Generation X

We are hosting a small dinner party of six: two heterosexual couples and two friends. We are all in the first half of our 50s. Conversation about Generation X starts in the kitchen as I finish preparing the meal and the wine is poured. We get to the table and the generational conversation intensifies with a focus on how the promise of Gen X was to be able to avoid having to buy into the religiosity and moral superiority of the Baby Boom. The children of the flower children should have bought into free love regardless of the challenges of the AIDs epidemic and other sexually transmissable diseases. I mention how I had heard when the Joy of Sex was first released the author, Alex Comfort, had visions that it would be a manual for discussing sex, and even experiencing casual sex, at dinner parties. One of the guests raises a glass and says we should toast and agree to retake our generational birthright! After drinking the room is quiet and everyone glances at each other with wry smiles. We reach out and hold hands for a brief moment. I break the silence by laying one of the empty bottles down and spinning it until it points to one of the others at the table. I stand up for the kiss and things progress to a shared erotic adventure that starts at the table and moves out into the living room and beyond.