Lovin' Legolas

by Kathryn Blume

Now that the Supreme Court is up for grabs, I have been thinking about the whole abortion debate, and the burgeoning threat to Roe v. Wade - particularly from those old Beltway Boys who promote abstinence until marriage, deny funding for non-celibate family planning, and who grinned so gleefully for the Partial Birth Abortion Ban photo op. 

I have that picture on my wall.  They stand clustered, those ancient, smirking, Gollum-like creatures, covetously around their Precious Dubya (who’s busy making a Herculean effort to sign his name), and look, to a man, like Lionel Barrymore’s mean Mister Potter in It’s A Wonderful Life.  They also look, to a man (a WHITE MAN) like they haven’t gotten laid in about 1000 years.  Each.

If I could pass my own law on the subject, part of it would state:

No person opposing legal abortions may refer to themselves as “pro-life.”  While we concede that particular referent as a brilliant marketing tactic, we also see where you’re hiding, and you are no longer allowed that handicap.  You are “anti-abortion,” and that’s the only banner under which you get to stand.

I’d follow that up with:

All persons opposed to legal abortions must acknowledge the perennial existence of women seeking to terminate unwanted pregnancies, and concede that without access to safe and legal procedures, countless women have been maimed and killed – which is a big part of the reason why you NEVER get to call yourselves “pro-life” again.

I don’t know if anyone has said this flat-out in public, but I want to state here and now that deciding fetuses are more important than women is illogical and absurd, and allowing women to die unnecessarily is baldly and criminally hypocritical, and should that worst of scenarios start to happen again, those responsible will have no moral legs on which to stand.

Among the many other articles of reality which the choice-opponents fail to grasp is the incontrovertible truth that, like it or not, people have sex.  People have all kinds of sex.  Not only that, but people have non-procreative sex, people have unprotected sex, people use protection which fails, girls and women get raped, tragic birth defects occur, and even people who theoretically oppose abortion will sometimes falter and deviate from the Chosen Path (note Kitty Kelly’s unearthed dirt about GW getting his knocked-up girlfriend Taken Care Of). 

An even bigger issue here is that, while incredibly well-meaning, most people – even really smart people – are also kind of stupid, particularly when it comes to sex.  If not stupid, then short-sighted.  If not short-sighted, then suffering from an almost heroic level of willful self-delusion – or a crippling lack of education.  And they’re going to keep having sex in spite of it all, because humans are really just animals and that’s what animals do.  They screw.  A lot.  No matter how hard you try to stop ‘em.

I saw a story on TV once about a group of parents working to curtail their childrens’ sexual activity. 

[PAUSE.  Please do not misconstrue what I am about to say.  I am not advocating teenage sexual activity.  I understand that parents have to protect their kids  I am just responding to the reality that most teens are operating on about 3 marginally functional  neurons and about 1000 gallons of tidal-waving hormones.  This is true even for kids who grow up to be responsible adults.  Ok, PLAY.]

What made me crazy was listening to the histrionic level of judgment and horror in the conversation – from both the parents and the correspondent.  The shock that these kids would even consider sex.  I kept wondering, “What kind of stuff were you guys up to when you were 16?”  I mean, these folks were all in their mid-40s, which puts their adolescence in the early 1970s – and you know what a sexually repressed era that was.

Lacking both offspring, and the requisite Parental Amnesia, I do remember what I was up to at that age.  A big part of what I remember is how naïve, curious, and fundamentally unstoppable I was. 

At 16, I’d had a grand total of one boyfriend – and I can only call him that with the misty leavening of Time.  Back then, he would have objected to something so formal, confining, and square.  He’s got four teenage girls now, so I won’t use his real name (in case they read this and realize how much he’s hiding).  Instead, I’ll honor our mutual Tolkien obsession, and the fact that this word coincidentally contains his initials, and call him Legolas.

An actor, juggler, and self-proclaimed Existentialist, Legolas was 4 years my senior, and an enthusiastic partner in our series of increasingly intense make-out sessions.  Still, with him attending a far-away university, and only periodic visits during the summer, I didn’t imagine I’d ever have sex until college.  Which seemed fine.  While I was curious about it, I wasn’t in a rush.  It sounded a little scary.  And a little gross.

Then, in the spring of my junior year, Legolas comes through town, and takes me for a smooching session in Portland, Oregon’s famed Rose Gardens.  The closest we can get to Middle Earth.  We talk about a bunch of stuff that day, including sex, though purely in a theoretical sense.  I don’t pay much attention until later that afternoon, when he looks at me with a wide, elfin smile and says, “You know, I’m still thinking about this sex thing.  What do you think?”  Elves are very romantic that way.

I really don’t know what I think.  Yes, I do.  I think that I haven’t ever seen a guy naked before.  While I really like all the smooching, I’m a little concerned about what I might uncover (and what I might have to do with what I might uncover) should Leg and I Go For The Gusto.  A 20 year-old virgin, Legolas feels a slightly stronger imperative than I, but is gracious enough not to pressure me.  He drops me off at home on his way back out of town, and I assure him I’ll give it some solid consideration. 

