As much as I love sex, I'm going to come clean and admit that up until I read an article about it, I had no clue what "pegging" was. I'd heard the term many times but I suppose it never interested me enough to go looking for the meaning.
Then I stumbled across a piece written by Sydel Brown, a few weeks ago.
Her subtitle indicated that I wasn't the only nerd who didn't know what it was, so I read her story and learned.
After reading her reference from Urban Dictionary, about the term having derived from pirates sticking their peg legs into each others asses, it was ruined for me.
That pirate reference immediately made me remember the tragic Tyler-rape scene from 13 Reasons Why. Even if that's not the real origin, it was a wrap in my visual brain.
My apologies if I have now ruined your day.
I haven't been living in a cave though, I knew about the whole strap-on, fucking a dude up the ass thing. I had a female roommate a few years ago who regularly engaged in it with her boyfriend.
The conversation between us came up rather innocently one day when I found a box containing strap-on laying on her bed. I couldn't resist asking her WTF that was all about. She happily explained that aspect of her relationship to me, but never mentioned the term "pegging."
The other day at work I was having a conversation in the mail room with one of my colleagues. I can't even remember how we got onto the topic of pegging at work, but we did.
As soon as the word was spoken between us, the mail room kid over in the corner let out a smirk and a giggle. We both gave him a puzzled, side-eye glance.
I asked him, "Justin, do you know what pegging is?"
He didn't even answer audibly. He just slightly nodded his head with the same geeky smirk still on his face.
I looked back at my coworker like a deer in headlights.
How is it that Justin knew about pegging but I, the sexually adventurous, sometimes slutty vixen, didn't?
Let me just take a moment to describe Justin because there's a reason he works in the mail room. He has no voice because he's too shy to use one. He's 19 years old, eerily slender, very awkward, and has no personality to speak of. He has a slouchy posture and keeps his head down, probably as a means to avoid human contact.
I actually feel sad for him in that room all alone each day, but quite frankly there would be nowhere else a kid of his level of shyness could work.
But now what? This shy, awkward, antisocial kid knows what pegging is and I'm very disconcerted.
These two scenarios —one with my friend who is my age, and one with Justin who is a full generation younger — got me thinking.
Obviously these types of sex acts aren't new, no sex act is. People have been pegging and engaging in all sorts of flagrant deeds, since long before pirates had peg legs.
But now we have special names for them. Names that my generation aren't familiar with but younger generations are. There's nothing wrong with assigning creative titles to various sex acts, but the fact that younger generations even know about them gives me pause.
Back when I was a tender, young butterfly there was nowhere for me to learn about sex, other than walking in on my mother doing it. But kids like Justin can just flip open their phones, watch a woman give it to her man up the ass, and learn what it's called.
Which raises even more questions. Did he seek it out or discover it by accident?
The probability is very high that a kid like Justin doesn't have a girlfriend who randomly said, "Hey, let's try strapping one on and giving it to you in your butthole!"
He could have easily landed on a pegging porn video by accident, not knowing what it's called. But because he knew the term, something about it made him curious enough to research what it's called. If he wasn't curious he would have exited the video quickly, never to give it second thought.
Maybe Justin didn't find a video at all. He could have a circle of friends his age who filled him in on it.
I understand that young people are curious about sex. It's only natural. But the amount of access kids have these days is so abundant, and maybe not so healthy.
Back in my day kids like Justin hid in their bedrooms flipping through their dad's girly mags, with a sock over their little peckers. Nowadays, they have access to full HD fetish porn in whatever genre their peckers desire.
It's free, it's accessible, and it's a skewed version of what young people should expect in their new, relatively untouched sexual realms.
The gap between a first time sexual experience in my generation, and in Justin's generation is enormous, based solely on the amount of exposure kids have to sexuality nowadays.
A while ago, I actually wrote about my first sexual experience. It was an amusing clusterfuck because it was clear that neither of us knew what we were doing.
I was 16 and the man was much older at 23. Yet it was obvious he still didn't have a clue what he was doing. Could it be because exposure was so limited in my prehistoric, pre-technology era?
I shudder to think that in modern times, "Baby, let's try a strap-on" could be someone's very first introduction to sex. All they need to do is see it and be curious. I never saw it back in the day so the thought would never cross my mind.
I can't and don't judge anyone based on their sexual preferences. I'm pretty liberal in that sense because we all love sex. But the generational differences are unmistakable and very apparent.
Is it a good thing that our younger generation is more sexually educated than we were back in the day? Should we consider it as enlightening or just plain old shocking?
For as much as I write about my own personal un-relationship style of living, I'd like to be able to hold on to some hope that younger generations haven't replaced the old fashioned feel of relationships with skewed and blatant sexuality.
At least not until they're mature enough to understand the nuances and consequences of it.