How sex became a four-letter word

David Sherman

The New York Times and other legacy, lying, commie, fascist left-wing, liberal press outlets report Gen-Zers think sex is a four-letter word. I don’t know what a Gen-Zer is, other than horny, but young men and women have decided sex with others is a hassle. 

Women say men are nuts, undoubtedly true. The U.S. elected a role-model rapist as president, though most men, it is said, fear hitting on women now means they’re lower than pond scum. Asking a woman at work out for lunch is seen as harassment, maybe cause for dismissal, maybe castration. 

Women, it is thought, are also afraid men insist on contortionist sex, meaning their heels in their ears, while their partners try to mimic the artists on PornHub or wherever, where sex is a marathon and your partner is a collection of orifices to be abused. Affection is not part of the picture, or video, and for some that’s a turn off. For others affection, commitment, love is a three-headed monster. 

But, reports indicate, men are afraid of rejection and suffer from performance anxiety. Computer porn never says, “No,” when you ask it to show you a naked acrobat with a surgically enhanced woman, whereas flesh and blood females do not have breasts the size of basketballs and may say, “No,” even if asked for a cuppa, and I’m not even talking about the Stones’ lyric, “Just one drink … from your lovin’ cup.”

This generation may never have been told, “No,” by their dear mothers and rejection might send them to a shrink’s armchair.

The tale told by the liberal, commie Trump-deranged press, says intimacy is not worth the effort. “Should I call?” “Will she/he/it/them/they/call?” “Why doesn’t she/he/it/them/they/call?” “What’s wrong with me?” “Maybe my penis is too small?” “My breasts aren’t big enough.” “I’m not perfect.” “I don’t look like Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney or Madison Bailey.” “I don’t look like Glen Powell, Austin Butler, Jonathan Bailey or any other flavour of the month. I’m a loser.”

But, bonus, the computer or phone does not discriminate. No matter what you look like or think you look like, you can disappear into the land of Anything Goes and Everyone Comes in the glowing screen. Yes, it’s two dimensional but it’s that third dimension, the human part, that seems to frighten Gen-Zers.

Generation Z (often called Zoomers) were born between 1997 and 2012, sandwiched between Millennials and Generation Alpha. They are thought to be the first "digital natives"— having grown up immersed in smartphones, social media and high-speed internet. Sexual organs, as well as the desire to touch and be touched by someone other than themselves, seem to need charging like the rest of life’s gizmos.

Not mentioned in most reports is they’re also a generation born when wealth was amassed by the few. Most women worked outside the house. Families were smaller, kids had fewer brothers and sisters, were and are lonelier. And while they had the tech to peruse, they often had the home to themselves as parents worked and there were no siblings to torture.

Reality, what us boomers grew up in, has dramatically changed. Pre-porn, for us boomers, there were always enough guys to play baseball, hockey or football, to hangout, smoke dope and talk endlessly about girls. And there were real, live females, with seductive curves and scents and laughter, the stuff of dreams and remained the same even when dreams were realized. You didn’t have to be alone unless you wanted to be. Now the outdoor rinks have mostly disappeared in big cities, baseball diamonds are now green spaces, not a softball or a base to be found. There’s a line in the sand between the sexes even when there’s no sand.

And in 1969, when Boomer males reached 10 on the horniness scale, science obliged by providing women with the pill. Sex for young women was not accompanied by fear of pregnancy and us older teens, panting from deprivation, discovered there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow of women – they also liked sex, wanted sex, enjoyed sex. Porn was non-existent except for the 8 mm rarities that required projectors and screens and were known simply as dirty movies. And glossy magazines where 18-year-old women, children really, were displayed as sex objects for twisted old men of any age, published by celebrated pedophiles.

Why sex and dirt were synonymous makes as much sense as using words that describe what is usually a pleasurable pursuit as profanity, intercourse being reduced to variations of the word fuck, which is an all-purpose pejorative verb, noun and adjective. For a few men, it’s the totality of their vocabulary.

Yes, Boomers grew up in different times. There was less to fear and men had not been schooled on twisting women into slinky toys. It was, most of the time, an expression of affection and a result of realizing we were sexual creatures. Of course, behind that curtain was a real world of oppression, exploitation, casting couches and trading sex for promotions. It went both ways. Women were in power in places, and they, too, hit on males beneath them on the management pecking order.

We were all horny. It’s life. We’re born to procreate. If you’re healthy and shower regularly, it’s normal and natural. Touch and be touched. It’s human. There were pitfalls to be navigated and life was neither a bowl of cherries or a box of condoms, but sex, for most of us, was not something to fear. It was something to look forward to. You had a dinner date and before the menus came you were thinking about what dessert might entail.

The “Me-Too” movement had its place. Women didn’t like to be harassed or have their jobs or promotions hinging on taking it off and putting out. Celibacy was not part of the deal.

A few years back, I polled women and their experiences in the workplace for a story. In my case, workplace meant newsrooms. One woman said an editor had asked her to lunch and she ran to the bathroom and cried. The editor’s invitation had destroyed her faith in him as an editor and a man, she said. Some might think the reaction extreme, but that’s how she handled a luncheon invite. Had the editor asked her to join him in his home for dinner, she might have hung herself. Who knows?

Another female reporter laughed. Flirtation went both ways and was part of the job, sjhe said.

“I hit on men as much as they hit on me,” she said.

Another told me an editor had invited her to dinner.

“Did it upset you?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I married him.”

I’m not an advice-to-the-lovelorn columnist but I’ll offer a suggestion to those afraid to navigate the shoals of sexuality.

Go get laid. You might enjoy it.