Losing It ed. by Keith Gray (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Losing It ed. by Keith Gray
In this British import, ten stories of the anticipation, anxiety, and confusion over losing one’s virginity cover a surprisingly broad spectrum of possibilities, with the notable exception of “losing it” within the context of a long-term, committed, loving relationship. Two of the stories, Anne Fine’s and Jenny Valentine’s, feature an retrospective view, as older women, one a teacher and one on the edges of senile dementia, offer reflections on their own experiences that mingle humor, initial disappointment, eventual success, and hard-won wisdom. Patrick Ness serves up metafictional fun with his redacted version of sexual activity between boys who may, or may not, equate those acts with their gender identity, muddying the idea of what counts as a first time. Sophie McKenzie examines the stereotyped disconnect between male and female motives for sex, and when it’s okay to back out of an implied contract. A. S. King and Mary Hooper present sad tales, one contemporary and one historical, of sex as a commodity that young women have to exchange in order to get what they want and need, while Melvin Burgess and Andrew Smith explore the standard male fantasy of the nerdy fifteen-year-old boy who somehow, inexplicably, winds up in the capable hands of a beautiful, experienced older woman. Bali Rai relates the high stakes of perceived sexual purity for Punjabi girls, even [End Page 154] when they live abroad, while Keith Gray nods in the complete opposite direction by showing how utterly low the stakes are for contemporary teens. Most of the stories are thick with British slang and cultural references that a quick internet check will illuminate for the curious, and the more light-hearted entries are rife with laugh-out-loud moments. Despite their subject matter, only one or two of the stories drift into any level of erotic detail, being more concerned with exploring the social context of sex rather than describing its actual consummation; given that, it’s a fairly low-key collection about a fraught subject.
