Windows

The following story is based on 10 interviews, which took place April 1-5, 2010. Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those interviewed. 

“I believe that organic sex, body against body, skin area against skin area, is becoming no longer possible, simply because if anything is to have any meaning for us it must take place in terms of the values and experiences of the media landscape.  What we’re getting is a whole new order of sexual fantasies, involving a different order of experiences, like car crashes, like travelling in jet aircrafts, the whole overlay of new technologies, architecture, interior design, communications, transport, merchandising.  These things are beginning to reach into our lives and change the interior design of our sexual fantasies.  We’ve got to recognize that what one sees through the window of the TV screen is as important as what ones sees through a window on the street.”

-- J. G. Ballard

They filed into the room one at a time.  There were four to start, but more trickled in over the course of two hours.  Each was between eighteen and twenty-two years old.  Looking at the lot of them, they were a perfect group of nothing specials, ideal for my questioning.  I set up the recording machine in the middle of the floor as they got settled.  I told them they were welcome to the refreshments that I had placed in the middle of the room.  Everyone sat on the floor, passing around the tray of cookies.  I took one before I began to explain what I needed from the group.  I switched on the recording machine and read the statement I’d prepared the day before. 

“Thank you for coming.  I appreciate all of you being here.  I will need you all to be as candid as possible.  It’ll all be confidential.  The names will be changed, but if you feel uncomfortable at any point during the interview, you are not required to talk.  Please, though, details, grit, I need to hear it all.  To start out, I would like you to generally describe your sex lives.”  I pulled out my Moleskin and took notes as the interviewees chattered amongst themselves, deciding who was going to be brave.  Robert Thompson was the first to answer my question.  He was visibly nervous when he first began speaking, but his nervousness subsided once he’d been talking for a while.  This was the case for most of the subjects.

The entire interview lasted for four hours.  I questioned ten different subjects total and acquired fascinating information from all of them.  Most even provided me with the kind of intense detail that I had been hoping for.  I’ll admit that I went into the interview without high hopes.  I wasn’t sure if I’d even be able to use the information that the interviewees so willingly provided, but by the time that the interview concluded, a fascinating trend was apparent.  The Internet generation has marked the death of vanilla sex.  With an amalgam of pornography now just a click away, this generation, classified by New Media scholars as the Digital Natives, has become desensitized to the old taboo, and the fear and embarrassment that would have once been expected to go along with discussing one’s sex life has been phased out.

When I asked ten young adults about their past sexual encounters, their feelings about sex, their masturbation habits, their most salacious fantasies, the importance of sex in their lives, and their sexual fulfillment, these are the answers that I received:

Subject #7

Robert (Robby) Thompson, age 21

Heterosexual male, single for the past year

“We’ll just get down to it, I guess.” Thompson paused to collect his thoughts.  He began again, still nervous, “We’ll just go through the history.  The first time it took two hours to get going…it took at least two hours to, you know…have sex.  Long story short, she’d told me she was eighteen.  She was really fifteen.”

He laughed nervously when other subjects made comments, such as “That’s creepy” and “That sucks, man.” 

Thompson continued while staring at the floor.  “I got kind of angry, to, um, say the least.  Okay, second time, my now ex-girlfriend, Tara.  I couldn’t get it up, apparently.  My counselor says it’s because I was angry at her.  We’d been fighting a lot.  I was in hot water.  I guess it makes sense.  Stressful…I wouldn’t call it E. D.  She talked about it as if I had E.D., but I mean, I was ready to go, and then we had some trouble.  It just went back down!  It’s never been a problem again.  It wasn’t E.D.”

During another subject’s interview, Thompson remembered that he’d left out one of his previous sexual encounters, saying, “It wasn’t actual sex, but I’ll tell you about it, anyway, if you want.”  I encouraged him to continue, and he did so with more confidence than before. “Okay, well, we’d been friends for a long time.  I ended up asking her to stay over for a cup of coffee and a sleep in my bed.  I don’t think it was bad the way she reacted.  I think it just gave us more time to think about what we wanted.  Anyway, we decided eventually that we wanted to hook up, so we did.  I slept over at her place.  We didn’t have sex, but there was some action.”