My first step is to call Mark and Carla, my only friends who are actually having sex, and request immediate counsel.  Carla is a pale, literary, un-born-again girl from school who abandoned the church when she realized sex was more fun than Jesus.  Mark, one of my oldest childhood pals, is dark, Jewish, brilliant, and only partially socialized.  Hence his proclivity towards eating his hair and cooking for his friends dressed in naught but a frilly yellow apron.  I am responsible for introducing them to each other. 

Mark and Carla are non-stop boffers for whom sex is a kind of cure-all, similar to Windex in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  Feeling blue?  Have sex!  Got the flu?  Have sex!  Stymied by differential calculus?  Have sex!  They respond to my SOS by showing up at my house immediately, stopping only long enough for Carla to pick me up a copy of Playgirl.  She hands it over saying, “I know you’ve never seen a penis, and I don’t want you to be surprised.”

After much conversation, they conclude that, while yes, sex can be scary, Legolas is a good, trustworthy guy who will probably shoot his arrows with joy, care, and panache, and assure me I’ll mostly likely end up feeling it was worth it in the long run.  Carla also alleviates my concerns about birth control by showing up at school the next day with a six month supply of The Pill in a brown paper bag.  She’s stolen them from her mother, a physician, who has a large personal home stash. 

Unaware of the need to coordinate taking The Pill with my menstrual cycle, I start popping ‘em right away.  I immediately feel nauseated, and stop eating for a week.  Unaware of the estrogen-nausea connection, I assume I have suddenly contracted anorexia.  You know, the viral kind.

I wait the magic month for the pills to start working, and in the meantime, decide that I’m up for the whole sex thing.  Houston, we are a go for penetration.

Fast forward to a weekend at Legolas’s house.  The Weekend.  His parents (Elrond and Galadriel) are out of town, and we take the opportunity to make some adults out of ourselves.  In truth, his folks don’t actually care.  They’re old hippies, and feel it’s high time Leg got some action.  But we appreciate the privacy.

As studious over-achievers, Legolas and I have spent some research time reading The Joy of Sex so we’ll be well-prepared.  One of the tidbits we pull out of TJOS states that The Pill can sometimes be drying to a gal’s nether regions, and therefore increase her need for supplemental lubrication.  Two Virgins, we figure we need all the help we can get.  So, we have a big bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care Hand Lotion at the ready, and Keith Jarrett’s moan-filled Koln concert on the stereo.  The more moans, the merrier, right? 

So, truth.  It isn’t actually fun that first time.  It hurts.  But neither is it emotionally traumatic, and afterwards, we’re rather proud of ourselves.  We go out and get a commemorative picture taken.

There is, however, a hitch…

The next day, or as we call it, “The morning after the night before,”  I come down with an inexplicably high fever.  I wonder, “Can sex make you sick?”  Neither of us know.  Legolas and I puzzle through the previous day’s events, thumb through our increasingly weathered copy of TJOS, and eventually conclude that using Vaseline Intensive Care Hand Lotion during the deflowerment process probably produces a similar effect to rubbing it into a large cut or abrasion.  I have inadvertently poisoned myself.  I pray I don’t die, as this would be embarrassing to my parents.

I will have you note that we accomplished all of this without the idiocy-inducing effects of alcohol.  Our stupidity was all natural.  And explicable.  Our high school didn’t have any sex ed at all.  My last formal instruction was in 8^th grade, when the famed Condom Lady showed up in health class, drew an oversized profile of a penis on the blackboard, and then unrolled a giant rubber onto her finger.  To us, it was hilarious – better than (and I’m about to date myself here) Steve Martin singing the King Tut song – and about as informative.

Bottom line: Teenagers will always be horny, curious, and dumb.  And people will always – ALWAYS – have sex.  Often, they’ll be naïve, stupid, neurotic, and afraid – or just unlucky.  They’ll succumb to doubt, denial, faulty prophylactics, and tragic, ill-fated encounters.  Women will always get pregnant and many of them will always want abortions. 

I know the anti-abortion/anti-education/anti-birth control crew yearn for a world wrapped up in  tidy little packages of strictly-enforced behavioral code.  They aggressively seek protection from any lack of control or sense of moral ambiguity.  They want assurances that life can be lived in a safe, comfortable, entirely predictable manner.  They want guarantees.  But that is simply not the way it works.  I understand that they truly believe abortion is murder, and I respect that.  But I, and millions like me do not, and we (including our allies who don’t believe in abortion but also think it’s a private matter) flat-out reject their assumed right to dictate belief and behavior, or co-opt the terms of the argument.

Or, as the Elves would say, “Tough luck Hordes of Mordor, but Frodo’s got the Ring.”