That was my experience, too. In high school and college, everyone just hung out. You went to your friend's place, and a guy would be there. You would chat each up, maybe hookup then, maybe spend a couple years hanging out together before hooking up. It might have also been because we didn't have any money and going on…

I remember the focus on protection, too. Before AIDS came into the forefront, in the early 80s, I recall PLENTY of humping around, both in popular culture and, well, elsewhere. I know my own mother was eight months pregnant when she married my father in 1972, and no one, including their parents, didn’t make a big deal…

Unfortunately my dad died a few years after HAART became the treatment of choice (around 1996 I think), other treatment regimens, which could be very harsh, had taken their toll and he never responded very well to HAART.

I was addressing the hypothetical situation where adults live in a separate town from his parents, but she has to fly to their place to meet them before they have sex. Presumably, they, or at least he, would stay at his parents’ house. Would she stay with him? Would she sleep in the same bed as him, especially since…

I’m the same age as you and agree with your assessment. I think the author is trying to highlight the differences between the two generation as a reason for the acceptance of hookups when it really has more to do with personality. I’ve been married for quite a while, but in my single days I kept sex within the…

Lol, no. 20 years ago was exactly when the effective drug cocktail went into general clinical use and even before that, most straight people were seriously not at all worried about contracting HIV. People not predisposed to casual sex might have used fear of AIDS as an excuse not to engage, but people who were…

True. I’m specifically thinking of 14-18 year olds when I say this. I was a sex before marriage kind of girl until hormones took over and I realized it was stupid to wait for any reason but my own wants. I think a lot of women grow out of this type of thinking.

Hence the term “booty call” and not “booty text.”

I cashed in the V-card kinda late (26) and I’ve only slept with one dude. I know casual sex isn’t for me. That said, you could put it the way my gyno did to me—my mom never talked to me about sex and I wished she had.

Omigod the classifieds. My friends and I used to call this “dating” line for kicks, you would have to leave voice messages for the people whose ads interested you, and once you’d communicated through this voice message service, then you could decide to give someone your real phone number... It almost seems quaint now…

This just in: different people are different. ;)

God yeah, mid to late 20s was a wake up call. Guys were suddenly in settle down mode big time. I was not expecting that. I really screwed up once trying to get out of a very casual relationship by saying I was exclusively looking for marriage in the near future so it was best we stop seeing each other. Nightmare…

Omigod. TERRIFIED. Especially ‘cause my gay dad did actually have HIV. I wasn’t scared of catching it from him because I was not an idiot, but I sure did have an extraordinarily overactive imagination that gave me the living heebie-jeebies every time I got near a boy!

That’s what I came here to write as well. I find kids today way more upright than 20 years ago and people who were in their 20s in the 70s likely thought we were total prudes as we were semi terrified of herpes and aids. And I’ve had spectacular casual sex. The only trick is avoiding male judgement for it, not your…

Yeah, definately. I also get the feeling that men get treated like they have no emotions at all, and women are constantly on the verge of tears. Let’s just agree that some people are able to separate sex and feelings and some aren’t. I had feelings for a guy that he didn’t share, and another guy had feelings for me…

Oh I like that one!

It is so seldom acknowledged that people are different, though. Even the author seems to have a hard time accepting that Lauren's experiences are genuine because they don't match what she wants to hear.

I’m in agreement with you. The ‘90s were all about safe sex, condoms in the common room of dorms, schools taught you about what sex was, how to protect yourself and your partner from pregnancy and STDs. In general it felt as though sexual exploration was encouraged back then.

I really like this series. Lauren seems so smart and level headed. She also seems very honest about sex, which is refreshing. I am 43, and she is much more relatable than the mom. Devin just seems to be in some kind of weird denial.

I heard the cow thing exactly once when I was young, and I replied, “yeah, but would you ever buy a car without test driving it?” I mean, metaphors are metaphors.