The Cuban Missile Crisis and My Virginity

The Cuban missile crisis in October, 1962 almost made me lose my virginity.

When all hell seemed to have broken loose so that the cold war was now on the edge of boiling over, we formed a club called NOSDAV: No One Shall Die A Virgin. NOSDAV. I was a sophomore in high school and that was the month I turned 15. I was very much a virgin, despite the efforts, from about age 10, of my uncle Saul, married to my aunt Eleanor, who felt me up whenever I escaped from my mother’s violence to their house. Later he unsuccessfully tried to get me to drink liquor so that he could do more. That was also the year before I met the first love of my life when she joined our homeroom class.

But in 1962 when we were all on the brink of nuclear war – and oddly enough it turns out that we actually were on that brink – all we kids could think about was the tragedy of expiring with our cherry intact. There were a bunch of us, boys and girls, and we made buttons that said NOSDAV and wore them around school. As things worsened on the international level, we huddled and made secret plans.

We were in Pittsburgh but not so far away was Wheeling, West Virginia. For us it had the reputation of being a wild place. When boys in my high school turned 16, they would be driven to Wheeling to pay a woman to take their virginity. In Wheeling you could also buy near-beer at our age. So we decided that we’d pair up and drive to West Virginia, to sin-city Wheeling, to get motel rooms so that we wouldn’t die as virgins.

I don’t remember who I paired up with, but the whole plan fell apart when the person who was old enough to drive (16) and thought he’d have the use of his parents’ car was grounded and we weren’t able to get there. It took a few days before it occurred to anyone in NOSDAV that we could actually fuck right there in Pittsburgh somewhere somehow. But by that time Kennedy and Khrushchev had figured things out and to my great relief I didn’t have to do it with what’s-his-name.

Cartoon on top by John D. Clare

Comments

[Mike Evans]

And so we find ourselves in the same position in 2017, with Trump and Kim playing a similar game. At least now you can look up what's-his-name on Facebook and check whether he has a good supply of Viagra.

[Sue Katz]

You, Mike, are a riot!!

[Sue Katz]

I will have intermittent access to my email this summer, so if you haven't heard from me for a few days, resend your email.
All the best,
Sue