Thinking back on it, I honestly think it was Penthouse Forum, prolly when I was 10 or so. My parents certainly never talked about it (I think I had a sex talk with my dad at about age 16, but I’m really not sure what he was talking about - it was more about religion, and no bodily functions were mentioned), and my big brothers and sisters were no help. Now, of course, I strongly recommend Penthouse Forum to all children from ages 6 and up.
I made sure that my baby sis and bro got correct information. I even high-fived my sister when she told me that she had lost her virginity. Why? As promised, she had waited until college.
'Course, I still abuse her boyfriends horribly. I’m the Big Bro, that’s my job.
I have no idea how or when I learned about sex. I thing I was born with the knowledge.
My parents once gave me a book on the subject when I was about 13. I looked at it and said, “I know all this” and never looked again.
Before that, I don’t recall my friends talking about it, or reading anything other than vague suggestions. I paid no attention to dirty jokes, and wasn’t particularly interested in sex until I was about 18 (though I’ve made up for it since )
My friends and I “borrowed” our fathers’ Playboys, so we knew what women looked like naked. Then Penthouse came out, and we learned even more. (When we got a hold of a Hustler, we could get our doctorate in gynecology. :D:D)
I know that the stupid sex ed class (the separate classes for the girls and boys, a film, and a discussion with a gender-appropriate doctor) did nothing to really educate me. During the Q&A, one of my friends joked, “Hey, ask the doctor how the sperm gets into the woman.” We laughed, but nobody asked. (Yes, the sex ed film failed to mention sex.)
I think in early junior high I found an X-rated porno mag that graphically showed what copulation looked like. It even showed the oh-so-effective pull-out-and-squirt-all-over-the-woman method of birth control. For some reason, the woman seemed to enjoy it.
When I was about 9, I stumbled upon my parents’ copy of Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask). I can’t recall the name of the guy who wrote it, and as I grew older I learned that quite a bit of it is rather…inaccurate.
It made me quite the fountain of knowledge, though. I remember one incident in junior high, we were at study hall in the library, and one of my classmates asked the librarian what fellatio is. She refused to say, and, being quite a loudmouth, he kept asking, and kept asking, so finally I turned to the librarian and said, “should I tell him?” and with a relieved look, she said, “yes.” So I walked over and whispered it in his ear. His face turned bright red, it was hysterical. Even the librarian laughed.
Sex talks with Mom and Dad were nonexistent. I think it was mentioned once, and it was basically, “wait until you’re in love, use a condom.” and that’s it.
I never quite grasped this level of pornography! What is erotic about a woman covered in Semen? I’ve alwasy found the very idea repulsive and the site of such a thing even be it my own would likely result in a big floppy rubbery one!
OK, I have a good story. When I was young, I had this weird complete lack of interest in certain things. It’s weird because under normal circumstances and was a very inquisitive, intelligent kid that loved to learn things. For example, I distinctly remember seeing my first cuss word (bitch) written on a bathroom wall in second grade (my first year in public school). I looked at it, looked away, and that was it. Never went to the teacher or mom/dad to ask what it meant; never tried to sound out the word, nothing. This same complete lack of interest extended to sex. I first heard about sex at a new year’s eve slumber party in fourth grade at a friend’s house. It somehow came up in conversation, I had no clue what they were talking about, and my friend explained. I do remember (looking back) that she gave all factual information, none of the urban legend crap. When she was done explaining, I said “hmm” and left it. Secretly, I didn’t believe her. The next year, fifth grade, we had our first sex ed class and whaddya know, my friend was telling the truth! (this class was separate classes for boys and girls, though we got overhead transparencies of the anatomy. Also, I had chicken pox when we were covering the boy’s anatomy, so had no clue there for a couple more years.)
Seventh grade we had sex ed again, this time integrated. Much more fun. We learned a lot more, though I do remember a silly video filmed in the 70s where this kid got told the “facts” in all the wrong ways (hair on the palms when masturbating, etc.) until the monkey keeper at the zoo finally told him the truth.
Always having a sensual nature, (don’t ask me how this fits with lack of interest in sex early in life, it just does) I realized that sex was the one area I could “screw up” my life if I wasn’t careful (never been interested in smoking, drinking, or drugs either). So I promised myself that I would not have sex until I turned 18. Kept that promise (woo hoo!).
