Ooh Those Pearls

Although regular readers know it's not my habit to troll for salacious tidbits, before posing my opening question I'm obliged to inform infrequent and never-before readers that this blog is mostly a PG enterprise. In that PG spirit, inspired by a conversation with my wife after watching Butterfield 8 recently, I'm curious: What is your earliest memory of being a sexual person?

As someone with mostly blurry memories before adolescence - I rely on my sisters and brother to help me remember stuff  before that - my most vivid memory in this domain is seeing Natalie Wood in Love With A Proper Stranger.  I had just turned fourteen when Natalie made my skin tingle as she adjusted that pearl necklace in the mirror. I clearly recollect the way the neckline on her sleek black dress made me gasp. What first rattled you sexually in that way? How old were you?

I'm sorry to say my feelings for Natalie were not reciprocated, and tragically, never consummated. And, even if the necessary introductions had been made and Natalie had found me as charming as I fancied myself to be at fourteen, I had stiff competition for her affections. Her co-star in Love With A Proper Stranger was the coolest movie star of his era, Steve McQueen. How could this boy from Irvington hope to compete with one of the three surviving members of The Magnificent Seven? Surely Natalie would prefer someone who could sail over fences on a motorcycle as Steve did in The Great Escape. I hadn't even started on the guitar in late 1963 and Steve had already serenaded people in Baby The Rain Must Fall. Shit. But, ooh those pearls. I can still see those pearls.