Read Online An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Hilma Wolitzer
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room, the girls to the right. They could have been Democrats and Republicans, divided by ideology and an aisle. But the two groups in front of Edward were likely to findcommon ground a lot sooner. Some of them, he was pretty sure, already had.
The voice-over on the video was female and friendly, as opposed to the god-like authority of those sonorous male voices in the “sex education” films when Edward was a teenager. One of them, he remembered, was called
How We Got Here
and might have been about Christopher Columbus, or immigration, rather than human reproduction. The first image on the screen then was of a boy and girl shaking hands. The only thing missing in that sanitized version of their supposed attraction was gloves.
The narrator intoned that Tommy and Jane were friends, and that friendship sometimes blossomed into love (an older T. & J.
holding
hands), and love into marriage (rice being thrown at the newlyweds). As Edward recalled, those were the final postnatal human beings in the film, until the cute little baby in Jane’s arms at the end, with Tommy grinning beside them. The rest were medical text illustrations of gonads and ovaries; the age-old story, illustrated with arrows, of the sperm’s journey toward the waiting egg; and the gradual development of the folded, big-headed fetus. No penises, no vaginas, and definitely no foreplay.
There was enough, though, to arouse disgusted and titillated cries from the adolescents in that 1950s classroom: “Eww!” “Gross!” “Whoo-hoo!” Mrs. Grady, Edward’s eighth-grade hygiene teacher, had to rap on her desk with a ruler, calling, “People, people!” as if to remind them that they belonged to a civilized species. Maybe it was only their imaginations and hormones at work. Edward wondered if just the sputtering sounds of an old movie projector could provoke an erotic charge in him.
Our Sexual Selves
had the soft-porn look of a music video. It began with a blast of rock music to which a group of male and female dancers in body stockings stomped and shook. Sex,the female voice said, as the relentless beat continued in the background, is everywhere in our culture. This was followed by clips from romantic scenes in movies and TV shows, glimpses of nude Roman statuary, suggestively clad fashion models shimmying down a runway, and even a brief view of an ordinary young couple making out on a park bench. One of the boys in the classroom cried out, “No, stop!” in falsetto, as one of them invariably did, to the cheering of his buddies.
Of course the video’s focus, like those of the 16mm films of Edward’s schooldays, was on reproduction, the blending of genetic information—nature’s raison d’être for sex. And words like
scrotum
and
testes
were still good for a laugh.
While stopping short of advocating abstinence, the narrator told her audience that although desire was a normal, healthy part of growing up, it was best to engage in sexual activity when one was mature enough to make wise decisions. The girls trilled and buzzed about that. The boys booed heartily, of course.
Tell it to their testosterone
, Edward thought. And at lunch in the faculty room afterward, when he recounted the video’s caution against mindless sex, his friend Bernie said, “Hmm, mindless sex. Isn’t that a redundancy?”
Later, at home, Edward prepared for his first date in what seemed like a millennium. He showered and shaved and polished his shoes. He used the electric toothbrush, which he hadn’t done for such a long time that his gums bled a little. Then he tried on a couple of sports jackets before deciding on one. No tie, though. The restaurant he’d chosen was supposed to be very good, but casual. Bingo seemed to have picked up on his mood, moving anxiously behind him from room to room. Mildred was going to take him for his walk later, relieving Edward of a curfew.
Almost fifty years before, when he was getting ready for hisvery first date, which consisted of
The voice-over on the video was female and friendly, as opposed to the god-like authority of those sonorous male voices in the “sex education” films when Edward was a teenager. One of them, he remembered, was called
How We Got Here
and might have been about Christopher Columbus, or immigration, rather than human reproduction. The first image on the screen then was of a boy and girl shaking hands. The only thing missing in that sanitized version of their supposed attraction was gloves.
The narrator intoned that Tommy and Jane were friends, and that friendship sometimes blossomed into love (an older T. & J.
holding
hands), and love into marriage (rice being thrown at the newlyweds). As Edward recalled, those were the final postnatal human beings in the film, until the cute little baby in Jane’s arms at the end, with Tommy grinning beside them. The rest were medical text illustrations of gonads and ovaries; the age-old story, illustrated with arrows, of the sperm’s journey toward the waiting egg; and the gradual development of the folded, big-headed fetus. No penises, no vaginas, and definitely no foreplay.
There was enough, though, to arouse disgusted and titillated cries from the adolescents in that 1950s classroom: “Eww!” “Gross!” “Whoo-hoo!” Mrs. Grady, Edward’s eighth-grade hygiene teacher, had to rap on her desk with a ruler, calling, “People, people!” as if to remind them that they belonged to a civilized species. Maybe it was only their imaginations and hormones at work. Edward wondered if just the sputtering sounds of an old movie projector could provoke an erotic charge in him.
Our Sexual Selves
had the soft-porn look of a music video. It began with a blast of rock music to which a group of male and female dancers in body stockings stomped and shook. Sex,the female voice said, as the relentless beat continued in the background, is everywhere in our culture. This was followed by clips from romantic scenes in movies and TV shows, glimpses of nude Roman statuary, suggestively clad fashion models shimmying down a runway, and even a brief view of an ordinary young couple making out on a park bench. One of the boys in the classroom cried out, “No, stop!” in falsetto, as one of them invariably did, to the cheering of his buddies.
Of course the video’s focus, like those of the 16mm films of Edward’s schooldays, was on reproduction, the blending of genetic information—nature’s raison d’être for sex. And words like
scrotum
and
testes
were still good for a laugh.
While stopping short of advocating abstinence, the narrator told her audience that although desire was a normal, healthy part of growing up, it was best to engage in sexual activity when one was mature enough to make wise decisions. The girls trilled and buzzed about that. The boys booed heartily, of course.
Tell it to their testosterone
, Edward thought. And at lunch in the faculty room afterward, when he recounted the video’s caution against mindless sex, his friend Bernie said, “Hmm, mindless sex. Isn’t that a redundancy?”
Later, at home, Edward prepared for his first date in what seemed like a millennium. He showered and shaved and polished his shoes. He used the electric toothbrush, which he hadn’t done for such a long time that his gums bled a little. Then he tried on a couple of sports jackets before deciding on one. No tie, though. The restaurant he’d chosen was supposed to be very good, but casual. Bingo seemed to have picked up on his mood, moving anxiously behind him from room to room. Mildred was going to take him for his walk later, relieving Edward of a curfew.
Almost fifty years before, when he was getting ready for hisvery first date, which consisted of
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