Found out WAY later that my mom was supposed to have the “facts of life” talk with me, while dad was supposed to take care of brother (parents are divorced). Mom apparently chickened out and let the schools do it instead. All I ever heard from her was “boys only want ONE thing…” which I never took seriously since all the boys I knew wanted to be friends grin
I think it’s remarkable how little sex education I got from the sources that are supposed to teach you about it (parents and school), and how much I got from other sources. I don’t think my parents ever said anything significant about sex, and I seem to recall that the emphasis in school was on anatomy to the exclusion of mostly everything else.
Like Mishell, I also found my parents’ copy of Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) when I was about 11. It was informative but did have some major facts wrong (in particular I remember that it claimed that all prostitutes hate men). I also learned from friends and their pornography collections (magazines and videos). The best source though, bar none, was the Internet, which I had acess to in my late high school years. For all the old-timers, that was back when alt.sex and alt.sex.wizards had an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio (92-93). Although I had a good knowledge of sex at that point, I gleaned much useful information about the details and kinkier aspects from those newsgroups and the alt.sex FAQ. It prepared me well for losing my virginity in college.
No. It was never a big deal in our house. I always knew what sex was, well the gist of it anyway. When my mom talked about it, she wasn’t shy or anything. And like I said before, I stole my grandma’s romance novels and started reading them in the 3rd grade. I didn’t always know what was going on, but I never had any real questions.
It wasn’t really a big deal. I don’t see what the problem is. So what if I was an accident? I think most kids are. And they decided to get married and have me anyway, instead of getting an abortion, so it really doesn’t bother me.
I will say that when in my freshman year of high school my parents wanted to have ::The Talk:: with me but it was too late.
They had bought a set of books on sex for us kids, and it came with a Parents Answer book. We never cracked the covers on the books, but that answer book was worn out!
When my dad tried to talk to me, I asked him what he wanted to know.
I picked my sex education up in bits and pieces over the years. The day-care center I was sent to when I was very young had a unisex bathroom for the children, as well as being in the practice of having all the kids change into their swimsuits together, so I was well-acquainted with the whole “boys have penises, girls have vaginas” thing at a very early age. (I really think that little boys and little girls should be allowed to see each other naked. They don’t care, and it saves them a lot of questions later.) I later learned from PBS that to make a baby, the father’s sperm has to get into the mother somehow. I later learned that the aforementioned vagina was involved in this process in some manner, as well as being the exit conduit for the fully formed offspring. I also learned from my little friends on the playground that there was a mysterious process known as “sex” that Mommy and Daddy practiced behind closed doors, that involved being naked. I never made the connection. Then came sixth-grade sex education. It was an integrated class, and we watched silly videos aimed both at girls and boys (Yes, I saw the one with the zookeeper, too). It was here I learned that the baby was created during the act of sex, when the boy actually put his penis inside the girl’s vagina!
Yuck!
Well, as time went on, I learned about stranger and kinkier things, and discovered a few things about myself, and the more I learned, the less icky the whole sex thing sounded. And now, here I am today, with a healthy (and rather uninhibited) outlook on sex. It took a lot of false starts before that happened, though. If I ever have kids, I know that I’ll just spare them all of this and give them more or less the whole story from day one.
I happened to hear my uncle doing terrible things to my cousin (his daughter, with whom I was good friends) and went down to investigate, being the good little nine-year old that I was. And that, my friends, is how I found out about sex.
Well, when I was about ten I dicovered my dad’s dirty magizines (about a hundred XXX mags in a file drawer). I, at around the same time, was in 4th or 5th grade where they were attemping to teach about it. I think I learned more from those dirty magizines.
BTW, they did a recent study saying that the average male thinks about sex 206 times a day. In that case I finished around noon.
Sex was never really a mystery at all for me. I have two older brothers [like 10 and 15 years older], so I kinda knew about most of the basics for a long time. Came in handy when i had little male friends who wanted to play doctor when i was little. I learned a lot of the less common things around 3rd-5th grade and a bit from silly books. The only sex talk I’ve ever gotten was a birth control lecture from my father a few months ago. [BTW, I’m 17 and i guess he finally realized that i might be having sex. Whatever, at least I hope he’s not going to get all paranoid about me having male friends. He’s already given me a lecture on “what some guys really want.” sheesh.] I am also the authority on sex for some of my friends, and they always ask at the most inopportune times.
(When we got a hold of a Hustler, we could get our doctorate in gynecology. :D:D)