I lost my virginity to a chubby hick in a house filled with cats, illegitimate kids, and a crackhead, but Jesus, I never thought that I'd end up a celibate. None of the usual causes apply: I'm not a virgin, I'm not a Christian, I don't have an STD, my uncle Jimmy never tried to lick my prepubescent cock. Sitting here in my usual attire of skintight flares, high-heeled platforms, an Aladdin Sane babydoll shirt, and a glittered scarf that hangs to my knees, I look like I'm up for a night of glam-rock orgies with girls named Violet and Snow. I would fit into a group of celibates like Ron Jeremy'd fit into Kate Moss.
I didn't just walk into abstinence like Jesus strolling into the desert. Nor did the decision come after years of Axl Rose-y debauchery or one-night stands — in fact the only one-night stand I've ever had only happened because I was too drunk to realize what the girl had done with my penis. But after several sub-par relationships featuring sex that would've made Woody Allen movies seem exciting, I began to suspect that the bliss of early experiences would never return. Still so young, already so jaded.
And then there was Morrissey. Like a million other rain-coated lovers around the world, I was saved by Morrissey and the Smiths during adolescence — or they at least gave me the vinyl to cry on. Moz provided an existentialist alternative to the clichd faade of love, proclaiming it to be nothing more than a "miserable lie." Although I was more interested in learning how to laugh at my own misfortunes as "the weird kid," it's hard to memorize the words to songs like "I Don't Mind if You Forget Me," "Will Never Marry," and "(I'm) The End of the Family Line," without allowing them to affect your libido. Nearly a decade after my introduction to Morrissey and the Smiths, I realized that I too had rejected love, sex, women, and all the tragedies that accompany them. All those nights of listening to Viva Hate on my bedroom floor had finally come back to bite me in the crotch.
In a sense, though, the cards were stacked against me. I lost my jailbait virginity while staring at posters of Korn and Coal Chamber above the bed of a girl who earnestly believed that London After Midnight was The Greatest Band of All Time. Later that year, I met the love of my life, took her virginity, and spent three exciting months with her. Unfortunately, I spent the three years that followed with her as well, an epoch of teary phone calls, yelling matches, and more criticism of each other's fashion sense than anything resembling physical affection. Over the course of those thirty-nine months, we screwed all of a dozen times, each session accompanied by her high-pitched voice screeching, "Hurry up," "Make it hurt less," or "Don't put the whole thing in!" These sessions of lovemaking also usually included her diaphragm-sized hands pounding on my chest — and not in a hot way. I'd waited my whole life for something that ultimately resembled the shrieking and antics of a five-year-old brat.
I came to like the fore more than the play. I'd think back wistfully on pre-sex teenaged days spent rolling around naked with my girlfriend with a hard-on that could've drilled through dry-wall, feeling myself throbbing against her stomach as her legs held me like a vice, tasting her ten-dollar M.A.C.-adorned toes for the first time, kissing deeply long after the lipstick and gloss had worn off. Sex, as a destination, was disappointing, and once I'd gotten there, I couldn't remember how to get anywhere else. With so much flesh to be explored (to run your fingertips over, to test the dexterity of your tongue against, to drink the sweat from, to clench between your teeth) what was the rush to hurry up and get off? Why the haste? Why no lingering? I felt like I was touring Willy Wonka's factory on a rollercoaster.
Maybe I came of age with the first generation of girls who don't enjoy foreplay. . . but why not? In my experience, girls just wanted credit for getting between the sheets, without spending too much time there. It's as if sexual empowerment and Gossip Girl and all the rest made the act so symbolic for them, the symbolism itself became the pleasure. What before counted as physical stimulation was less part of the equation — all but forgotten in the availability and hipness of the deed. Unfortunately for me, someone who'd grown up in the PC world of upper-middle-class suburbia and spent his formative years learning to embrace his femininity, this just wasn't what I had been prepped for.
It's been more than two years since I've had sex. Looking in the rearview mirror, I miss Sleater-Kinney, cocaine, and the Gossip's original drummer, but I can honestly say that I don't miss sex. I don't miss worrying about "closing the deal" in the amount of time deemed "normal" by a CW teen drama. And I don't miss looking down at a girl after finishing and thinking, "I really meant to spend at least half an hour between your breasts, yet now, oddly enough, all I crave is pizza." For the time being, I'm happier doing the abusing myself. Even Moz's recent admission that maybe intercourse isn't as despicable as the Cure after all hasn't yet brought me around. All I want is someone who doesn't get their power-up points from each new dick that goes into them, and someone who doesn't get their cues on bedroom exploration from Angelina Jolie. And if she happens to be named Snow or Violet, well. . .
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