At this point, Subject #9, Sarah Scott, interrupted, as apparently Thompson was describing a sexual encounter he’d had with her.  Scott laughed as she interjected, “You mean I didn’t have sex.  You had something going on there.”

Clearly embarrassed and caught off guard, Thompson rethought his account of what happened before continuing.  “Uh…yeah.  There was kind of an ‘explosion’ that went on there. And then Asshole Robby kicked in, and I went into ‘Ignore Mode.’  Epic fail.”  He turned to look Scott in the face and in an exaggerated whisper said, “Sorry about that. Working on that.”

When Scott responded by saying that she didn’t feel like their sexual encounter was a failure, Thompson perked up.  He played with the laces of his green Converse high tops as he spoke.  “Maybe not such a fail, then.  I acted on all my feelings.  I mean, usually that’s hard.  It’s always awkward pressing for sexual activity.  I feel like it should just happen, but that doesn’t make any sense.  Why would it just happen?  You have to press for it, right?”

Subject #4

Nicole Johnson, age 19

Bisexual female, currently in a relationship with a heterosexual male

Johnson was eager to talk about her personal experiences.  She was wholly unapologetic and made it clear that she believes that no sexual experience should be looked down upon.  She began by talking her early childhood sexuality.  “It started when I was like four or five.  I would be like, ‘Mommy, why do I think about sex all the time? And she would say something like, ‘Oh, it’s just because God wants you to have lots of babies when you’re big.’  That answer didn’t satisfy me.  Next thing I knew, I was hiding under a blanket, rubbing Barbie on my clit, like, ‘I don’t think I should be doing this.’ I also started making out with kids during naptime at school.  By high school, I’d only kissed boys, but I’d been a bit further with girls.” 

Johnson fingered the gold pendant she wore on a string around her neck, as she talked about her masturbation habits in further detail.  “Between the ages of like eight and seventeen, I’d be being sexy with myself, and I’d want like a dildo or something.  I’d look around my room for something phallic that I could put in my vagina.  And there are a lot of things that are phallic.  But not a lot of things that are comfortable to put in your vagina.  I’ve had some weird things in my vagina, I guess, as a result of this.” 

Subject #8, Samuel Anderson, Johnson’s boyfriend of six months laughed at this, saying, “Many of these things have also been in my lab partner’s mouth.” 

She shot him a look, and said defensively, “He’s referring to baby carrots.”

“Let me read the text message,” Anderson said, pulling out his phone. After scrolling through his texts, he continued.  “I sent her a message saying, ‘My lab partner is eating baby carrots.’ She sent back, ‘Really? Let me know if he starts eating a banana or a hot dog or a chocolate or a water bottle or a toothbrush or a Barbie doll or a permanent marker or lotion or Pop Rocks or a Push-pop or a tampon or any fingers or toes or tongues or penises.”

Johnson attempted to talk over the giggling in the room as she continued with her story.  “Anyway, like I was saying, not a lot of these things were comfortable to have in my vagina.  Like, the water bottle didn’t fit all the way, and like, the permanent marker hurt, and the Barbie doll was an awkward shape.  One day I realized that there might be phallic things in the fridge because I’d heard of people doing stuff with cucumbers.”  Everyone had stopped laughing by this point and had become fully engrossed in her tale.  “So, I go to the kitchen, and we have some baby carrots.  Now, this is when I first started experimenting with my other orifice—so to speak.”

She was swiftly interrupted by a shocked inquiry from Subject #9: “You stick things in your ass?”

