A Blume Of A Sexual Rose Is Forever

It had been a long time since I ready Judy Blume’s Forever, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.

Blume’s forbidden, scandalous, and very much banned book came out right around the time I was an egg in a fallopian tube. Unfortunately for me and the rest of the women in the United States, it was banned ceremoniously in a campaign spurred by that allegedly celibate butterball formerly known as Rush Limbaugh in the early 1980s. By the time I got to high school, Forever was the type of book you had to get your hands on, since the hushed whispers about it being a non-children’s book centered around teen sex had taken a life of its own in the rumor mill. Through the proper barter channels I was able to see what the hype was about.

Trust and believe the hype was real. Just imagine a decades old book having more steamy word of mouth than anything Muvah Jackie Collins had at the time. That’s how big of a deal it was to read this book. In those days I read it one and kept it moving. It wasn’t as provocative as the hushed whispers about it, but don’t get it twisted, Forever sparked a lot of private sexual conversations with the homies. Now, after reading it thirty years later and damn near fifty years after its initial release, it’s comical as all hell and worth the read just for the nostalgia.

For all of you Judy Blume fans out there, this is definitely not Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret, Deenie, or even Tiger Eyes. This is a real 1970s age appropriate, dated book about young women out in the analog world trying to bust their cherry as they transition into womanhood on their own terms and without the benefit of PornHub for study material.

In other words, everything we were hoping Tiger Eyes would morph into but didn’t.

Forever takes us into the whimsical life of graduating high school senior Katherine (called Kath by everyone) who just broke up with her steady fella because he was ready to smash and grab and she didn’t want to make it with him. After the breakup both her and her best friend Erica become obsessed about losing their V-cards before they start college in the fall, especially after focusing hard on Erica’s cousin Sybil and her sex life. Apparently the duo thinks by having the summer to do it and get it out the way will translate into the best sex ever for them the minute they hit the dorms. That’s the lie they are telling and they are sticking to it.

The real reality is that Kath scared to give up the drawers, but more on that later.

Soon after their grandiose sexual plans take root, Kath makes Michael’s acquaintance at a holiday party and the two grow smitten with each other during their last semester in high school, falling head over heels from puppy love to lust so fast Kath’s parents immediately want to pump brakes on the thing they got going on. From January to June everyone in Kath’s family, from her little sister to her grandmother puts their two cents in about her sprouting love thing, with her mother and grandmother adding birth control literature to the mix so she knows she has options before and after any potential situations of her being knocked up. Kath definitely takes it to heart as Sybil gets preggers solely for the experience of childbirth coupled with her plans on giving the baby up for adoption, which is probably one of the silliest and most dated points in the book.

No teenage chick in the 21^st century getting popped off for the experience, you feel me?

One important thing to mention here is that every time Kath makes a leap to try something sexual, something happens to someone she knows (like Sybil getting knocked up) or her grandmother wants to do a sexual scared straight (and to be fair it’s more on the humor side). Don’t get it twisted though, Kath ain’t no square or a tease. She down for a little face sucking with heavy petting when she feels like it. Michael got more game than Parker Brothers too, easing her onto Ralph (yeah, bro named his penis that) in baby steps. His game is so tight that he manages to get Kath wide open in less than two months doing everything but the mythical it, and the panties are so wet even her grandmother thinks she’s giving it out of both drawer legs. Trust and believe it was a journey for real, and one you can argue Michael deserved for how much work he had to put in to get the poonanny.

While Kath is fucking her way around the sexual bases on and off Ralph, Erica is seeing Michael’s homie Artie, a talented actor who is emotionally unstable, and from context clues, trapped in the closet (which leads her to being fuckastrated because he won’t knock off a piece). Neither she nor Michael really notice his issues as Michael’s sexual aggressiveness has blinded both of them to their friend and family relationships, leaving only enough time to get laid every time the chance of being alone presents itself. Let the record show that while their initial sexual romps are fraught with premature ejaculations, unscheduled periods, and just plain bad sex, eventually Kath achieves an orgasm or two to get her through the majority of unsatisfying sex she subjects herself to.

Ain’t young lust the first time out the starting gate funny as hell in retrospect?

Now it seems the more Kath gives up the gushy shit the more shit keeps happening. Artie tries to kill himself after his father forbids him to pursue his dream of acting and go to a prestigious school that has accepted him. Erica gets a job on the paper for the summer leaving her no time to socialize outside of survivor guilt of breaking up with Artie before he called it quits. Kath’s forced away by her parents to work a job she didn’t want to get her away from Michael, who is forced to leave as well in the opposite direction to work in his Uncle’s lumber yard for fall semester school expenses. If that ain’t enough on top of not being laid on a regular her beloved grandfather she’s tight with passes away and her parents refuse to let her come home for his death, which throws her into the comforting arms of fellow camp counselor named Theo while simultaneously crashing her relationship with Michael and their collegiate plans to remain together forever (hence the name of the book).

Just hot, tawdry, shade type mess going on right there.

Now while you sip on that tea, let me be clear – this book is not as explicit as my description presents so if you were looking for nasty freaky sex like what Zane writes, lower your standards a bit to a PG-13 rated Escape To Witch Mountain level of sexual exploration. Now I like the book for what it represents, and at the time of its release there was absolutely nothing aimed at the teen market to answer those curious sexual questions every teen on the planet has had in every generation. For the coming of age seventies kids it was written for that had parents too ashamed to tell them about the birds and the bees its perfect. For grown ass women that know their way around the boudoir, it’s just a nice stroll down memory lane before women could outright admit they had orgasms in public.