All the Men Were Doing It

I can’t believe

You’re all trying to judge

An entire--it’s not a generation

It’s a population

It’s the entire population

Of the country

At a certain time

You want to have this

Big coming clean

About who we worked with

Back then

What do you think

My options were?

All the men were doing it

Dating children

It was--

You know, you rolled your eyes about it

But that was about all you did, because--

We were not supposed to be upset

When we found out

One of our guy friends

Was dating a fourteen-year-old

We were told

We were told

Granted, by the men, yes

And I get how that, but--

What I’m saying is

That there needs to be

A cultural agreement

That something is right or wrong

And at that time

Culturally

It was agreed

That men dating teenagers

Was totally fine

And yes, in the back of my mind,

I didn’t really think that

I didn’t really believe that

But I wasn’t going to be the one person

Screaming into the void

On the subject

Do you know what I mean?

And it was different back then

And I know that’s a cliche

But it really was

It was different

Fourteen back then

Was an adult

You were ready to be an adult

Hell, my mother had me at fourteen

So the idea that some dumb friend of mine

Who couldn’t even tie his damn shoes

Was too mature

For a fourteen-year-old

Was just crazy to me

And--and if I’m being honest

It still is

Now, I wouldn’t say I’d be okay

With a guy his age TODAY

Dating a girl that age TODAY

Because TODAY all these ages

And the emotional, uh, personality

Behind all these ages

Is very different

But back then

A fourteen-year-old girl

Was like a thirty-year-old woman today

That’s what I’m getting at

That’s what I’m trying to say

And I’m fine with judging people

By a different set of standards TODAY

But to crack open the history books

And start saying--

Well, you did this back then

I mean, nobody was raping anybody

Nobody was assaulting anybody

You’re all so big on consent

Well Jesus, we had consent up the wazoo

You know what I mean?

Everybody was consenting to everything

It was the sixties

Our favorite word was ‘Yes’

And we weren’t big on picking apart

What made somebody an adult

And what didn’t

We just said--

This guy vibes with this chick

This chick is into so-and-so

And we let the rest alone

It isn’t that way now

And that’s fine

But you don’t have--

You can’t just go back

And apply today

To yesterday, right?

I mean, that’s not cool

Everything was so different, you know?

That’s--

That’s what I keep coming back to, that--

That everything was just

So different