Boy Meets World was a cute little show okay for tweens and family members alike—the laugh line sounds like it’s evenly dispersed between adults and children. (It also includes a bones scandal-line of “oohs” and whistles for when anything romantic happens. I hadn’t noticed that before—is it just a 90’s teenage sitcom thing?) This isn’t to say that I think it’s aimed at older brothers and fathers, of course, but seeing as how it aired as part of ABC’s “Thank God It’s Friday” series on Friday evenings, I believe it was meant for the entire family gathered on a couch because there’s nothing else to do at that time that’s appropriate for everyone. That’s what my family did. My brother, sister and I would stay with our dad on weekends, make spaghetti, and gather around the coffee table to watch Family Matters and Boy Meets World. I can’t remember how old I was, but I was young enough to hide in the couch cushions every time someone kissed.

I’m realizing now the things I didn’t pick up on then. Like Topanga? She’s hot! (Now those “I wanna bang-a Topanga” t-shirts finally make sense.) I remembered her being more dorky than that, more like Corey. She is instead very stereotypically a teenage female; emotional, trendy, and doubtful. In the last episode she’s the first one to cry, hug Mr. Feeny and leave. Also, Mr. Feeny is kind of an asshole. He’s a wise meanie, and effectively teaches the gang of youth life lessons as he follows them from being their teacher to the principal to eventually following them to college and marrying the dean—oh, and he chaperones their senior prom, too, of course. His slightly British accent and stodgy frame make him the clear stuffy academic mentor, to eleven year olds just as to adult college students.

The closest thing Boy Meets World gets to any kind of sex discussion before the college years is in the season five episode “Prom-ises Prom-ises,” in which Cory and Topanga come close to consummating their relationship in a hotel room after the prom. (They decide they aren’t ready yet, especially after a switch-up between the Cory/Topanga room and the neighboring room which houses Cory’s parents.) I don’t know if that episode counts, though, because it wasn’t actually allowed to air—“mature subject matter” was deemed inappropriate by Disney. In that episode Topanga stereotypically will only go all the way if everything is “exactly perfect” and Cory stereotypically doesn’t care at all about perfection, but tries very hard to make everything exactly perfect so that Topanga will do it. I don’t believe the word “sex” is ever spoken in the episode, either. Cory’s dad gives vague advice about it, but only goes so far as to say “something  can happen in a minute that can affect you for the rest of your life.” There is an extended scene at the check-in counter of the hotel in which Cory and the hotel manager have a not-so-subtle coded conversation about it, replacing the word “tired” for sex. And then, once he finally does get a room, a mix up involving his parents trying to have a romantic night together one door down lands Cory walking in on his mother in a slinky nighty and his father walking in on Topanga. So while it is not as straight-forward as Secret Life of the American Teenager’s have sex get pregnant result, it does say that trying to have sex too soon will result in every teenager’s nightmare of knowing too much about their parent’s sex life—and having your parents know too much about your attempts at having one of your own. Oh yeah, and there is the whole thing with Cory’s parents being at the hotel in the first place to celebrate the fact that his mom is pregnant again, which does remind everyone about how sex leads to pregnancy. (He also reminds Cory of what he said earlier, about “what happens in one minute can change the rest of your life.”) That episode does deal with teenage sex, but it didn’t air with TGIF, only later in syndication.

Later on the gang all go to college together. Cory and Topanga get engaged and eventually marry, but first they try living together, and that’s when sex—and the fact that they’re waiting until imminent marriage—is talked about. (But they still avoid saying it) Well, Cory talks about it, and complains in his usual neurotic-but-funny way about how they’re not having it. Like in this clip:

So yes, even though they have been “in a relationship for 17 years,” they haven’t even… what’s the proper way to say this… gone beyond kissing? They definitely do not have sex. But it is clear that Cory wants to. And Topanga starts looking like the cruel one, like she’s withholding it from him in order to control him. The show has the characters save themselves for marriage in order to keep from offending anyone, but they nod to stereotypes of men wanting it to the point of madness. It’s kind of contradictory, and seems unfortunately for Cory’s already shaky wellbeing. Cory seems to be physically impaired because he isn’t getting any, or at least like he feels that way. Which is just, kind of, sad.