The Maidens' Dilemma

BY BILLY SNEAD

In recent years I have read with some interest about all the furor over sex education in our public schools and could not understand just what the arguments against it were all about.

After all, I finished high school in 1954 and we had sex education classes way back then. Sex was a word then that was not used so everyday as it is now, thus the title of our classes was Biology 5 for boys and Biology 6 for girls, but nevertheless the curriculum focused on sex education. The classes were only offered to seniors, they were electives (not mandatory), and the boys' class was segregated from the girls.

The textbooks were distributed at the beginning of each class and collected at the end of each class. I guess so that this advanced sensitive material didn't fall into the hands of the immature underclassmen. When the books were distributed, the guys would quickly shuffle the pages looking for the "dirty pictures" which were no more than cross section drawings of the male and female anatomy, most prior knowledge having been acquired from the National Geographic Magazine. The teacher allowed this for about a minute before he ordered "books closed" and then he went on with his lecture.

Most of the semester was devoted to anatomy, hygiene, conception, pregnancy, and birth. Toward the end of the semester we got into the real thing...intercourse. These lectures brought lots of knowing snickers from guys, most of whom, in fact knew nothing and certainly knew nothing from their own experience.

We were taught that there were three steps to making love...preliminary love play, the act, and the contented sleep thereafter. Now what more could you possibly need to know about sex? And why would modern day parents be offended by this being taught in the schools.

It was only after I heard and read in more depth that I knew the answer. Our sex education focused only on marital sex between heterosexual men and women. It was the only kind discussed and indeed the only kind acknowledged. Nowadays education focuses on sex of any and all kinds without regard to genders or marital status or commitment between the participants. And that was the thrust of the parents' furor. That pre-marital and so called deviant sex was not only acknowledged, it was, by teaching about it, sanctioned.

Now all this discussion on sex education is to put a certain story in its proper context because if it happened in today's society it would hardly be worth telling. The story involves four fine upstanding young people and unfolds in late September of 1954 in Charlottesville. The characters are a bride, a groom, and two maidens fair. They all were graduates of the same high school.

The groom had finished a year earlier and was at UVA on a football scholarship. The three girls had all been high school cheerleaders and finished school that past June. The marriage vows were said in August with the two maidens in attendance as bridesmaids. The bride was living with her groom in a small apartment just off the UVA campus. They invited the maidens, who eagerly agreed to come, up for a football weekend.

What follows was told to me in strict confidence by the blue-eyed maiden (the other one having brown eyes) some forty-seven years ago. Certainly the statute of limitations on that confidence has expired after all these years. The story has three parts… the situation, the predicament, and the dilemma.|

The situation. The maidens with a late start decided to finesse the game on that chilly, rainy Saturday and instead went straight to the apartment arriving at around half time.

They found the key where they were told it would be, entered, and returned the key to its hiding place outside. They explored the apartment with eager curiosity at how newly married couples lived, probably with their own future marriages in mind. Two tickets and a note left in the kitchen by the bride gave them instructions as to how to get to the stadium and apologized for having left without them.

The girls relaxed in the living room waiting out the game, hearing the stadium crowd roars clearly from time to time. Finally the noise stopped and they looked out the front window seeing the crowds meandering through the street on their way home. "The game's over, they'll be here soon". "No they won't, she's going to wait for him to change and shower. It'll be at least another half hour".

They waited, peeking out the front window from time to time until, finally, blue eyes announced that they were coming down the street. It was brown eyes, with a fiendish grin, who spoke next. "They don't know we're here. Let's hide under their bed and scare them". "No we can't". Yeah, let's do it, come on it'll be fun". And so they did, quickly moving to the bedroom and slipping underneath, the dust ruffle concealing them. They had about a two-inch view of the room from their position on the floor. Webster defines a "situation" as a location or position with reference to environment. They had placed themselves, deliberately, in a situation.

The predicament. The girls were on their backs side by side with their heads turned toward each other, wide eyed, with broad wicked grins on their pretty faces and their hearts pounding with anticipation.

They heard the front door open and the groom's voice, "I told you they weren't here, they're not coming until the game traffic has cleared out. We've got plenty of time. Bring the key in so they'll have to knock when they get here".

He was moving quickly, entered the bedroom, ran into the bathroom, which was just to the left of the bed, and without closing the door, started urinating loudly and right in the middle of the bowl.

Meanwhile, the bride walked into the bedroom to the right of the bed and quickly started undressing.

Now the maidens thinking that they had the element of surprise, were instead themselves surprised at this sudden action and their eyes got wider and their wicked smiles turned into mortified frowns. They knew what was happening from their two-inch floor view. Referring again to Webster, who defines a predicament as an unpleasant, trying, or dangerous situation. The maidens were now facing a predicament.

The dilemma. The groom was shedding his clothes and now standing next to the bed, his bare feet inches from blue eyes while on the other side, feminine articles were dropping rapidly at the feet of the bride, her bare feet inches from brown eyes.

The maidens' faces now staring out, could only gasp in horror. They turned their heads to face each other as the married couple pounced on the mattress above, the box springs and slats bending downward with their weight. Step one, preliminary love play, was in full swing. The first words the maidens learned in lip reading were, "Oh my God". They were to learn many more, their eyes now wide in horror.

Let's get out now", brown eyes mouthed. "No wait a minute". Would there be a more opportune time?

"Yes, yes, let's do it now", she mouthed in more exaggerated silence. "Wait a minute." "Why"? Their heads now turned upwards as the entire bed above was bending, bouncing, and creaking, dust falling lightly on the witnesses below. Preliminary love play had run its course and step two, the act, was in full progress.

Webster writes that a dilemma is a situation requiring a choice between equally undesirable alternatives, an embarrassing situation. And that was exactly the fix the maidens were in. They knew that now was probably not a good time to reveal themselves. They could do nothing but wait, but until when, they were not at all sure. The act was over rather quickly as the bed at last ceased its movement and came to a calm stop.

Brown eyes started to laugh at their plight, silently of course. Her stomach was heaving and her hand was clasped tightly over her mouth, her eyes were squenched closed. What thoughts were going through this maiden's head and why were things so much funnier when laughter was restricted. Blue eyes saw no humor at all.

Step three, the contented sleep thereafter, was taking place as had been taught. The girls realized that something had to happen. Brown eyes made it happen. Her uncontrollable laughter blew out of the sides of her hand pressed over her mouth, and they both rolled out from under the bed on each side laughing, stood up, and yelled "Surprise"!

And indeed surprised the contented sleepers were, leaping up in the middle of the bed, stripped naked, and clutching each other in tight embrace.

The maidens, at least had the good taste to quickly exit the bedroom leaving the astonished couple time to recover. It took a while as you might imagine. Conversation was contrived at dinner that night and eyes avoided eyes. The maidens slept on a pull-out couch in the living room and heard no sounds at all from the bedroom.

Especially the sounds of contented sleep thereafter.