Grow Up! Sleep (And Do Other Activities) in a Bed!

I guess maybe the whole adult bed issues ties into marriage. You know, the marriage bed, and dowry chests often contained linens and other items to furnish the bed. And this bed would be for the couple only, a major rite of passage, as for many centuries siblings and unmarried family members routinely slept together in the same bed. Why? Most people were poor. Privacy was lacking. Bedding was expensive. 

Of course, in the United States, most young adults live with each other, cohabit before marriage. In fact, I even remember when I was living in the dorms, the sign when a guy and a girl (two guys was of course taboo at that time) began to cohabit was the double bed. Sometimes two beds pushed together, and usually in the guy's room. Apparently the guy's dorm was a more acceptable place for sex than the girl's dorm. The few times guys even visited the girl dorms was for let me eat with or even fix dinner for you in my room. Sexist, oh yes! 

I've often wondered if a certain type of bed makes better sex. I mean, some bed sex fantasies involve frills and canopies and flowers but also rough sex. Really rough. I think of those bodice-ripper historical romance novels, where the guy who ends up being Prince Charming, but not after some often an often mind-boggling I love him, I hate him, I love her, I hate her, and the result of this confusion is a heroine deflowered before the wedding, sometimes on the same bed where she ends up after the marriage. 

In contrast, the man-eating, predatory Sue Ann Nivens on the Mary Tyler Moore Show ended up doing the deflowering on her indescribable bed. We see this bed in one episode, where the WJM-TV gang congregate to comfort her when she realizes her sister will be staying in Minneapolis to host a rival cooking show. Erosville, USA. Cupids, flowers, pink satin. It vibrates. And when the climax occurs (and in Sue Ann's world, her climax is the goal), the florid theme from Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet sounds forth. 
 

I'm not entirely sure how LGBTQ persons fit into this dynamic, because for ages they were banned from participating in traditional heterosexual rites of passage. In the days of the closet, when lovers had to present themselves as “roommates,” I'm sure a double bed would more than raise eyebrows. But then, those were the days when heterosexual icons Lucy and Ricky had to sleep in separate twin beds after the first season of I Love Lucy as a double bed was too risque. 

I just bought some bed risers for my futon frame. I sleep on a futon, which used to be on the floor, then on a low wooden frame, then on a black metal sling frame (still low). Now the sleeping structure resembles a bed, at least the height. Have I grown up? Maybe, but the best sex I've had occurred on the floor of a van.