An Old-School Summer School Romance
August 10, 2024
(left, not Stevie)
As a change of pace,
a memoir which
shows how morality
has changed in
50 short years.
In those days, a woman's virginity meant something. I was an earnest young man; I didn't want to be her "first." I wasn't in love with her. I wasn't ready for marriage. I didn't want to be "the one." I didn't explain.
updated from June 14, 2017
by Henry Makow Ph.D.
She stayed after class to listen to my conversation with the professor. The course was Eighteenth-Century English Literature.
The year was 1971. I was 21, working as a reporter on the night shift at the Ottawa Journal, finishing my BA at Carleton University.
She was a kindergarten teacher in Collingwood, a resort town north of Toronto, the pretty daughter of an Anglican minister.
Her father obviously had wanted a son. Her name was "Stevie."
We left the building together and ended up in her room in residence. I don't remember if this was the first day or later. In any case, we engaged in what in those days was called "necking."
After, she asked me if she was pregnant. I assured her that she wasn't. We had not had intercourse. She had not removed her panties.
YOU'VE GOT SNAIL MAIL
After she returned to Collingwood, we kept in touch by mail. She wrote about her frustrations with parents who kept their children at home because they couldn't provide lunches, yet had money for other things.
She talked about living alone in a cottage in the woods. Her father had told her to stop being so friendly to everyone in town. "I certainly don't intend to expend energy on precautions that may never be needed."
She mentioned a certain socialist political candidate who wanted to visit her to talk about the issues of the day. Sure.
I wrote about my frustrations with the callow night-shift editor who complained I didn't produce "copy" fast enough.
I mentioned taking dictation on the phone from the newspaper's Editor-in-Chief. The editorial was bold and fearless but the editor sounded like a mouse. He kept asking me if he should tone it down.
We made plans for Stevie to visit at Christmas. She especially wanted to go to a New Year's Party.
Jan 1, 1972
She had high expectations of the party, but was disappointed. It was thrown by another reporter and the people there were not high enough on the social ladder for her.
As we drove home in the freezing cold, she berated me for forcing her to mix with such lowlifes. By the time we arrived, I was fed up and gave her a piece of my mind. What did she expect? I wasn't invited to any other party. What made her so superior?
This dressing down had a magical effect on her. She was a virgin. Up to then, she had kept me at bay. But now she wanted to placate me. She removed her top and showed me her breasts.
After a hot make-out session, I managed to wear down her resistance. She was aroused and consented to intercourse.
But something odd happened. I couldn't do it.
I was not impotent. I had had plenty of sexual experience, having already lived with a woman for a year when I was 19.
My conscience was bothering me.
In those days, a woman's virginity meant something.
I was an earnest young man; I didn't want to be her "first." I wasn't in love with her.
I wasn't ready for marriage. I didn't want to be "the one." I didn't explain.
Stevie went back to Collingwood. A few weeks later I got a letter.
"What happened at New Year's can never happen again." She ended our relationship by saying something that made my jaw drop.
"I can't have Jewish babies," she wrote.
I wasn't thinking of babies.
This was 52 years ago. Stevie is probably about 70 years old now. Our prime is over. I hope her half-century was good. Mine was partly squandered due to arrested development due to trusting the mass media.
Thanks to my conscience, I don't have a significant place in Stevie's memories. I feel good about my decision.
Physical intimacy should be commensurate with emotional intimacy.
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D said (August 10, 2024):
Your sentence "Physical intimacy should be commensurate with emotional intimacy."
is on point. For many years (decades now) I felt this way, however based on the actions of others I was odd-man out which always cost me a lot of 'fun', as I was committed to looking for ROI with a women more than mere pleasure. Being respectful of some women is quite off-putting to them, especially those that base their beauty on gleaning a man's energy of attraction.
strange days.
Did you know that the Germans were so enamored with proper respect for physical intimacy that many soldiers would not raid rooms where couples were thought to be in the course of intimacy? It's written that the occupied French used this 'delay tactic' to their advantage while escaping out bedroom windows, LOL.