Do you remember when you were positive that Santa Claus put presents under your Christmas tree, or when you knew that the Stork delivered your little brothers or sisters to your parents? The reason you no longer believe in such stories is because as everyone grows older they are exposed to many of life’s realities, both good and bad, which causes them to progressively lose the innocence they once held in childhood. Both the monologue "Sex and Death at the Age of 14" by Spalding Gray, and the poem "First Gestures" by Julia Kasdorf, address a common theme of how the different experiences encountered during life as one gets older, specifically those of personal loss and sex, will lead to the loss of innocence of a person. While both works effectively express the same thesis using a number of different literary elements, "Sex and Death at the Age of 14" uses humorous and abstract methods to discuss serious issues the author faced, while "First Gestures" delivers its message using a more serious and strait forward approach.

Through a touch of comedy, Spalding Grey is able to show how his experiences in the serious topics of death and sex lead to his loss of innocence in his monologue "Sex and Death at the Age of 14." The means by which the main character experiences death in this story is mainly through his many pets. "The first death which occurred in our family was a cocker spaniel. Jill. Jealous Jill." This is the first experience of death for our main character. A death of a pet can often be very tragic for a young child, and our main character becomes more and more aware of death by seeing a large number of his different pets die. Also evident here is the author’s use of alliteration in the names of the pets. Names such as Jealous Jill and Bugle Beagle give a happy sound to the pets, all of which end up dead by the end of the story. Growing up and delineating the experience of witnessing more deaths of his pets, the author shows how he began losing his childhood innocence in respect to death. He becomes well aware of the reality of death, and seems to have developed a sort of indifference towards this subject matter. More and more he discusses the deaths of his pets as just another event in his day, without any visible signs of sorrow. His complete loss of innocence about death is clearly evident with his first experiencing the loss of a person he knows.

This personal experience is very important to showing the main characters loss of innocence. The first scene on the scaffolding is a major experience that impacted the author. He almost caused the death of his good friend, and he tells how he was terrified. After that his good friend actually did die. Along with demonstrating to us how he realized the human death was a serious and realistic part of life, we also are able to see how the main character has already lost much of his innocence about death from his pet experiences. He conveys that he just assumed one of the four in his group of friends would die, and he is not too traumatized by this event. Adding to this reason could possibly be the fact that he has seen so much death in respect to his pets, that he is not shocked to see more death, even when it is one of his best friends. Another major part in growing up is ones introduction to sex. "Instead of a tinker we saw her, well, I don’t think we had a name for it actually, but I remember it as this very small, fleshy slit where her tinker might have been if she had one." The narrator demonstrates his during early childhood with an experience with little Judy Griggs. His four best friends had made Judy pull down her pants to prove that she was a boy because she wanted to be in their all boys club. The author conveys their innocence in a funny way here by having the boys first calling their private parts a "tinkler" which is clearly an elementary term, and by the boys having no idea what Judy’s private part was, aptly reflecting the lack of experience the boys had with the facts of life. "Julie and I and a bunch of us who were hanging out together would have kissing contests. We would all get together and see how long two people could hold a kill. Someone would time it while the rest of us stood around watching, smoking Lucky Strike Regulars." At this point in the monologue, the main character is really beginning to loose his innocence in regards to sex. At first he was exposed to visually through uncovered pornographic photos, but as is seen in this scene, he is beginning to have interactions with girls physically and it was promoted by his group of friends. It was through a number of experiences with these friends, that Grey was exposed to many of the realities of sex and other things related to the loss of innocence such as smoking. Throughout the monologue, the author uses a thematic structure. One main reason the author uses this is because of his very abstract way of writing. He jumps around his life with a number of different small stories told from his point of view, often not presented in chronological order. Sometimes the abstract nature of the writing makes awkward to read but the author is very effective in showing the theme of loss of innocence through a number of different personal stories. Grey made his use of small stories very successful by his use of imagery. Without imagery many of his stories would have seemed dull, but he is able to invoke the senses of the reader in a number of his tales such his vivid descriptions of an event such as the scene with Judy, or with an in-depth description of a person such as Julie. Through many different literary techniques and a very abstract writing format, our author is able to show us how children such as himself loses innocence.

The poem "First Gestures" by Julia Kasdorf portrays a very similar theme of loss of innocence, while doing it in a serious and strait forward manner. The author uses a three stanza structure to deliver three ideas to the reader: saying goodbye, loss, and sex. This differs from the monologue considerably as the author of the monologue mixes up his thoughts in an unorganized manner, while the opposite is true for the poem. "Among the first we learn is good-bye, your tiny wrist between Dad’s forefinger and thumb forced to wave bye-bye to Mom…" The first stanza discusses with the reader the idea of saying goodbye as a means for loosing innocence. This was not brought up in the monologue but is a valid point brought up by Kasdorf. The author demonstrates how children learn to say goodbye at an early age and that they are not unknowing to the fact that people leave. The poet shows how saying goodbye is known by these kids and eventually this might mean they will know how to say goodbye to someone gone forever such as in death. In that first stanza the author uses the literary device’s of imagery and of a simile to help make her example more clear to the reader. Imagery is evident with her story because the ready gets a picture in their head of a child crying in a packed mall. The use of a simile, describing shoppers as sharks, makes the imagery all the more effective. The poem’s second stanza is very similar to the monologue. "Think of the time and things we accumulate, all the while growing more conscious of losing and leaving." This contains the idea of the monologue, but the author of the poem states it straight out instead of through stories. The monologue shows the accumulation of time and things, as the poem states, and also it shows how Grey was more conscious of losing which is flat out stated in the above quote. Learning about loss is a common theme in both works which is shown to lead to the loss of innocence. The poems mention of leaving links back to the previous stanza in regards to saying goodbye. In the second stanza the author once again uses a simile to accentuate his thoughts. "…Of a tiny, white room where a girl makes love for the first time…She’s too young to see that as we gather losses, we may also grow in love." Stanza three begins with mentioning that there are specific places and memories which we can easily see in the monologue because the entire work is about places and memories that were important to him. The latter part of the stanza describes the loss of innocence of a young girl in pertaining to sex. Imagery is used once again to form a picture of the room in which a young girl loses her virginity. Losing ones virginity is a point in ones life where a persons sexual innocence is completely lost. The monologue discusses losing innocence in this field at many levels but does not describe the event Grey losing his actual virginity which is the final stage of his loss of innocence.

There is one point in a person’s life, where the innocence they once held in childhood is gone forever. This innocence comes in many forms, the most prevalent are death and sex, two topics that are so serious that they are often kept away from us in our early years. Both "Sex and Death at the Age of 14" by Spalding Gray and "First Gestures" by Julia Kasdorf supply ample examples on the facts about children losing innocence as they grow up. "First Gestures" uses poetry to show the authors beliefs on the loss of innocence while "Sex and Death at the Age of 14" portrays the same ideas to the reader but tells them in the form of little stories about the readers personal life where the ready must use the information given to eventually come to the same conclusion. Innocence is eventually lost in all people as they experience more and more, and the worlds realities are revealed to them.