How old were you when you lost your virginity? If that's different from the age at which you started having sex regularly, how old were you then, too?
Now how about your kids? Do you have any idea of the corresponding ages for them (if they are old enough for it to be a question)? Do you have any idea how old your parents were?
The reason I ask is that I had an idea the other day and I want to check it out: I wonder if these ages tend to track in families, across generations? That is to say, we all know that some people start young and some start older. But the children of people who started young... do they also start young? The children of people who start older... do they also start older? And if so, why?
What got me thinking along these lines was my realization of just how personally conservative Son 1 and Son 2 are. I'm not talking about politics here, but about behavior. They dress like teenagers, God knows they eat like teenagers, they listen to loud music, they are Internet-savvy (far savvier than I am), they download TV shows to watch for free, they leave their stuff lying around in a jumble, and they don't do laundry often enough ... all these things I expect. But underneath that teenage-textured surface I think I can detect a level of real reserve -- almost fastidiousness -- about what they do with their bodies. Son 2 won't drink. Son 1 sometimes talks as if he'd like a beer now and then, but the one time (I know of) when he had a chance to drink himself silly he spent the night looking after his friends instead.
And somehow I just have a feeling it will be the same with sex: that they will be cautious and standoffish -- tempted, maybe, but not letting it go any farther than that until they are really ready.
For what it's worth, my answers to the two questions up at the top of this post are "almost 20" and "almost 22". I was really shy, sometimes to the point of being priggish. At the same time I was frustrated by the straitjacket of abstemiousness that my shyness confined me to. Part of me wanted to burst out as a libertine, but I was too terrified ever to do so in reality. So I watched my friends drink and smoke and fuck -- nurse hangovers, get sick, suffer broken hearts, flunk the occasional class "for personal reasons" -- and I quietly envied them. I think they sometimes envied me what they imagined to be the calm in my life; I know I envied them the anguish and tumult in theirs.
I can't really read my sons' minds. Maybe their fastidiousness is just that. Maybe it's shyness, like mine was. Maybe they suffer the same anxiety I did, or maybe not. I can't tell. And strictly speaking I suppose it is possible that one or both of them has already lost his virginity but managed to do it with such stealth that nobody ever found out. But somehow I don't think so. And somehow I won't be surprised if they are close to 20, or older, before that day finally comes.
For what it is worth, my father was around 20 when, as a nervous young GI who wanted everyone to think he was suave and sophisticated, he lost his virginity to a prostitute in Paris. My mother was younger -- I think maybe 18 -- but I'm pretty sure that she lost it to my father, back before they were married. (But it was the 1950's, so they got married soon thereafter.)
And this raises the next interesting question: if there is a commonality through the generations, what causes it?
I never discussed this kind of thing with the boys, so it's not because I taught them something consciously. But could I have taught them an attitude subconsciously? I suppose so. That's probably how most attitudes get taught. But when? How? What did I think I was doing at the time? I have no idea.
Does anybody know whether shyness is hereditary? A quick look on Google suggests that opinions differ (I found yes, no, and maybe), but I freely admit I spent no more than five minutes on the whole search.
It's a puzzle, and I wish I understood it.
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