But There Was Plenty Of Tequila And…

I stood looking sheepish while next to me my twelve-year-old son, who I’d taken to his first rock concert, eyed me suspiciously.  The rest of the crowd, being blissfully free of such scrutiny, roared in the affirmative.

Sex on the beach, it seems, is not the risqué carry-on of an extroverted few but more likely some sort of national pass time or rite of passage.

Much of the concert was lost to me after this as I looked around at the huge crowd and thought “no wonder the lifesavers ask everyone to swim in the small area between the flags.  It’s not that they can’t monitor a larger stretch of sand.  It’s because the rest of the beach is being used by happy couples getting wet and having a quick dip.”

Next time you’re strolling down the beach don’t assume that it’s the breeze making the grass move in the dunes.

In complete disregard for the sexual harassment legislation they’ve recently been trying to make us conform to at work I took it upon myself to ask all the girls in the office about their sex life outside of the bedroom.

Overwhelmingly (and I admit that the lunchtime ramblings of seven women hardly constitutes a national consensus) the practise of outdoor sex is as mainstream as soft rock and as common as a cold (i.e. most people get it at least once every couple of years).

In fact getting down and dirty in the great outdoors was so the norm in the office that one girl was extremely upset when it seemed she was the only one there who hadn’t experience it.  Until, thankfully, she remembered a hot afternoon two years previous when she and her then boyfriend (now husband) assumed the docking position and then splashed down in a wading pool in her parents’ backyard.

For a few minutes though, the social stigma of being “different” was very obviously weighing heavily on Stacey’s shoulders and I shouldn’t be surprised if tonight she accosts John as he pulls up in the driveway and drags him up the garden path for a star-studded hows-your-father before he can say “yes please”.

Shortly we were all again on even footing (and thirty-something Stacey could once again look fifty-something Barbara in the eyes) and the conversation moved inevitably towards the illicit details and belly laughs that always seem to accompany them when the topic is sex.

One by one the stories came out and while the beach was by far the most common venue it didn’t have a monopoly.  A deserted train station in the middle of the night. Surrounded by branches and leaves in a canopy lookout. A trampoline in the back yard.  The swings in the local park.  Atop a cliff overlooking the ocean.  Down obscure forestry tracks. In the back of a ute while camping or at the drive-in.

The time of day also seemed of little consequence.  Some expressed a preference for star filled, moonlit nights, while others said the excitement was more substantial in the day time because the fear of getting caught was more pronounced.

And there we have the crux of it.  The fear of getting caught. The reason everyone gave for doing it in the first place.  It was said in many ways, of course. The challenge, the excitement, the rush, the thrill.  But it all meant the same.  The risk involved provided the ultimate aphrodisiac for all those involved.

Given the risk then, and the heightened sexual urgency resulting from this, it is hardly surprising that most of these forays into the wilds are what is universally referred to as a quickie.  There is rarely the time, nor the need, for foreplay.  As Jessie said, “I just encourage him to hurry up and come, but most the time I’m so worked up by the whole thing that I get there too.”

Interestingly, while the treks into the dunes or up to remote lookouts or even, I wish I was making this up, to the local McDonalds kiddy playground, were almost always spur of the moment transgressions, the spontaneity rarely extended to one night stands.

In all but one glaringly contradictive case, the girls had only ever gone bush with husbands, fiancés or long standing boyfriends.  Elizabitch from accounts, the exception to this otherwise watertight edict, said she loves nothing better than racing out of the nightclub and down to the beach with the latest winner of Saturday night’s lucky dip. But then Elizabitch’s idea of commitment is ordering dessert with the main and thus is, perhaps, a little flawed.

Whether this significant preference for romping around in the grass with established partners is an attempt to spice up a floundering sex life or, as I suspect, the dropping of sexual inhibitions and the thrill of fulfilling various erotic fantasies, is probably more suited to a far more vigorous and extensive survey than the one I instigated at lunch in the work cafeteria.  But hey, it’s a start.

One thing is for sure though, next time you’re taking a kid to the beach, make sure you keep their attention firmly focused on the boats, surfers, waves – anything on the water – or you may have some seriously difficult questions to answer.

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It really does make a difference  Thanks.

“Raising a family on little more than laughs”