Close your eyes and think back to your early years of sexual activity, where every finished basement was also a hand job den; every Law & Order marathon an invitation to wet kiss. Back then, sex and sex-related situations weren’t things you could just plan for—when they presented themselves you embraced the opportunity, no matter the circumstances.
On Wednesday, a related Twitter conversation came to our attention:
The DVD menu is perhaps the purest example of the teenage make-out soundtrack—many of us will be able to viscerally recall the feeling of watching TV frozen in your couch cushion, too nervous to do anything to recognize that you know someone is sitting next to you until the last 15 minutes of whatever it is you’re watching. Then you finally kiss, but the movie’s already ended and you’re forced to do whatever tonguing or handing you want to do to the depressing credits theme song, or, as was the case for me and many others, the soundtrack of the show or movie, on infinite loop, while a DVD menu asks whether or not you want to watch director’s commentary. Or you’re making out to Detective Stabler investigating a topical sex-based crime, and now your entire value system has become totally muddled.
I did my first hand stuff to the DVD menu of House (conveniently embedded above), and now can’t hear the first “bum bum BUM bum BUM bum BUM BUM” of Massive Attack’s “Tear Drop” without feeling urgently nauseous.
The Jezebel staff has had similar experiences, with some indicating much cooler, more culturally-plugged in teenage lives than others. One of us did some stuff to MST3K, another to Kill Bill. We had some movie theater make outs, to Glory, to Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (“I don’t want to remain anonymous, I am proud.” -Kelly Stout), to Not Another Teen Movie, for the entire one hour and 46 minutes of The Whole Ten Yards (“There were gunshots,” -Ellie Shechet).
What was the soundtrack to your teenage sexual education? Please don’t insult me by saying “porn” or “an actual sexy scene.”