At 21.

Under 18 - high school is such a minefield of puberty, hormones, and emotional volcanoes, it's best to avoid adding sex to the mix, or a nuclear fallout in one's life might occur – with lifelong aftereffects hard to live with.

Between 18-21, both young men and women are prone to impulsive behavior without truly understanding the ramifications of many of their actions. Plus by waiting a few years, a woman gets to gauge a man's real intent: just sex, or a long-term commitment.

A few years ago, I heard an afternoon radio psychologist explain to a concerned mom that her daughter should wait until she was 16 to date one-to-one with boys. The woman psychologist said that too often girls will modify their ideas, beliefs, values and behavior to please a boy. This prevents a girl from exploring the world of ideas and becoming herself – making choices based on her own needs and desires.

The psychologist could have added that boys introduce girls to dangers: cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, and sex. In a book WOMEN WHO KILL, the conclusion was that 90% of the women in jail for murder, had committed the crime with or on the bequest of a boyfriend.  

To be honest, in my case, young men also introduced me to the world of ideas, politics, rock ‘n roll, and life in general. But I was a virgin until I was 19. I had already read Sarte, Fromme, and Thomas Hardy.

It seems the biological age for dating at 16 gives a young person a chance to be a teenager without being pressured by the opposite sex to be something else. By 16, young people have many ideas they want to express and explore. By starting to date at 16, the young person has a few innocent years to understand the opposite sex, to try out different roles, and to live and learn from mistakes. Thus, after a few years of dating, from 18 to 21, young people become young adults and can then choose to have sex, or not, based on their own beliefs.  

If the dating period starts at 12, 13 or 14, the few years of exploration occur and viola, no more virgin at 16 or 17. And the door opens to all sorts of physical, emotional, mental and financial problems that can overwhelm a young person.

Men brag about losing their virginity at early ages to be more masculine than the other. In VIRGINS! the average age of my virgin lovers was about 20. I was 19. 

Somewhere on the Net I read, “No one wishes they had lost their virginity when younger.”  Yep, I wish I had been older, not a college freshman in 1969.

So when is the best time to share one’s virginity? “Do as I say, not as I do,” was a common criticism of adults in the Sixties. I waited until I was 19, after I had traveled the horrors and pitfalls of high school.  Nowadays, I wish I had set an age limit, like 21 at least. Learn from my mistakes! That’s the whole idea of Virgins! A Memoir of the Sexual Revolution.

In the Sixties and Seventies, waterbeds became popular. One new owner told his parents he had bought one. They asked, “Why?” in surprise.   

“For pleasure,” he said.

Their 1950s era response was, “Pleasure? A bed is for sleeping, not pleasure!” 

The enjoyment of physical pleasure was highlighted in the Sexual Revolution’s mantra of “If it feels good, do it!”

The Sexual Revolution didn’t make pleasure a reality, but rather the ok-ness of physical pleasure became socially acceptable. The idea of pleasure was  extended beyond the physical act of lovemaking to encompass all five senses in everyday life. Truly, this was radical for a 1950s mentality. A small group in every generation around the world has had its hedonistic followers, but in the Sixties and Seventies, hedonism penetrated the American mass culture. 

In light of this, the age-old philosophy of the mind-body split became a popular conversation topic among college students. Even the media showed this split with images of a human head disconnected from its body from the neck down.   

Looking back on my years of angst about this mind-body split, I am amazed that any human being, in all logic, could insist that there is a ‘mind’ independent of the body! We are our bodies, and our bodies are our minds. 

A friend told me his family traced his ancestry to a couple in the 1500 or 1700s in Holland.  They then tracked their descendants and located all their relatives. Every few years, the entire clan gets together for a reunion. This embraces people from many countries, many ages and many personalities. However, to the surprise of many, when they would approach one person, thinking it was a relative they knew, they found themselves talking to a very distant cousin. Even more surprising the personality traits of the distant cousin were quite similar to the known relative.

Modern science can manipulate the mind via drugs, and not just illegal drugs, but over-the-counter and prescription drugs. Behaviorism can alter ways of thinking, as seen in Media America and the success of advertising.  Certain food can cause some people nightmares. The human body produces biochemicals that cause emotional-physical bonding for the first two-years of a male-female relationship. These chemicals decrease after a two-year span. War and abuse often case post-traumatic stress syndrome while sexual abuse has been shown to actually change the size of the hypothalamus.

How in the world can humans insist that human minds are independent of the human body? Just because scientist haven’t discovered what mystics say is another human nervous system with nadis, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  Just because scientists say tonsils and the appendix aren’t needed, doesn’t mean these organs do not have functions today’s scientists cannot even fathom.

One of the benefits of the Sexual Revolution drug culture was the spike of interest given to scientific exploration in the brain and its functions. What scientists know in 2007 surpasses what was known in 1968. What is known in 20 or 30 more years will annihilate the philosophical angst over mind-body theories, IMHO. 

Of course I agree with the co-Nobel Prize winter Francis Crick’s book THE ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS, that the existence of God – the ultimate ‘mind’ of human civilization - will be found within human DNA.

Peace & Love,
Zola 

If I knew then what I know now….. I would have played by the rules. I would have known to be upset when my first lover said he had been unfaithful. I should have stopped loving him then and there.

Despite what people said back then, “It’s the Sixties/Seventies, anything goes!” I wish I had been well-educated about men, sexual behavior, and my own needs and desires. Untutored in the ways of men and the social rules between men and women, I was vulnerable prey for others, and then my own passions. Today TV shows and books provide important information for people like myself who weren’t taught social rules.

If I knew then what I know now….I would have stopped loving my first love who shot himself up with speed and missed the vein and almost died. Pretty big red flag. Then, he stole milk from the hotel we stayed at in London. That red flag and a few others should have waved in my face and told me to leave him. Love is blind.

If I knew then what I know how,  I would not have used the legal drug of alcohol. Too bad I can’t say that about dropping LSD…. I think I’ve paid for the LSD in messing up my brain chemistry. When depressed, I used to be able to sleep and have wonderful dreams to rebalance my energies. However, after taking LSD, that self-cure died, and I later was introduced to anti-depressants. Luckily, I didn’t take too much LSD.  I had realized I had an addictive personality, and drugs were a real danger.

LSD may have altered my brain chemistry, but the experience was so extraordinary, that as a student of human nature, behavior and reality, it certainly helped me experience an alternate reality that was precious.

I stopped using alcohol when I was 27 because I had become a mean drunk. One time, as  a waitress in a bar, not drinking, but serving drinks, I was shocked to literally see nice people descend in their talk and behavior to very low animal levels. Watching others get drunk is certainly one way to be put off of alcohol pretty fast!

I’m still appalled at my own behavior. There I was, 18, running away from home to college in 1968. I promised myself I wouldn’t make the same mistakes my parents and five older sisters had. Woe to me, I hadn’t realize there was SO MANY MORE MISTAKES out there to make! 

Peace and love,
Zola