JENNI MURRAY
Why I lost my temper on my wedding day
TheRe are times when this whole ‘identity’ question falls into the unbelievably baffling category. First you have to grapple with the terminology. When I read that an Ipsos Mori poll has revealed just 54 per cent of Generation Z say they are ‘only attracted by the opposite sex’ I had to look up who they actually are.
Generation Z, known, rather unfortunately in the current climate, as Zoomers, were born between 1997 and 2012 and are the first generation to grow up entirely in the digital age, so it’s not surprising that they may be open about their sexual preferences given what they’re likely to have read, or indeed seen, on the world wide web.
My generation — the Boomers – grew up in the Sixties sexual revolution with nothing more to enlighten us than The Joy Of Sex hidden in Mum’s knicker drawer, or a copy of Lady Chatterley, wrapped in brown paper, with the title Mathematics For Beginners scrawled on the front. Remember, it was the poet Philip Larkin who wrote: ‘Sexual intercourse began in 1963 between the Chatterley Trial and the Beatles’ first LP’.
We passed the book around, giggled at the rude words and thought it shocking and exciting, but we never discussed our own desires or activities. Any girl thought to have indulged in even the lightest petting was dubbed ‘a slapper’.
PARenTAL pressure, the fear of pregnancy and the fact that, until 1967, homosexuality was illegal rather kept our experimentation in check. The Mori poll confirms the suspicion that the older generation is still reluctant to be open about anything other than conventional sexual identities. Seventy-six per cent of the 41 to 54-year-olds said they were exclusively attracted to the opposite sex, and in the 55 to 75 group it was 81 per cent who insisted on being ‘straight’.
But let’s not assume the Boomers were not ‘at it’.
When I started at university in 1968, my greatest ever disappointment was bagging the best-looking guy in my year and spending a disastrous night with him, ending in: ‘I’m so sorry, it’s not your fault, but I just don’t go for girls.’ I like to think I gave him the chance to come out. We understood what straight meant, we knew what being gay was and that some of us were bisexual, although I have to say I do struggle with some of the new language around sex. What on earth does being pansexual, as claimed by Cara Delevingne, involve? Or ambisexual or polysexual or biphilic? The mind boggles.
I’m not sure, though, whether it’s we Boomers who did a favour for the younger generations, or if they have liberated us.
In gratitude to the young, I have to say that many of the older generation have been freed to follow their hearts in whichever direction they’re taken.
I remember a wonderful conversation ten years ago with the folk singer, Peggy Seeger, now 85. We talked about the great love affair she had with ewan MacColl. It was he who wrote the beautiful The First Time ever I Saw Your Face. It was Peggy who inspired him.
ewan died in 1989. Peggy and I talked about her grief at losing him, how she’d coped and how she had moved on. She grinned and told me she had a new partner: a woman.
‘Don’t be surprised,’ she said, ‘It’s not about who you fancy. It’s about the person with whom you fall in love. And that has nothing to do with sex or gender. It’s about love and having the courage to follow your heart.’
That, I believe, is the best message we Boomers can pass on to the Zoomers and it’s a lesson they won’t learn from their devices. Maybe not much of a generation gap after all.