THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 15, 1995 TAG: 9507150346
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Imagine the slippery sweet flesh of a mango in your mouth.
Or from a lawn sprinkler, cool droplets to kiss your neck and ankles.
Or envision the mimosa trees along I-64 West toward the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel that stroke the sky pink as a nightgown.
Summertime's sensual delights are almost as good as, well, sex.
And almost as good is good enough - and a lot safer.
Today's going-to-extremes youth might shun such simple summer pleasures because they are not the big kaboom.
For all we know, they may be attempting sex in cyberspace. At this very moment, Internet surfing through sites that would make Hugh Grant seem a coy man: bestiality and bondage, to name a few.
Or your teenage daughter may be considering sex way too soon with that not-so-respectable-looking young man who, while whisking her off on a date, disclosed that his navel and other body parts are pierced.
We are right to fear the horrors that have become nearly synonymous with sex: sexually transmitted diseases, especially AIDS, and teenage pregnancy. Lewdness, lack of control and character notwithstanding.
Sex education in schools, pregnancy prevention programs, even condom distribution, in certain cases, are all right with me.
But perhaps a little education on indulging the senses ought to be part of the lesson plan. It can't hurt.
We can teach our children to enjoy an ice cube gliding down the spine in August.
To laugh at the tickle of riding over a bridge grate.
To savor the warm fleeting sweetness of cotton candy on the tongue.
And to be satisfied.
These are the simple delights of being alive. Lessons on how to stay tuned to them can prove preventive.
We are more apt to indulge infants and toddlers in such sensual fun as we assist them in their discovery of the world. But as children grow older, they are attuned to less and less sensory data. Instead, the hard data of everyday life begins to consume: plastic, green lighted letters, the steel of an automobile, canvas bookbags.
In addition, movies, grotesque sexual services and media madness urge them to rush toward that mega orgasm, to chase it down hard. Forget about dandelion wisps tickling your cheek.
And so they leap into sex, often lacking the sensual instruction they need to truly enjoy it and be good at it. Rather they settle for a dull bumping and thumping in a playground or the back seat of a car. The results are hardly a higher high. But rather, disappointed ecstasy and, too often, pregnancy and disease.
The scent of honeysuckle, the brush of crape myrtle flower, the cool kiss of a contact lens on the eye or the rumble of a thunderstorm won't hold hormones at bay forever.
But the delights of taste, touch, sight, sound, smell can be enough to turn our children on to all the pleasures they need for now.
And later. by CNB