he wears a slick jacket and gold watch

Today I finished reading a book for the second time in 2 days. It'd been at least a month since I'd completed a book, so it's a semi-accomplishment for me. The first book was Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott. It took me a lot longer to read than I expected. Not because it was hard or anything, I just would get into it and then get kinda bored. And then other days I'd just be too busy, so it took me about 3 weeks to finish. Then I just started the book All The Way by Andy Behrens. With three wide-open hours, I finished it, a straight-through read. What I've been thinking about all day is the last two chapters of the book. The plot (SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT KEEP READING IF YOU PLAN TO READ THIS BOOK) revolves around high-school senior-to-be Ian who is planning to visit this girl Danielle who he met online at her college the week before high school starts up again. He has her convinced he is this completely different guy than he really is and when she offers him sex, he finally takes the chance to visit her at SCSU (South Carolina Southern University). He has only three days to get there and then back to his home in Naperville, Illinois. Anyways, the part that has me thinking is when he finally is about to have sex with Danielle, her shirt off and his shirt off and them making out on her bed, the only two people he can think about are his two friends Lance and Felicia who had trekked along with him.

So he's about to have sex with this beautiful college sophomore who is about to leave for a semester abroad in Spain. On the entire trip down, the trio find themselves in comedic predicaments quite often, including being pulled over by a police officer in rural South Carolina, Felicia suffering from food poisoning, and Lance's urge to meet new girls carrying them off the trail. Throughout the trip Ian shows a caring side towards Felicia. She continues to tell Ian, as she is a virgin herself, that he is making the wrong choice, Not about him losing his virginity, but that he's going to do it with the wrong girl.

Now the final two chapters come up. Ian is about to have his first sexual experience and then he gets up, unravels himself from Danielle's body, grabs her shirt in his rush to leave, and tells her he has to go do something. She calls out her dorm window to him, but he just runs to Lance who is being his persuasive self with two drunk sorority girls, and asks him where Felicia is. Felicia is back at Ian's car which died on them as soon as they reached Charleston, South Carolina. He finds her laying on the trunk of the car and explains to her he didn't have sex with Danielle, and he thinks he's in love. With her. The chapter ends with them kissing.

The final chapter involves Ian and his friends trip back to Illinois on Amtrak. Felicia is asleep, head in Ian's lap, and he is calling his boss at Dunkin' Donuts to say that he will be quitting, and that the boss, Ron, should contact the regional manager because they're gonna need a new doughnut suit, as the one Ian had in his car has been a victim to the road trip's many misadventures.

So the second-to-last chapter got me thinking. It feels like nowadays, in this generation of teens that virginity is just a throw-away sort-of thing. It's like something that holds you back, if you don't get rid of it, it'll haunt you. You feel less "cool" when all of your friends have had sex, but you haven't. Well, Felicia had good points throughout the story. Ian did not love Danielle, had never even met her in fact. Now, in today's society, sex is certainly not viewed as something "done between a loving couple", some people see it that way, but sadly, the majority don't. It's something fun, not a further connection between two people who love each other, but something to do to release that sexual tension within. Now I'm not one of those religious "don't have sex until you're married or else you're a sinner" kind of people, but I do believe the first time should be with someone you love. Whether it be with your first girlfriend, second girlfriend, even fifth girlfriend, though that means you clearly aren't looking for a relationship, or are not mature enough to handle one long-term. If you wait 'til marriage, well then that's guaranteeing you lose your virginity to someone you love. But again, I certainly am not saying that's necessary, I actually believe that "law" is irrelevant in today's society because it was written some thousands of years ago. I do however, believe sex should be between a loving couple, which would mean waiting until you've been in a relationship at least four months or so. Just an opinion.