My teacher friend got the girls, and duly stood before them rolling out the reproductive basics and issues like getting pregnant and ruining your life (though again, they don’t call it that these days) and then inviting questions from the floor. She took a few, then a few more about the strange world of sex. Then she narrowed her eyes at her audience, leaned forward and said “You…you do realise you’re supposed to enjoy it, don’t you?”
This was just before the internet and social media had truly infested everything. I can only imagine, now that we have had generations steeped in the earliest possible access to the worst possible porn, incel culture and influencers, that if you took the same girls’ class now you would find the same idea received with even more astonishment. As for what would happen in the boys’ class – I dread to think.
It was also wonderful. And it remains so now. I re-read it recently for a memoir of childhood books that I was writing and was able to appreciate (consciously) for the first time the extraordinary feat Blume pulled off.
The pair have conversation and intimacy – built up over many dates – as well as raging hormones. Blume gives us joy slightly tempered by sense and heartbreak that is shown to be survivable without ever condescending to or patronising her readers.
Reading it now, however, I wonder if it doesn’t serve another purpose these days. For better or worse (I think largely the former, but catch me on a bad, more crone-ish day and you could well persuade me otherwise) we have moved away from the idea that losing your virginity is a huge deal (ideally done in the marital bed) and that sex is by definition dirty and shameful. Forever, in that aspect, is now part of the herd.
square VICTORIA DERBYSHIRE I spoke to Lily Phillips about sex - it has made me oddly hopeful for Gen Z
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If this is now lacking in our books, it is perhaps for the worst reason of all – that is so lacking in the world outside. Does a non-porn-addled boy like Michael still exist? Can he? And if not, are we at all surprised to find schools full of teenage girls who have no idea that sex should be pleasurable for them too and – by extrapolation – probably not much idea that any relationship with a boy should be about improving your life in some way, not just his. You are supposed to enjoy it all.
Intimacy, now, is the rarity. This is the thing we should be seeking to promote amongst our young people. These are the pages we should mark up in secret copies of Forever and leave them in playgrounds for the early adopters to find.
Ralphs may even find their experience improved overall when enlivened and enriched by emotions. And if you don’t get this reference, you must be young and very confused by this whole column. I apologise. But go and read the book. It may just change your life forever.
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