A study in contrasts

I've just spent the evening chatting to a colleague and friend about her new man. She's very happy, and is planning to uproot her life and change her long-established plans to be with someone she first met less than two weeks ago. They have already had sex on several occasions, though this does not surprise me. This friend has always been open about the fact that she likes sex, feels the need for a regular dose to maintain her energy and equilibrium, and is willing to sleep with someone without an emotional attachment or any strings attached, if she is in the mood and thinks she'll have a good time. I envy her confidence and her pragmatism about this area of her life.

Late-night conversations often turn confessional, and I admitted, somewhat shyly, to my lack of experience with physical intimacy. She was surprised. I said I sometimes felt like a freak in this regard, and she asked me a question no-one else I've shared this information with has ever asked me: "Have you ever met someone you wanted to have sex with?" When I think about it, the answer to that is "no". I haven't ever felt that level of connection with someone. Perhaps it can be built (I hope so; Blue Boxer Boy is turning out to be more appealing with every conversation!). Giving this answer, I received the somewhat unexpected response: "Well, then there's no need to feel like a freak. It'll happen when you meet someone you want it to happen with". That this response should be so unlooked-for, and so surprising, seems to me to be a measure of how prurient and crass so many discussions of this sort can be.
In contrast, and to highlight the example, at work yesterday, I overheard a conversation which made me cringe in my chair. Several colleagues were discussing their own love-lives in crude detail, and the comment was made that another colleague present was a virgin (I'm a little surprised, as her ex is a close personal friend of mine, and I certainly believed they had, but perhaps not! The girl in question is also stunningly beautiful, with a fabulous figure, and has no doubt had plenty of opportunity, as well as several long-ish term relationship. Perhaps a little intimidating for her sheer physical beauty, but a genuinely lovely person). This information elicited such a round of not-quite-scorn, and advice of the "just do it with anyone" advice that I felt physically ill on behalf of its' target. This is why I don't often share that information about myself, even with relatively close friends in a typically very open environment. Whatever her reasons, and perhaps she too has simply never met someone she wanted to sleep with, how incredibly sad that she should be made to feel self-conscious and embarrassed about what is, after all, a personal choice, and that those colleagues do not have the insight and maturity of the woman I spoke to this evening, who is clearly comfortable enough with her own sexual choices not to feel the need to judge the choices of others.