proclaim it!
@sigerson
I just read Levy's article on Italian politics (okay, Italian Bunga Bunga) this morning, and some Italian man recommended that if she wanted to interview Berlusconi she'd need plastic surgery in order to make her look worse and prevent the Prime Minister from becoming lustful berserker.
Holy shit!!! Are you Boobs out of your minds. Sex at 15 IS statutory rape,
How I Lost My Virginity
Me: You know, I really want to have lose my virginity.
My friend: Ok, we can do that.
And that was that. But I was almost 17 so maybe it's not so horrifying? Also, I still totally run my love life that way.