“Occasionally,” Johnson responded coolly.  “It’s nice to be all filled up.  It’s interesting.  But, so we had these baby carrots, and I knew they weren’t going to do much for me because I was already using four fingers.  Then, I was like, ‘I know! I’ll construct a phallus out of baby carrots!’ So, I taped the baby carrots together and got some Saran Wrap, and I was like, ‘Voila! Penis!’”

All of the subjects seemed to be intrigued by her ingenuity.  There were several questions about the flexibility and durability of her homemade dildo, but she explained, “It had some movement to it.  It wasn’t completely hard, and it wasn’t so flexible that I lost carrots in my vagina.  I’d never want to have to go hunting.”  Concerning the entire carrot experience, Johnson declared, “I was eating baby carrots and fucking baby carrots, and I had one in my ass, too.  It was great! An interesting experience.”

After being asked about failed sexual experiences, Johnson had no problem telling about a year when she was unable to make herself orgasm.  “Last year I stopped masturbating because I couldn’t have an orgasm,” Johnson explained.  “It was maybe because I was having an identity crisis.  I’ve read a lot of stuff that says orgasm and identity are linked.  But I was very sad because I couldn’t masturbate for like more than a year.  Then, my friends had this ‘sexual intervention’ for me in which they bought me this…apparatus.” 

Someone interjected sarcastically, “An electric razor!”

All of the subjects giggled at the interruption.  A Cheshire cat smile formed on Johnson’s face, and she responded saying, “Not quite, sir.  Though it was electric.”  She continued with her story.  “So, during summer, I decided I was going to try masturbating again.  I was going to relax.  Let what happens, happen.  So I did that, and um, I ejaculated everywhere.  Like EVERYWHERE!  It was a lot.  And it was still happening, and I was terrified.  I asked my mom when she came home, and she was like, ‘Oh, I don’t consider it a good time unless I do that!’  It’s not as much for her, though.  And I have more control over the amount released now…sometimes.”

When asked about her sexual fulfillment, Johnson explained in the past she felt unfulfilled, despite her frequent masturbation.  She stated that she believes this lack of fulfillment to be due to her need for attention from others.  Johnson stated, “I am an attention whore.  I like all sorts of attention.  Especially attention that reaffirms that I am desirable.”  Johnson said that she was not sexually fulfilled before her current boyfriend and explained, “I felt like I wasn’t normal enough to be dated.  Maybe I was just too much to handle.  People just didn’t bother being attracted to me.  That, or I just wondered, ‘Why can’t people just make out with me and that not be a big deal?’ …I don’t know.  I think I just need constant reassurance that I’m attractive, either through sexual encounters or through sex.”

Subject #8

Samuel (Sam) Anderson, age 19

Heterosexual male, currently in a relationship with a bisexual female

Sam Anderson is the boyfriend of Nicole Johnson.  He was generally quiet throughout the interview and did not have much to say about his sex life or himself when the microphone was passed his way.  When pressed, Anderson said, “I’m just not feeling very sexual lately.”  He seemed to try to justify this statement by saying, “Usually, I am pretty horny.  I think I’m just stressed out.”

Subject #9 poked fun at him, asking playfully, “Do you tell your girlfriend you have a headache a lot?  That your uterus hurts?”

Confused by her comments, he responded, “What? No. Why would I say that?  Usually, I just say, ‘Sorry, I’m just not in the mood.’  I try to be.  I’m just not.  I pulled two all nighters this week.  I can’t do it.”  He explained that he felt bad about his recent disinterest in sex, saying, “I have this dry erase board in my room that I write all of my homework on.  I have all of the shit I have to do written on it and that at the bottom of the list, my girlfriend came in and wrote ‘Fuck Nicole!’ or maybe it was ‘Have sex with Nicole!’ I don’t know.  You get the idea.”  When asked how long it had been since he’d had sex, Anderson turned to his girlfriend for answers.  She raised her eyebrows as he fumbled for an answer.  “Uh… We did some stuff two days ago.  Right?  Maybe.  Maybe it was three days ago.”

