(1992)

“Naughty Bits” was a feminist comic series by Roberta Gregory that sardonically addressed many concerns of young women in the nineties, including their right to reproductive choice. In “The Groovy Teen Pregnancy Ish,” Hippie Bitch becomes pregnant and, after some distress, seeks out an illegal abortion.

“Our Bodies Ourselves” gave women a new sense of understanding and control over their physical and sexual selves. Its comforting and testimonial approach was the epitome of the modern sex guide. The book incorporates images and quotes representing a variety of viewpoints and several clear depictions of contraceptive methods. The book also contained the first graphic depiction of intercourse in a mainstream sex manual and broke visual barriers by including photographs of gay women in its chapters on love and sex, intentionally integrating homosexuality into its discussion of relationships in general.

In 1980 Ruth Bell adapted “Our Bodies Ourselves” to “Changing Bodies, Changing Lives” in order to address a broader and younger audience. This edition’s chapter progression is highly attuned to the chronology of teens’ sexual discoveries and moves from a discussion of physical changes and feelings to “exploring sex with yourself” and ultimately “exploring sex with someone else.”

This paperback volume was a compilation of some of Sol  Gordon’s older cartoon pamphlets with additional illustrations and written advice. The images contained in “You!” were rude and crude; and it is easy how to see how uninformed, sexually curious adolescents were so drawn to
them. Characteristic of seventies’ attitudes toward sex, Gordon’s advice was both tolerant and celebratory, assuring readers that masturbation was fine and sex was great as long as it was consenting and safe.

“Sassy” magazine heralded a new way of thinking about girls and sexuality, encouraging them to educate themselves and enjoy sex. In March 1988, the first issue of “Sassy” debuted with the cover story “Losing Your Virginity: Read This Before You Decide” next to a full-page ad for condoms. The feature’s strategic placement seemed like a shocking oversight to some until editor-in-chief Jane Pratt maintained that the editorial decision had been intentional, signaling the magazine’s prioritization of its readers’ sexual education. The magazine’s approach to sex instruction was structured as a call-and-response, relying on readers to ask questions that young women never heard in class like “Should I talk during sex?” and “How long will it take?” This Socratic format preserved an air of uncertainty that was familiar to its audience and important to its educational purposes. Proceeding with an attitude of acceptance and truthfulness, “Sassy” demonstrated a convincing understanding of adolescent challenges. The result was a nuanced and personalized sex education experience that allowed readers to take stock of trusted facts and reach their own solutions.

Though “Sassy” eventually folded after six years due to a negative letter writing campaign and subsequent loss of ad sales, a close examination of the “Sassy” articles that mention sex reveals that the magazine’s take on adolescent sexuality was never one of pro- or anti-sex but one of pro-sexual awareness. For every article on bedroom tips, there was one like the November 1988 feature “Why Virgins Are Cool” or the April 1996 cautionary tale “I Got HIV After My First Sexual Experience.” It was the incorporation of ambiguity in its advice that made “Sassy” so popular and so pertinent to the concerns of readers stuck between sexual naïveté and maturation.

When Joycelyn Elders, Surgeon General under the Clinton administration, agreed in 1994 that masturbation could “perhaps” be taught as a means of preventing teens from engaging riskier forms of sex, she was fired due to the resulting controversy surrounding her comments. Despite Elders’ recommendations, few sex education curricula today even mention masturbation, let alone promote it.

Pregnancy in young adult fiction often functions as an overwrought plot device to make an incredulous moral point. “My Darling, My Hamburger” used this device to communicate the message that sex was inextricable from pregnancy and pregnancy from tragedy.

Abstinence activism has been a somewhat time-honored American tradition, serving as the means to a diverse set of ends. Dating back to temperance crusaders’ campaigns declaring “Lips that Touch Whiskey Will Never Touch Mine,” the tactic was even used by folk singer Joan Baez who used it to protest the Vietnam War draft with her infamous slogan: “Girls Say Yes to Boys Who Say No.”

“Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” the first and most well-known single from the Beach Boys’ critically acclaimed, commercially underrated album Pet Sounds, is an angst-y, yet hopeful anthem to the trials and tenderness of teen lust. Before the song’s lyrics can even be heard, its opening harpsichord riff lilts across a smattering of upper range notes, trilling sweetly to recall the gentle flickering of sunlight across an estuary. Then, just as the innocent melody has seeped in the ears of its listeners, it is abruptly punctured by the swift kick of a drum. Songwriter and Beach Boys front man Brian Wilson’s voice then cuts through the instrumentation with a straining falsetto to deliver the song’s infamous opening lyrics:

Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older

Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long

And wouldn’t it be nice to live together

In the kind of world where we belong

Wilson (himself 24 at the time of the track’s recording) described “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” as a song about “what children everywhere go through… wouldn’t it be nice if we were older, or could run away and get married.” While tempered in the context of Wilson’s lyrics, themes of adolescent imagination and rebellion remain unavoidable in his composition. The immediacy of young love, an insatiable desire to remain inseparable, and the perception of time as both a bottomless resource and an insurmountable obstacle to adulthood are all alluded to within the song’s yearning for an early onset of the future.

