An open letter to the city of Williamsburg, Virginia:
I hope this message finds you well. I’m writing you to, first of all, thank you for supporting us college kids during our time here at the College of William and Mary. Our experience at school would not be the same without the specific strangeness of sharing a living museum with tourists visiting from all over the world. Thank you also for the restaurants along Richmond Road, the beauty of Lake Matoaka and Jamestown Beach, and the peculiar mixture of old and young that comprises your citizenry. Your culture, odd as it may be, deeply effects us in ways we probably won’t realize until well past graduation.
That being said, I’d like to discuss with you, dear city of Williamsburg, the odd occurrence that transpired on my front lawn four nights ago – or, as my two housemates and I have begun to call it, the Strange Incident of the Sex in the Nighttime. I live about a ten-minute walk from campus in a cute two-bedroom that the three of us have worked very hard to improve. We enjoy cleaning and cooking and being domestic because that allows us to start thinking of our house as a “home.” None of us expected, then, to find evidence of someone else’s sexy times in our front lawn.
It happened like this. I came home after a run and was doing some stretches before heading inside. Sippin’ a Gatorade, no big thing, when what do I see? A condom wrapper next to our magnolia! A used condom a few feet away! Two cans of Keystone Light! A pair of girl’s underwear! I ran inside and grabbed my housemates, both in disbelief until I showed them the evidence. Questions on our mind: how do we react to this? What do you say when there’s a soggy penis-sized balloon lying deflated in your yard? Do you laugh? Do you rage? Do you pick up the grimy pair of panties and nail it to a nearby tree to be reclaimed by the blush-faced owner?
(Important parenthetical question: was this a good night, having sex in our crunchy and spikey lawn? Is our bushy and briary yard a turn-on? We were totally home when this happened, lights on, homework being done. Maybe Mr. Used Condom and Ms. Soiled Undies indulged in some fear of getting caught as an impetus for sex? A spiritual quest to “return to nature?” So much confusion surround the what and why of this event that it’s probably best to not think too hard on it.)
The point, beloved Williamsburg?
Someone clearly got it on in our front lawn. As a sex blogger and general supporter of a free love worldview, I want to support this. Heck yeah, the whole world can and should be your playpen! Of course, please enjoy the outdoors as a space for love expression. As long as you’re safe and careful and everything’s consensual, get it on anywhere, any way! But at the end of the day, I’m a home-renter. My hippie-dippy sentiments, as cozy as they may be, can’t compete with the law, and I’m pretty sure the events that transpired that night were illegal. So this leaves my housemates and I standing in our doorway, surveying the site of naughty neighborly relations, hands on our hips, shaking our heads and asking, “Really??? We got ef’d on?!”
So, Williamsburg, you got some ‘splaining ta do. I love you as the city that has housed me for the past three years, but maybe you should sit down certain inhabitants and give them a firm, mother-knows-best talkin’ to. Front lawns ain’t the best locale for this biznass, especially when it’s not your front lawn. The solo cups tossed over our fence by kids walking home from parties, the cigarette butts put out in our soil – that I can deal with. That I understand. But I dunno, I guess this totally random/hilarious/head-scratching/offensive occurrence has slapped awake the puritan in me, stirred within the village elder who shakes his fist at young folks and worries about Ye Olde Fate of Humanity. What’s this city – my city, our city – coming to when my darling little house’s front stoop becomes a mating ground for the college set? Half of me wants to cheer those newlyweds on, the other half can only say “Yeesh!”
I’ll conclude this letter with a request. Ok, two requests, the first of which you should imagine me stating firmly with a rifle cocked in my hand: Stay off my property! The second request you should picture me asking as an enlightened, highly intelligent, liberal hippie: Let’s talk about our feelings! Let’s question this! What’s so wrong with sex outside? What’s so bad about sex in public, or sex in a place you don’t own? Do I have a right to be angry, or should I just embrace the embrace my front lawn witnessed?
Maybe y’all can help me out with this one, you Williamsburgers. Ever done the deed in a scary situation? In the great outdoors? With the threat of getting caught? On someone else’s property? Share your thoughts in the comments!
