I Wanna Sex You Up

I first heard this song in middle school sometime. That year, somebody trusted us enough that we were able to get to have a school dance, which was pretty much unheard of back in the day.

Anyway, it was a night of typical preteen angst: Getting dressed up, tight-rolling those jeans, donning either Keds or Dexters with their piggytail-curled laces, fanning out our hair, backcombing it just enough so the hairspray would freeze it into what looked like the ears of Dumbo.  We all, I am sure, spent a fair amount of time fretting about what the night held but feeling so excited inside we just wanted to jump up and DOWN, you know?!

I know what I did in the weeks leading up to my first school dance, and that was daydream! I would imagine my crush looking at me from across the crowded dance floor and realizing in a light bulb/a-ha! moment that he just HAD to have me for his very own! Then: Arriving at the dance (which was FREE back in the day, too!) and there you'd see it, boys against one wall and the girls leaning up against the stage area. Divided, but wanting so much NOT to be! My crush was there, Melody's crush was there, Angela's crush was there.  Chasity's man was there, and he was even a year younger than we were!  By golly, just about EVERYBODY was there.

I don't know who was running the music, but when this song came on I think just nearly everybody about fell out! A song with the S-E-X word in it?! Are you KIDDING me, in the 7th grade?! Or maybe it was 8th grade. I don't remember, of course. A few brave souls danced, but they were usually the ones who had a significant other, a "steady", as was coined by our parents' generation. All of us going "stag" sure felt even more weird, and weirder, when "I Wanna Sex You Up" flooded the gym. Sound waves engulfed and permeated our bodies, our minds.  It was like a science project and we were the experimental group.  The control group?  Well, they must have been the kids who stayed at home that night and therefore were not subjected or changed by the variable, The Music.  Their mommas either did not get the Xerox'd note home or else they knew we would be listening to smut and that it would alter our lives forever, and beyond repair, too.  Or maybe they were just deadbeats.  But that's neither here nor there.  

Were we even supposed to KNOW that word? I knew the word, sure. I had heard of it, sex, but was not yet quite sure what it meant, you know? The thought was gross and beautiful all at the same time, but there it was...SEX. In a song, too.  We were already awkward and gawky in class around the opposite sex, and then there again in that gym, only we didn't have homework or pre-algebra on our minds.  We were thinking about kissing someone for the very first time, holding hands starting THAT NIGHT (!) and then at the awards assembly the next week.  That was how you knew a couple had shifted from just liking one another to hand holding, all that Public Display of Affection.  This never happened to me in school, but I envied the ones who did get to experience it!  I would think to myself, "What does SHE have that I don't have?"  At one point, my friend Angela indeed told me:  "Boobs, Liz.  You don't have boobs yet."  It was true, I most certainly did not.  But since when did climbing up the Tanner stages become a prerequisite for landing myself a boyfriend?  So I waited.  And waited. Waited some more.  Heck, sometimes I believe I am STILL waiting, out here just holding on for a lifeline, a rope, a life preserver.  Something to let me know it will all be okay in the end, even if I AM alone and lonely.  

Ahhhh. The Memories.  Can't shake 'em, but we can't relive 'em, either, those good times.  And, I remain thankful for the good times, which is all I can do.  That is really all any of us can do and stay sane.