Word: normalization
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Part of the problem for many adults is that they aren't quite sure how they feel about teenage sex. A third of adults think adolescent sexual activity is wrong, while a majority of adults think it's O.K. and, under certain conditions, normal, healthy behavior, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit, reproductive-health research group. In one breath, parents say they perceive it as a public-health issue and want more information about sexual behavior and its consequences, easier access to contraceptives and more material in the media about responsible human and sexual interaction...
...Many say they've become bored by--and even resent--sexual themes that seem pointless and even a distraction from the information or entertainment they're seeking. "It's like everywhere," says Ryan, a 13-year-old seventh-grader in Denver, "even in Skateboarding [magazine]. It's become so normal it doesn't even affect you. On TV, out of nowhere, they'll begin talking about masturbation." Another Ryan, 13, in the eighth grade at the same school, agrees: "There's sex in the cartoons and messed-up people on the talk shows--'My lover sleeping with my best friend...
...Ivan Sergei), who may also be seeing the queeny Jason (Johnny Galecki). Dedee too has an old boyfriend (William Scott Lee) who keeps getting in the way. The only one not having sex is Lucia (Lisa Kudrow), Bill's neighbor and his dead lover's sister. And the only "normal" guy around is...Lyle Lovett. As we say, it's complicated...
...richest, strangest creature is Lucia, a twisted spinster who loves gay men (most especially her dead brother) with the desperation and security of caring for someone who can never accept her and thus never reject her. She thinks of herself, of course, as the one normal person. "You have a death wish," she tells Bill. "That's so selfish. I have one too, but I direct it toward others." Lucia could be just comedy's favorite device, the useful fool, but Kudrow makes her funny and sympathetic. Her body language is eloquent--she walks like a constipated stork when...
...embrace newness or look retro. The century didn't see the birth of the avant-garde--that had happened earlier--but it did bring its death, after experiment and eccentricity became the norm. Inevitably, all that had seemed startling or threatening came to look normal, even classical, within a few decades. In the end, the new lost its power to shock...