“Man, I couldn’t get to first base with her.”
“I was rounding third and heading for home when her parents drove in the driveway.”
Want more? Check out the lyrics to Meat Loaf’s Paradise By The Dashboard Light and note Yankee broadcaster Phil Rizzuto’s play-by-play that provides the background.
Rounding the bases, that stage-by-stage progress toward sexual “scoring,” is a metaphor that lives on in our culture. It’s mainly about strutting male self-assertion — how far can you go and how fast can you get there — and not much about how much in love you are.
There’s nothing wrong with the basic idea of the bases — that a sexual relationship should develop stage by stage (call it “sexual gradualism”). But we know there’s considerable cultural, not to mention biological, pressure to get around the bases as soon as possible when you’re attracted to someone. What’s missing are new definitions of the bases and guidelines for rounding them in a responsible way. Continued —> (R-rated)
Note: I originally wrote this essay in September, 2000, and published it on Real Joe. I recorded an audio version (rated PG) of the essay for the Real Joe Radio Show demo that Paul Krause and I produced in the summer of 2001.