“Wait, Vershal,” you are saying, “I thought that you were one of those extremist Christian guys who believes that copulating is reserved only for the time after you place that ring on the finger of the only woman that you will ever enter into matrimony with.”

Well, I still am, and the pundits who are placing odds on whether or not I will ever change my mind can raise the stakes again, because it ain’t happening. Yet here I find myself: nineteen and unmarried– and very tired of sex.

I can’t say when it started. Maybe it was back in high school, when I was notoriously virginal. The fact that I didn’t bed-hop or at least “throw down” with a girl at some point earned me the somewhat respecting/somewhat mocking nickname of “Jesus.” It wasn’t that I made a big deal out of my not having had sex; in fact, I kept it quiet, because I saw no reason to brag about doing what I was supposed to be doing. Staying out of the sexual escapades of many of my contemporaries in high school–and there were many who brought new meaning to “casual sex”– wasn’t that big of a deal to me, despite the fact that, in a small town like Choudrant, the only things that you really have to do are sex and drinking.

Once, when I ran into one of the people that I call a “militant virgin” (you know the type: “Stand up and be proud that you’re a virgin! Storm the castle in the name of sexual abstinence!), I made a new enemy because I said, “Hey, I’m happy that my morals are intact, but really, it is just a matter of keeping body parts apart.”

Maybe it started this fall when I came to college. A lot of closet freaks– free from the bondage of their parents’ repressive religious systems– emerged. Here at LC, it’s not as bad as other colleges, I know, but I also know of several–perhaps even many?– situations where students decided that morality isn’t that important. I know that it’s not my place to bind their consciences, but I don’t understand the psychological nature of “hook-ups” at all. I’m not even sure that I want to understand.

For the last three weeks or so, though, it’s been hitting me really hard. Spring is here, and sex is literally in the air, everywhere you turn. The way that those pine trees pollinate, you’d think that the end of the world is coming, and they’re getting in one last fling.

Pollen, irritating as it is, though, is not what is bothering me. I wish that that was all that is the problem.

It’s just that I see sex wherever I look. I can’t pick up a good novel anymore. Sex is what makes advertising effective, so reading billboards is out of the question. If art imitates life, then I shudder to think of how blind I’ve been to the sexuality of our society based on the music that is being released. Television? Find me a sitcom that doesn’t thrive on “funny” sexual situations.

And it’s not just the media. Everyday conversation seems to center around it. I thought that that would end with high school, but it’s still a big deal in college. I’m told that it’s a pretty big conversational topic once you’re out of college. I’m tired of talking about it or listening to other people talk about it. Really tired. Why can’t we just talk about a topic that is driven by something other than our libido, like the color of the couch?

Even when sex isn’t being directly addressed, it seems like everything is an innuendo, and I don’t know why. There aren’t that many phallic symbols in the world to point out.

Not long ago, I had the displeasure of listening to a girl recount all of her “hook-ups.” It was depressing when she would end a sentence with, “But I didn’t have sex with him.” Someone has sunk low indeed when they have to clarify that they didn’t have sex with one of their physical trysts.

I guess that, if you want to take a Darwinian view of all of this, it makes sense that we want to talk about it a lot. After all, we’re just here to reproduce anyway.

Too bad that I don’t believe Darwin. Or feminists. Or anyone else with their “healthy views” of sex or sexuality or sexual dignity.

Why can’t we just put sex back in the bedroom?