Julia's husband, Ted, is the most conventionally straight guy imaginable. At the time they were married, it never occurred to her that Ted was gay. Maybe it never occurred to Ted either. He says simply: "Id always had feelings, but my parents wanted me to marry, my colleagues at the firm expected me to marry, and I wanted to marry too, to have kids. In fact, I wanted to stay married. But as my thirties went on, I felt that it wasn't the real me and that I was wasting my youth on a false premise. I couldn't tell Julia but I really wanted her to know."
Julia: "I felt de-womanized by his leaving me for another man. So here I am, married for life, but now suddenly single with a big problem: I just don't know how to trust men after Ted. I can't really forgive him. I'm 38 and I don't want to be alone."
Time is still ticking. Time is passing. The sound of passing time is so deafening to the thirtynothings that they are more afraid of age than they are of death from AIDS. Hence, they will be the last generation who play on, condomless, at their game of sexual roulette while younger generations fear death itself. But the thirtynothings, especially women, are also the first generation to really enjoy the benefits of the feminist and sexual revolutions together, so they can climb up corporate ladders, hunt in the office, have marital affairs - just as men always have. But if this piece has a theme, it is that despite the Adonis cult that dominates U. S. culture today, the 30s is the golden age of sexuality, the feast at which both sexes - having learned the mistakes of the past and knowing what pleases them now - collect the glittering prizes before they are gone forever. Or as Roberta puts in biblically, "It's the knowing that's sexy about being in your thirties. We're like Adam and Eve - we've eaten of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and we like both."
