…You know, about the birds and the bees? How did your parents tell you (or not)?
I don’t remember it. My mother informs me that when I was very little, I asked about how babies are made, and they explained, then later I forgot, and they explained it again. I’m glad my folks treated this as just another part of life to teach me about, instead of being secretive, then trying to sit me down when I was 12 or something and trying to explain the whole thing.
The only talk I ever got was about which forums to post to.
My parents didn’t try ‘the talk’ on me till I was 16. At that point it was far too late. Worse, they didn’t try to give ‘the talk’ but wanted television to do it for me with their supervision. They told me they wanted to watch a show that was going to be on PBS on human sexuality and that we’d all watch it together. I knew exactly what they were trying to do and was embarrassed as hell…I just did not have a realationship with them that was close enough to broach this subject. We watched the show but my parents were disappointed that it was mostly internal shots of sperm fertilizing an egg and what not. I think they wanted something more on the mechanics of getting the sperm in in the first place but what did they expect from PBS? A copy of Debbie Does Dallas would have proved much better in that regard. My parents asked me if I had any questions and again I knew what they were ‘trying’ to ask. I said NO and got the hell out of there.
Sheesh…by that point in my life I had already seen my share of Playboy’s, Hustlers and even a porno or two. My school had already put me through classes on the more technical aspects of procreation. I don’t know what my parents were thinking but this drove home the point for me that they were woefully out of touch with me and my generation.
I was the youngest of four sons. They were tired of giving “the talk”. I was given a book and told to ask any questions if I had problems or concerns.
Seemed to work OK.
No talk whatsoever.
Sometimes I think it was better I had to learn everything the hard way - and, of course, experimentation is the fun part 
- but if I have kids in the future I’d tell them everything save the finer points of technique before they hit puberty. I think it would have been nice to know exactly why the hell your body’s going to act weird for the next 60+ years.
I never got the talk.
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I watched alot of PBS in my younger Days I knda figured out what was going on by my self.
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My parents knew that barely had any freinds let alone a girlfreind so the talk was kinda unnessasary.
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Since my best freind was gay thy were more worried about me NOT having sex with guys than haveing sex with girls.
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I had 2 brother with childern all ready so agian they never throught it nessasarry.
When I was about 10 my father asked me if I knew about the the birds and the bees.
“I don’t want to know!” I said, bursting into tears.
Confused, dad asked what was wrong.
“Oh dad,” I sobbed, “at age six I got the ‘there’s no Santa’
speech. At age seven I got the ‘there’s no Easter bunny’ speech.
Then at age 8 you hit me with the ‘there’s no tooth fairy’
speech!
If you’re going to tell me that grown-ups don’t
really fuck, I’ve got nothing left to live for!”
>> Sometimes I think it was better I had to learn everything the hard way
Yup, mine got hard and i was wondering what was happening
They talked the talk, and now I’m gonna walk the walk – straight to the forum In My Humble Opinion.
My mom had to work late one night so my dad was Mr. Mom-ing for the evening. We were eating dinner, watching the news when someone used the word homosexual.
“Dad, whats a homosexual?”
“That’s a man who has sex with other men”
“Dad, what’s sex?”
I thought he was going to have heart failure. Did I mention I was six? He proceeded to give me the whole shebang- ovaries, sperm, menstrual cycles, two people who really love each other, etc. etc… I swear, it was a collage level explaination of the entire human reproductive system. The only non-horrifying part of the night was listening to him tell my mom “Please please don’t ever leave me home alone with that child again”
It’s hysterically funny now but at the time we were both SO embarrassed.
I was probably a freshman in high school (about 14 years old) and my dad was sitting in the living room. He calls me over while watching “Jeopardy” or “Wheel of Fortune” and he tells me, “If you ever get a girl pregnant, you marry her” and that was pretty much the extent of “the talk” between the two of us. However, I’ve noticed that ever since then, he never let me sleep over anybody’s house. I suspect he thinks I would go to a wild orgy every opportunity I get… although the thought has crossed my mind.
My father was - I’m not sure, relieved or disappointed - when he found out I had already learned all about it in whatever euphemism they had for sex ed class.
Heterosexual sex, that is. Everything I know about my actual sex life I learned on the Internet, personal experience, and various other hands.
I NEVER got a talk. When I was 13, a friend explained it to me and I walked around for weeks thinking, “they do what? EWWWWW!” I thought I was asexual or something because I didn’t want to do THAT! Blech! But then I had my first real boyfriend/kiss at age 15 and it aaaalllll made sense.
Also, when I got my period at 13, my mom said, “Please don’t have sex until you’re 18.” Sure, mom.
Sometimes I still see couples and think, “They do what?” 
I think the closest I ever got to the talk was a lecutre about birth control from my father after meeting one of my guy friends. Sheesh, it’s not like i plan on having sex with every guy i become friends with, and to top it off, why did my father have to tell me this? If he ever does it again, I am going to wonder if he thinks I’m some little harlot who just screws around with people she doesn’t know all the time.
Never got the talk.
Mom gave me a book. Normally, that isn’t always all that bad, but it was a book written for parents on how to give the talk. This was the same year I was in 6th grade, and we had the assembly where all the girls go to learn about “our monthly blessing.” So, I think I actually got a well-rounded education.
Hey, at least I know what to do when I have kids.
I got the scoop at 13 from a kid who had a brother 17.
The only thing we couldn’t figure out, and argued a lot about, was who was on top. We had dirty photos to support bothe theories.
Never got the talk about sex. My mother did give me a long lesson on menstruation, with my brother sitting beside me.
A couple of weeks later I mentioned something about periods and my father went nuts. He let me know that that sort of thing was never to be mentioned in public or private.
No, my Dad is 41 years older than me and Catholic, need I say more.
When I was 13 or so, my dad gave me “the talk”. I was looking for some clarification for the street talk I had heard since I was 10. You know, phrases like “eat me” and having “the clap”.
My dad, who is a pretty wierd dude who has a religious belief in the power of sex and psychiatry, gave me this speech about how it was normal to have an oedipal complex about my mother, and to not be freaked out about it. I didn’t really want to go there, and my dad was pretty useless when it came to the street talk.
My 10 y.o. was going around the house saying “SEX, SEX, SEX!”, giggling his head off and getting my 4 y.o. to copy him. My wife said “You have to DO something! You need to have ‘the talk’ with him.” She meant get books out of the library and work up gently to it.
I assumed she meant now. So I told him in fairly blunt terms what sex was, from a mechanical viewpoint (he was already familiar with the concept of sperm and egg, just not with how exactly that happened to get them together). He was horrified, went up to his room and cried.
My wife was pissed off with me, and wondered out loud if I had harmed him with too much knowledge too early. I said, listen, he’s 10, and your ancestors and mine grew up watching their parents hump each other on the other side of the hut. It still happens today in Eskimo igloos and jungle huts. Kids on the farm see the animals do it all the time. He’ll be fine.
I went to comfort him, and after a while, he was fine. But he didn’t joke about sex any more. And I like to think I inoculated him from a lot of the misinformation his peers will probably dish out.