Subject #9

Sarah Scott, age 21

Heterosexual female, not a virgin, but currently in a celibate relationship

When Sarah Scott revealed that she was “totally cool with” being in a relationship with someone who is “very decidedly abstinent.”  The other subjects were anxious to know if she’d had a lot of sex before her relationship with him.  Scott responded, “I mean, I guess you could say that.  My first boyfriend was the jealous type.  It actually got to the point where he told me, ‘You are not allowed to be in a room if there are males there and I am not one of them.’ And that kind of got to me after awhile, so after we broke up, I waited a grand total of seven hours before sleeping with another man, our mutual friend, Dylan.”  She remained completely unabashed while explaining her history.  “Then, after that, I just kind of went on a sexual rampage.  I had a brief affair with a man who sold crepes for a living.  And he wasn’t very good at disposing of condoms.  It would come off, and he just wouldn’t tell me… Like, once it slipped off, and he didn’t say anything… Like three days later I went to the bathroom…and it fell out of me.”  The other subjects were shocked and disgusted by this revelation, but Scott continued, unfazed.  “Yeah, I was pretty horrified, but he’d do things like that.  So, now, being celibate is nice.  It’s nice to, you know, have a break from getting condoms stuck in your cooter.”  When sexual fulfillment came up, Scott said in a cavalier tone, “He doesn’t have to stick it in my ‘v’ in order for me to be fulfilled.  We roll around and make out.  It’s the same sort of fix.”

Subject #2

Emily White, age 20

Pansexual female, currently in a relationship with a heterosexual male

During the interview, Emily White discussed her pansexuality.  Someone who is pansexual is attracted to people of all genders: male, female, inter-sexed, or transgender.  White explained, “Basically, I’m gender blind.  It’s not like I don’t notice people’s genders at all, but it plays almost no role in how attracted I am to people.”  White discussed how she realized she was pansexual and the conversation she had with her mother on the topic.  “Basically, I figured it out,” she explained, “And I told my mom, ‘I’m pans and this is starting to actually become a big deal.  I’m crushing on a girl.’  And my mom was like, ‘Didn’t you have that crush on that girl two years ago at summer camp.  What was her name?’  And I was like, ‘Uh, his name was Myles, but he used to be a girl.’  It’s kind of weird, I guess.”

Subject #1

John Rodríguez, age 21

Heterosexual male, single for about a year

Though at first I found it hard to pay attention to what he was saying as I was distracted by the slight speech impediment caused by his braces, when I replayed his interview, I found John Rodríguez’s input to be some of the most insightful.  Concerning sex and his generation, Rodríguez said, “I think we live in an age where everyone carries some sort of sexual baggage, where no one is considered normal, and that’s perfectly a-okay.  So many people from my generation were exposed to pornography on the Internet—all sorts of kinks, perversions, gender-bending, role-playing—that in a lot of cases, most people (if not willing to admit it publically) are okay with most anything in private.”  He called this outlook “his idealist point of view,” and went on to describe his own sexual baggage, which according to him included his “breasts,” which he described as being “kind of large for a man.”  Rodríguez explained, “When I was younger, I was made fun of because of them.  Actually, I even underwent breast reduction because they were causing so many problems.”  He laughed awkwardly to himself before adding, “Bet you don’t hear many men say that.”

Subject #5

Christian Lewis, age 22

Sexually questioning male, recently single, last relationship with heterosexual female

When asked if he thought his sex life was normal, Christian Lewis responded, “There’s nothing abnormal about it.  Except sometimes I have fantasies involving Pokémon and superheroes and things like that, and occasionally I want to act them out.”   He pushed his long, tangled hair over his eyes as he spoke. “It only affects my sex life because it’s a little weird to tell someone you want to use a popsicle on them.”  Shaking his head to move the hair out of his face, Lewis added, “How do you approach someone you’re not in love with with something like that, right?”

