Parenting

12 Places You Made Out in Junior High

by Josette Plank
Updated: 
Originally Published: 
A couple of teenagers making out

Sex? No way.

Sixth-grade biology class and “fallopian tubes” and “spermatogenesis” made sex sound like a science project. When you were in middle school, “having sex” seemed a distant and complicated endeavor reserved for married couples and Playboy centerfolds.

But sucking face with the cute guy you had a crush on?

Yeah, that you were going to make happen.

The only question was “Where?”

In Your Basement

Your house didn’t have a rec room. But your mom let you put an old sofa and a record player in the basement, back by the water heater. You asked Brian from math class if he wanted to hang out and listen to the new Journey album. You and Brian kissed for the entire 92 seconds of na-nas on the song “Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin’.”

At Jennifer Walters’s Birthday Party

While Jennifer’s parents were in the living room drinking Harvey Wallbangers, you were in the kitchen pantry playing Seven Minutes in Heaven. To this day, the smell of corn starch and dried pasta makes you horny.

Behind the 7-Eleven

In seventh-grade, you were a badass. You wore starched Levi’s jeans and a T-shirt with a Cheap Trick “Dream Police” iron-on decal. Scott McCoughlin was the dreamy bad boy with perfectly feathered hair. His T-shirt had a Led Zeppelin iron-on decal. When Scott asked if you had any cigarettes, you stole a pack of Chesterfields from your grandmother’s purse.

Kissing Scott tasted like smoke and blue raspberry Slurpee. Your T-shirts made a schlook sound when your iron-on decals pressed together.

In the Cemetery

Every great B horror movie starts with two teenagers making out behind a tombstone. Illicit necking is just all the more thrilling when zombies are threatening to drag you into an open grave.

Playing Co-Ed Tag Football

All tag football games inevitably turned into tackle football. And tackle football turned into “baseball.” In middle school, the game was less about the goal posts, more about getting to over-the-clothes second base.

The Field-Trip Bus Orgy

Boys and girls in back. Chaperones in front. What could possibly go wrong?

Devil’s Rock

On the edge of every denuded suburban subdivision lies a scrawny patch of woods. And in that patch of woods, a small outcrop of rock rises above the forest floor. No one knows the true story of why this doomed and forgotten place is called “Devil’s Rock.” Your theory? Devil’s Rock was a great place to practice the dark art of French kissing.

Speed-Dating Under the Bleachers

Did anyone actually watch the high school football games? Boys cruised the field perimeter looking for a girl to “ask out.” For all of the third-quarter, you and your new boyfriend locked lips under the bleachers. By fourth-quarter, you weren’t “going out” any more, and the whole school knew about it.

Riding the Cosmotron at the Amusement Park

Indoor “dark” rides = PG-rated hotel room.

In the School Library

The librarian said, “Pair up with a partner at the wet carrels.” You heard, “Spend 45 minutes crammed into a small space with a boy you have a crush on.”

Bonus: Only one pair of headphones worked; you both had to press your heads together to hear the voice on the cassette tape drone on about gerunds.

Back Row of the Movie Theater

Did your mom really believe you wanted to see Mannequin that many times? OK, maybe. But she had to suspect something was up by the third time you saw Harry and the Hendersons.

The Playground

The sign on the fence said, “For children 12 and under.” But that was the daytime rule. How did you manage to snog at the top of the metal sliding board without falling and breaking your necks?

Ah, youth.

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