On this hallowed day of the birth of The Happy Trail, I want to celebrate beginnings.
Dirty beginnings.
Because you, reader, have not been sexual since the moment your arm accidentally brushed against a breast on the school bus and you had to hold a textbook at waist-level for the rest of the ride home. You have not been sexual since the moment you pressed your sweaty lips against another’s in the band room and tasted Burt’s Bees and trombone mouthpiece.
You were born sexual—to tell you the truth, you were probably diddling yourself in the womb, says the Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality. Science has observed boners, of both the man and lady variety, as early as in utero.
And because you were born with it, baby, I can today, in this humble sex section, say things like dick. Pussy. Boning. Cincinnati bowtie. And not even feel embarrassed about it. Why should I? The dudes fist-bumping in your sixth-grade sex ed class sure weren’t. And those little boogers were Googling that s***.
While your mama may have claimed otherwise, sex isn’t naughty; it’s natural, because younger you was not you minus sex.
It was you plus weird tingly sensations, you plus how good it felt to rub against the corner of that couch, you plus how you would never get invited to the Johnsons’ again because you wouldn’t stop humping their pillow at that one sleepover.
Personally, I was that five-year-old who always wanted to be the prisoner when we played Cops and Robbers. That frayed yellow jump rope they’d tie around my wrists was my weakness, the reason I never ran away from the bad guys fast enough.
One hearty dose of pubescence later and here I am, healthy bondage fetish and all. Healthy, because it came from a place of imagination and desire, from that fleeting childhood minute before society told you what was “naughty.”
The point is: you were not as pure as freshly driven snow until you became freshly plowed.
Too many people view the development of sexuality like the plot of a bad porno: you’re vapidly chatting with, say, your English professor, and suddenly you’re humping frantically on the desk with a copy of Moby Dick stuffed in your mouth. No story arc. From zero to bone in 10 seconds flat. From innocent to horny in one growth spurt.
Fact: real life has character development.
You were all little snot-nosed sinners, whether you realized it or not.
And it’s not healthy for anyone to consider youth the negation of sexuality. Let’s appreciate and explore our roots, and grow from our experiences.
Yes, even that one where you got felt up for the first time in the back of the middle school dance. Even that, embarrassing as it was for 13-year-old you, formed you into the sexual being you are today.
The Happy Trail is hoping to help you continue down your path of self-discovery, whatever it may be.
Gosh, I got a little teary-eyed there. Sorry to get all cheesy on you.
Wang. Cooter.
That’s better.