The tangible innocence and earnest desire so acutely expressed in “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” made it an apt if not somewhat romanticized depiction of teen romance and ambition. The songs lyrics voice the timeless and familiar tension experienced by generations of hormone-addled adolescents: between wanting to physically express newfound lust and a consciousness of this desire’s taboo. In the context of “Wouldn’t it Be Nice,” teen lust takes the form of a boy’s aching for the physical presence of his girlfriend. His anxiety, mounting frustration, and feelings of bewilderment are painfully recounted as he describes the well-known teen ritual of self-denial and placation:

You know it seems the more we talk about it

It only makes it worse to live without it

But lets talk about it

“Wouldn’t it Be Nice” is not simply a song about teenagers wanting to be together–it is a song about teenagers wanting to sleep together as well. Its covert yet undeniably sexual references become apparent in more of Wilson’s unsatisfied lyrical musings:

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up

In the morning when the day is new

And after having spent the day together

Hold each other close the whole night through

As well has his more longing ones:

You know its gonna make it that much better

When we can say goodnight and stay together

As well as his less subtle ones:

I wish that every kiss was never ending…

But perhaps the most telling line in Wilson’s song is not an explicit or an implicit mention of sex itself, but a pre-requisite of sex, in this case, marriage:

We could be married

And then we’d be happy…

This message of deference to the social doctrine of pre-marital abstinence belies the realities of American society with which Wilson, along with many teenagers who felt an affinity to his expressions, was grappling. That Wilson’s struggle exists not only between a young teen’s lusting and his sense of propriety but also between his personal desires and social expectations at large; speaks to the conservative attitudes toward sex, teen lust, and relationships that prevailed at the time of the song’s release. At play are the opposing forces of what was done and what was expected with regards to teen sexuality. The song’s protagonist ultimately acquiesces to societal demands as a means to an end: he will be happy when he and his young lover have consummated their affair. And they will just have to get married first.

Wilson’s begrudging willingness to wait (or to at least pretend to wait) until he’s older to sleep with the object of his affection acknowledges the development of a recognizable dichotomy in the process of sexual maturation: behavior that is prescribed in accordance with social norms, and behavior that is consciously or subconsciously desired, but not yet fully understood.  The mere fact that Wilson has expressed these desires suggests that he has some knowledge of sex, but his blind deference to social suggestion demonstrates that this knowledge is not yet comprehensive. It is more likely to be incomplete and contraband, gleaned from some informal source or word of mouth.

The acquisition of sexual knowledge that is implied in “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” is a nuanced phenomenon within the adolescent experience. It relies on the gradual collection of facts and scraps of evidence from formal and informal guides and derived from a young adult lifetime of social cues and experiences. “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” captures a teen caught somewhere between initial sexual curiosity and competence. Sex is a fascinating but still largely foreign subject for Wilson’s protagonist  who attempts to straddle the gap between boundaries he’s learned to respect and those he wishes to break.

The success and popularity of “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” and other Beach Boys’ music hinged in part on its incorporation familiar images from teenage experience, including a curiosity about sex. “Wouldn’t it Be Nice,” like the rest of Beach Boys’ catalog, makes infrequent overt mention of sex (embittered rejection ballad “Wendy” being one a notable exception,) but the band’s music makes frequent references to the other universal struggles suffered by teens at this socially anxious, sexually curious stage of life:  raging hormones, young love, summer lust, peer pressure, and slingshot vacillations between manic triumph and crushing disappointment.

Frequently set against a coastal backdrop, these musical discussions constituted an informal source of information for an audience that was curious about the music’s themes. Other Beach Boys songs such as “I Get Around” and “Don’t Worry Baby” peppered their lyrics with descriptions of the coast, conflating images of the ocean landscape with hints of teen sexual conquests. The band’s frequent coupling of beach imagery with descriptions of teenage sexuality was no coincidence. Considering the standby use of the ocean as a metaphor for cyclical pubescent capriciousness and emotional fluctuations, the Beach Boys’ comparisons of crashing waves, mysterious changes in sunlight, and thrilling coastal landscapes to temperamental and sexually motivated teen romances were appropriate and even somewhat predictable.

This book was aimed at high school students, and the advice that it offers is a series of straightforward questions and answers intended to help the friends of gay teens accept and understand their friends. I’m curious as to who the realistic target audience of this book might have been, considering the level of misinformation and xenophobia that is assumed of the reader. Would students so prejudiced bother with buying such a book or would they simply reject their gay peers outright? My hunch (confirmed by the back cover’s promotional blurb) is that though the book’s title claims to address a straight audience, it was actually also directed at gay teens themselves and intended to support and arm them with information and pre-crafted responses to probing questions. Several of the chapters are highly anecdotal, offering (fictional?) tale after tale of various gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered teens whose experiences are supposed to shed some light on the challenges of being gay in high school.

As for the visual elements of the book jacket (the only place where images appear,) the red question mark at the top of the page acknowledges the delicacy and uncertainty readers may feel when approaching this subject. The converging hands however lend a sense of community and acceptance. The title’s tubular, back-shadowed, and colorful typeface is oddly whimsical considering the tone and topic of the rest of the book, perhaps an attempt at normalization or optimism, and an appeal to the teenage audience. It’s also notable that the word “GAY” appears in not only larger, more dramatic upper case lettering, but also in a slightly different typeface. There is no doubt what the main issue of the book will be, it will be GAY people, there’s no attempt to conceal that. Quite the contrary, the cover design celebrates its subject matter with a pink triangle shooting out from the “A” in GAY as the most prominent visual element on the cover. Another somewhat interesting design choice is the impression that the central wording is pasted either on top of or beneath the black cutout portions which boast tiny doodled faces of (presumably gay) men and women smiling and laughing. It’s a book cover that both embraces its subject matter and then hesitates and falters in expressing this enthusiasm, a visual representation that is likely representative of the increasingly accepting yet still cautions reception of gay teens in the late eighties and early nineties.