Subject #10

Matthew (Matty) Young, age 21

Heterosexual male, previously believed he was a woman trapped in a man’s body, single for about two months

Matthew Young is about six feet and four inches tall with broad shoulders.  In his teenage years, he believed that he was a woman trapped in a man’s body and considered a sex change operation.  After much deliberation, he realized that he would make a “freakishly huge woman” if he went through with the operation and for that reason decided against it.  Young claims that because he spent three years in his parents’ basement watching porn on the Internet, he’s not sure what to consider “abnormal” in terms of sexuality anymore.  On the subject, he said, “So many things can be considered weird.  Is it weird, if, say for instance, right before you’re about to finish you like someone to slice you with a razor blade?”  Most of the other subjects shrugged at his question. 

Young confessed to an interest in exhibitionism.  He explained, “Mostly, I just really liked to have sex with my ex-girlfriend near her ex-boyfriend…with the door opened.  Every once in awhile I’d just sort of call his name.  Be like, ‘Hey! Ya here, dude?  Yeeeeah!’”  Other subjects either laughed after his confession or muttered “Asshole.”  Young admitted, “Yeah, I felt like a dick, kind of.  Afterwards, but not during.  During, it was hilarious.” 

One of the subjects inquired as to how someone could enjoy something like that.  Young responded, “I don’t know.  Maybe the thrill is part of it.  I just think it’s fun to have your friends see you have sex.  I think that’s funny.  It just fucks with them.  I like it.”

Subject #6

Lucas (Luke) Miller, age 20

Heterosexual male, single for about four months

“Sexually fulfilled? Hmm… I would say that sex fulfills me,” said Luke Miller in a voice that reminded me of Robin Williams.  “Let me just say, after vaginal insertion, I feel wonderful.  Especially after I ejaculate, all over the girl, preferably.  I’m not saying you have to do that.  I’ll go somewhere else, but there’s just something about that.  It’s like…a bonding experience.  I don’t know why.”  Subject #11 asked if Miller thought of this as degrading.  Surprised at the thought, Miller responded, “What? Degrading? No, it’s not degrading.  It’s just—it’s cool.”  He leaned toward Subject #11 as he continued to speak.  “I’m not saying you have to, but if for some reason we’re together, and you just happen to say, ‘Come all over my breasts!’ I’ll be like, ‘Yeah! I’ll do it!’”

Subject #11, looking somewhat offended, snapped, “Not gonna happen.”

Miller was not discouraged.  “Oh! But I’d be a good time!” he gushed.  “I get a lot of pleasure from pleasing the girl.  Oral insertion just isn’t really the same for me.  I like to make a girl scream.  My ego, gigantic.  Huge, throbbing ego.”  Subject #11 slipped in an “I bet,” before Miller’s tone changed.  “Really I’m just a hopeless romantic once you get to know me.  I’ve only slept with three girls, and that’s by choice.”

“What, so like, none of them raped you?” Subject #3 asked with a chuckle.

Miller remained serious.  “No, I mean, I tend to believe that sex has a meaning.  I like to say that if a girl holds your hand, it means something.  If a girl kisses you, it means more.  If a girl has sex with you, it means a lot.  If a girl is willing to trust me with her feelings, then am I willing to do the same?”  He went on to explain his distaste for one night stands, saying, “One night stands leave me feeling empty.  I want more from a woman than sex.  If I’m going to put all this effort into talking to a girl and getting to know her, then why would I only want to have sex with her one time, anyway?”

