DEAR EMILY,

Two years ago, an officemate who had just broken off from her longtime boyfriend asked me to take her out to dinner. She knew I would be game as I had made passes at her. We dated for three months and got intimate—to a certain point. I knew she was not the scrupulous type, even though she is a graduate of a convent school, as she had been telling us officemates that she had gone out of town with her boyfriend a number of times. So I thought she was the promiscuous type. Anyway, she reconciled with her old boyfriend and they are now married.

Then, I started dating a girl from an advertising agency. She is two years out of an exclusive Catholic school and the ad agency is her first job. From what she tells me, she has never been attached because her family is very religious and conservative. Work made us close.

I am seriously considering her as a possible lifetime partner. She is the type I would have no hesitation presenting to my mother as the possible mother of my children. We’ve gone out to dinner and attended functions, not as colleagues but as dates. We have come to the point of kissing passionately, and my desire is getting more and more intense.

Recently, while watching a movie, I tried to get more physically intimate. I started caressing her knee. When I felt no resistance, my hand crept further up her leg. Since at no time was resistance put up, my hand ended up in its ultimate target. That I got that far surprised me, considering her persona. But I was astonished when she reciprocated my intimate touch. Not only did she fondle, but she got me to reach climax, right there in the movie house.

For two girls in their early 20s and both graduates of exclusive girls’ schools run by nuns, fondling seemed the natural thing for them to do to a serious suitor. I ask you, is it normal for single working girls their age to indulge in intense petting, or did I just happen to have met two young women abnormally given to sex play?

______________

You’re being funny, aren’t you—for asking if this is normal? Are you so bewildered that you’re calling these two girls abnormal because of their knowledge of sex? How do you have these prosaic ideas about convent-bred women? Because of their old-fashioned uniforms?

Did you think that girls from nuns’ schools turn into zombies with their minds bolted shut from knowing about sex? With the proliferation of explicit sex-hammering movies and TV that leaves nothing to the imagination, and the easy access of porn, and hearing endless sexual innuendos on radio, plus, plus, plus! With these batterings, how do you think they can escape talking about it in school, in-between classes, in dorms, and on the phone?

C’mon, did you really think these girls become blind and deaf just because they get educated in these enclosures? Are you shocked that these women are not actually discussing the cure for cancer? Whatever was the norm in virtue then, may be called an aberration now. Welcome to the real world.

Is it tattooed in your DNA to only marry one? And is it only a virgin you can bring home to mother? Won’t you give a chance to someone who, though she is battle-scarred with her non-virgin status, has integrity and is a dependable character? What does it matter if she’s not “pure” anymore? Are you “pure” yourself?

Try not to be too focused on sex. That’s just one facet in a true and healthy relationship.

Do you honestly believe there are really still millions of virgins lurking around and waiting for Mr. Right? As one comedian said, “You want virgins? Go to the nursery!”

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