Sex and the City

In my work with local young professional organizations, part of the organizational mandate that is followed is trying to keep recent college graduates in the region. But sometimes I have my doubts about whether this is such a good strategy for the young graduates themselves. There is no question that small-city America is more affordable than big city America, offers considerable scope for proactivity and professional advancement, and so on. But much is missed by those who don't migrate to bigger cities: greater exposure to diversity and cosmopolitanism, to top-notch cultural offerings, to milieux where events can have national and global impact. I also think, heretically or not, that the sexual charge of the big city is something that smart young people ought to experience.

People have been going to the big city for sex, and finding it, forever. The atmosphere of most large cities is latent with sexual possibility; the street life carries a sexual current. It is no exaggeration to say that I see a greater number of impressively handsome people in Chicago during a one-day visit than I do in my area in an entire year. I am firmly convinced that a Darwinian imperative drives the beautiful to big cities in order to maximize their sexual and romantic possibilities. A sexually commanding type in my town is an actor without an audience.

Small city America is sexually pretty blah. Oh, I know that there is sinning among the middle class, and swingers, and the rest of it. But at the public level there is not much more sexual current than the teens at the local mall can muster, and that's mainly of interest to them. An atmosphere of adult sexual possibility is simply absent. I'm not talking about sleaze; there is the occasional adult bookstore off the highway. I am talking swankiness, and glamor, and naughtiness, and the frisson of excitement, and enchanted evenings, and unexpected encounters. Not to be found here. And that's a part of life that the young hanker after, and that they should have access to as part of their adult birthright. What each young adult does with those possibilities is entirely individual -- maybe a lot, maybe not much. It's up to them. But an experience of life that doesn't involve exposure to the sexual carnival is, if you ask me, overly sheltered. Tame.

Although I am notably cynical about whether sex actually delivers what it promises (that's my seasoned view), I am even less patient with any worldview that tries to undercut the obvious power and intense hold of sex. Big city life completely acknowledges that power; small city life pretends a higher virtue, and boringly incarnates it, too.