Subject #3

Maxim (Max) Koslov, age 20

Heterosexual male, single for about two years

“No more sex.  Not for a long time.  Maybe not until after I’m married,” Max Koslov declared in his clearly Russian accent.  He explained, “The way I let out my sexual frustration is go to a bar—my friends don’t really like that I do this—but go to a bar and see how many cocky girls I can turn down.  That relieves my frustration.  Just being arrogant to strangers who think that they can play with anyone around them.  It just makes me feel better about myself.  I don’t let it out on any horny way with someone I don’t even really care about.  And it’s gone.  I’ll do this thing, and I’ll forget about my frustration, and I’ll move on to other things.”  Koslov continued, “The thing I’m learning now is that it’s better to just do your own thing sometimes.  Focus on yourself.  Basically, I have an invisible marker in my head that says, ‘I’ve already got her,’ but I saved the night.  I can do something else.”  He concluded his portion of the interview with words of wisdom for the other subjects.  “Stop giving a fuck,” Koslov advised.  “When you stop giving a fuck, things are so much easier. ‘Hey that guy just pissed on my sister.’” Koslov shrugged at the thought of someone urinating on his sister and passed the microphone on.

Subject #11

Jennifer Smith, age 18

Heterosexual female, previously considered herself asexual, single for eighteen years

Jennifer Smith was the last person to speak during the group interview.  She boldly declared, “Looks like I’m the only virgin here,” once she was handed the microphone.  There was a beat of silence before she continued.  “Awkward, okay.  It’s not like I’m completely asexual; I just don’t think I can actually like people.”  She explained that she wasn’t saving herself for marriage or even particularly the right person.  Smith joked, “I thought about auctioning off my virginity to help pay for college, but I didn’t think people would believe that I was a virgin.  I masturbate a lot.  Like a LOT.  Like more than boys do.”

Smith explained her rules for masturbation, saying, “I used to have a thing against fantasizing about people that I actually knew, but I’ve mostly abandoned that, and I think that’s kind of for the best as far as fulfillment goes.”  When asked why she was against fantasizing about people she knew, Smith responded, “I don’t know why exactly.  Maybe I myself just thought it was creepy.  I realized that if I kept my fantasies to myself, though, I wasn’t actually hurting anyone.  You can’t blame someone for their imagination.  I mean, it’s the reason I used to watch so much porn.  I could be having sex with some anonymous porn star rather than someone I knew.  I realized it was sort of unhealthy towards my senior year of high school.” 

Subject #7 was clearly confused by this idea, and asked, “How could porn be bad?”

Smith calmly explained, “Because you’re never having sex with a random person who doesn’t matter.  It mean, you can try, but that person still exists.  They’re real people.  Porn stars are real people.  It’s not just this electronic transfer of pixels from your laptop to your brain when you’re feeling horny.  It’s really more.  It’s an interchange of passion and lust and energy, whether you’re thinking about it at the time or not.”

Other subjects were skeptical that Smith could be sexually fulfilled as a virgin, but she argued, “I think everyone had a different definition of sexually fulfilled, and maybe I’m not completely fulfilled.  Masturbation only ever gets you so far.  Would I like someone to fool around with?  Yeah, sure, who wouldn’t?  Would that be sexually fulfilling?  Who knows.”

Subject #0

Interviewer, age 20

Bisexual female, single for about a month

I never said it out loud, but at the end, after everyone else had spoken, these were my thoughts:

 “And not one real masochist in the bunch!  Hard to believe—I would’ve thought there’d be at least one.  S&M isn’t that uncommon these days, right?  I thought it was one of the original kinks—one of those fantasies everyone has, but then, it never came up.  Why?  Carrot masturbation…Pokémon role playing…Exhibition, okay.  What if the original kink has gone mainstream?”  And there I was with a whip, handcuffs, and dominatrix boots hidden away in my closet, worried that my kink had gone vanilla.  And so what if it had?  What’s so bad about sexual unoriginality?  A few decades ago, it wasn’t okay for women to like sex, it wasn’t okay for women to like women or men to like men, but today, a room full of strangers will talk openly about their masturbation habits, who they’re attracted to, how far they’ve been sexually, without batting an eye.  Not even the virgin was declared a freak.  So maybe there is no taboo, perhaps the Internet generation, where the wildest sexual perversion is just a few clicks away, marks the death of taboo.