My dad came to the city for an afternoon to help me mail some boxes the day before my move. As we were talking about times to meet, I mentioned I had an appointment for an HIV/STI check.
My dad was quiet for a second, then said "Uh huh. Well, how about the next day then."
I grew up in a religious home. My parents are Seventh Day Adventists. My brother and I had to go to church every Saturday morning growing up. We had to observe the Sabbath too, which meant from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday we weren't allowed to watch TV or spend the night at our friends' houses. Caffeine, alcohol, pork, and, certainly, pre-marital sex were also frowned upon.
I took all of these restrictions as unavoidable inconveniences when I was a kid. When I was sixteen I read the bible in its entirety and tried to believe in my parents’ dogma. It didn't take so much. The more I read and thought about it, the less I believed.
By the time I left for college I was on my way to leaving their religious cocoon for good. Caffeine, alcohol, pork, and pre-marital sex all worked their way into my day-to-day life (though the sex part was comparatively tricky for a long while). I would happily debate the principles and rhetorical validity of religion, but with sex, I would almost never make reference to my own life. And my parents never showed any interest in learning more about my sex life.
It was taken as read that I would avoid sex until marriage. I didn't want to go out of my way to be dishonest with them, but there weren't many occasions to bring up my sex life in the course of normal holiday conversation. It's not that I don't want to tell them. But I never feel like I have a reason to. I assume both of them were virgins until they married so I'm not sure how worthwhile it would be to have a conversation about having sex with my best friend's ex.
I don't avoid the topic, though. I sent them links when I first started writing here. I'm not proud of a lot of the stories I've told here, but they were all choices I made and have become a part of who I am. I don't want to hold that back from my parents.
I have no idea if they read any of this. They never bring it up, and I rarely mention it. I don't have children so I'm not sure what it's like to cross the last border of sexual reckoning with a son or daughter. What is it like for a parent to reckon with their child's sex life, especially when it is based on such different choices from their own?
After my dad and I had dropped all my boxes off at the post office and finished the last round of errands for the move, he looked at me sideways and then looked down again. "So when will you get the results of your test?" he asked.
"I got it back already," I told him. "They can do most of it on the spot now. It was all negative."
"Mmmhmm," he said.
He looked straight ahead, one hand on the steering wheel. I wondered when it was that he last had sex. I didn't ask.
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Love Machine: Willing to Relocate
Sex Machine: Checking my Oil, or the HIV Test
Date Machine: How To Pick Up a Bartender
Date Machine: Are You My Girlfriend Now?
PDA Machine: Making Out in a Bar
Sex Machine: The Cake is a Lie, or Does My Butt Show When I Walk?
Obituary Machine: Natasha Richardson, or Smoking Cigarettes on the Roof
Love Machine: Throwing Punches, or Get Your Hands Off of My Woman
Date Night: The Most Expensive Date I've Ever Been On
Sex Machine: Monogamy is for Losers
Sex Machine: I'm Not That Kind of Girl
Date Machine: Civil War and Sex on a Toliet
Date Machine: Living Like a Bachelor
Sex Machine: Chest Hair, or the Shaved Eunuch
Date Machine: Macho Voce, or Women Who Sound Like Men
Date Machine: Sex in the Office