but it reads like a brag

omg, at last a fairly decent, honest article about sex in Broadsheet of all places. TCF's experiences of sex as described actually bear some resemblance to reality. Well done!

I gave up when this went into Cosmo-Girl-Cutesy-BoyLabel territory. So I'll just write my own point: Gals, you want to be an interchangeable part to men who care so little they don't even bother to create a Cutesy-GirlLabel for you, knock yourselves out.

Good for you, Tracy.

Sounds like you got out there and learned a lot. Similar, in some ways, to my own experiences your age (in the 1970's). Women do have it better, even now, because:

1) the slut/stud dichtomoy is a false one (very few grown-up men criticize women as "sluts"; it's someone women say about each other)

2) it's still a buyer's market for women; women get to pick the men, and the men have to impress them (one can see this from Tracy's vignettes of her encounters)

But my respect for Tracy, always considerable, increased a great deal after reading this self-disclosure.

Most of the world religions attempt to teach restraint, not chastity. For the Jews, sexual restraint is incumbent on both genders, especially men. For other religions, modesty and restraint come in all shapes and sizes. What is universal, however, is the noble idea that we're not supposed to act like mindless animals.

Ms. Tracy argues that getting her legs snapped apart on a frequent basis helped her become a better person, a better adult. How so? She's constantly getting screwed by men with whom she has only short-term relationships. They're so short-term and so frequent that she categorizes them, like a child groups her toys and with the same nonchalant attitude. Her emotional development is just staggering. And let's be very frank here... She feels like a user? Please. A hot chick with an ego the size of a mountain is every guy's short-term wet dream. The "usage" is purely uni-directional, my dear lady. You're living a narcissistic and myopic fantasy.

Restraint doesn't mean people shouldn't have good sex. It doesn't mean that men and women shouldn't have it often. It does mean that our bodies are noble. There's a sanctity to sex that goes well beyond procreation. And the restraint that we show, to my reckoning, is the difference between the mindless animals that hump each other because they're programmed to do it and us. It's a recognition, in a very primal and visceral way, that we are capable of thinking and choosing and making moral choices, unlike our fellow creatures. You can call it the yoke of religion or the calling to a higher purpose. It's all the same thing. It's about not eating enormous amounts of food until you're fat, not humping until you can't stand straight, and not gorging your appetite for violence.

I'm sorry that Ms. Tracy is so cavalier with her body, with her feelings, and with her future. I'm also sorry that feminism has turned into nothing more than soft-core porn. The suffragettes and those who followed in their wake wanted gender equality. If gender equality means that women are now obliged to act and encourage others to act like male degenerates, then Ms. Tracy is surely an equal among thieves.

1977: in her dorm room, trying not to look at her breasts which were almost falling out of her partly unbuttoned blouse, very nervous, I told Caroline:

"I don't want my motives to be misconscrewed."

You just can't recover after that one.

My problem is not with the dialectic of "abstinence vs. promiscuity." For me it has more to do with loyalty and not treating each other as commodities (even commodities that "respect" each other). It seems that men and women have made each other as interchangeable as the next newest phone or gadget. Perhaps it has more to do with the inattentiveness that the internet/wired economy has wrought. No more deep thought, more multitasking, more partners, more me, more me, more me.

It seems we've labeled our partners like casting agents fill roles on "The Real World"--Lonely Lawyer, Sociopathic Spaniard, Testosterone-Poisoned Pilot and Bellicose Bartender.

I suppose the end game will just be a nation full of herpetic folks who have fucked themselves into a corner and as the world burns will collectively pinch their chins and wonder "What positions are left?"

There's a big difference between the 70s and now: Aids.

I was in college in the late 1970s and, yes, we were pretty casual with respect to sex, but the worst thing we could contract was herpes, and most of the STDs could be handled with a shot of penicillan.

Therein lies the difference that is likely the greater contribution to reduced sexual activity and unplanned pregnancy rates over the past 15 to 20 years than anything the bible thumping proponents of abstinance ed can concoct.

I entered into a monogamous relationship just as AIDs was coming into the public dialog, so I honestly cannot fathom having to worry about it.

I now have children in college and high school. The story has been one of making sure they take precautions.

So hooking up is not really a new phenomenon. The "alarm" if there is any from this near 50 something reader was the rise of "bareback sex" as some kind of commitment. If that is taking place absent tests, then there's some fear there.

The problem of trusting someone who is cheating on you and therefore putting you at risk through their multiple partners is likely there regardless the age group. Is it out of touch and older generational to opine that perhaps there's a more cavalier view to safety the younger one is as the younger one is the more invincible one feels?

In the old days, fogies like me preached to kids not to masturbate because they could go blind. Today, perhaps the adage is that having sex could kill you.

The younger you are ON AVERAGE, the more likely you are to ascribe to the idea that "it can't happen to you." AIDS is not to be trifled with.

Condomless sex raises an alarm bell for me.

Hookup all you want, but the love of God take precautions.

When it comes to hooking up, I can honestly say I am happy my multiple partner days were in the pre-aids environment. I may miss the variation, but I do not long for the added risk that comes with it today.

Or, as they said at the beginning of the 1980s TV Police show Hill Street Blues with a bit of an admonishing finger wag:

"Let's be careful out there."