I was seven years old when an “Afterschool Special” about where babies come from came on tv. Mom was ironing in the same room, and while she figured seven was a little young, she left the show on and watched it with me. When it was over, she asked if I understood what I had seen. I replied, “I think so. I just have one question. How does the egg get cracked?”
I remember understanding the mechanics, but I had a mental image of the whole baby making endevor happening with both participants balancing precariously on the lid of the toilet. (I suppose it could if one is so inclined)
In fourth grade the girls were sent off for a class about menstruation, but sex didn’t really enter into it. Somehow by the time I got to sex ed in fifth grade I had a solid grasp of the concept of sex as a recreational activity. I don’t know how or when I filled in the blanks.
My mom picked me up at the babysitter’s after she had been out drinking, pulled up to a gas pump, turned the engine off, then leaned over to me and asked me if I knew what sex was.
I kind of knew because even at six, seven, eight years old, I would sneak and watch rated-R movies on HBO late at night. I was too embarrassed to tell her I knew what it meant. I remember saying something like, “Isn’t that where they want to know if you’re male or female on a form?”
My mom was drunk and proceeded to give me a very convoluted (and somewhat bitter) breakdown of the whole process. It wasn’t all that informative beyond what I had already figured out from watching soft-core on HBO.
A couple years later, my stepmother gave me a book about menstruation.
Besides that, I was on my own.
My parents had very little to do with my sex education. I remember my dad trying to explain childbirth to me when I was about eight years old or so, but I didn’t understand most of what he told me. Early on I developed the notion that all things related to sex or the private parts of the body were dirty and absolutely verboten from discussion. It’s not that my parents expressly forbid discussion of such matters, but they didn’t exactly invite it, either, so I lived through my childhood in fear that merely mentioning the word “sex” would get my face slapped and I’d be grounded to my room for the rest of the week. I wish I could have had some assurance that I could comfortably talk about such matters. Perhaps my parents knew I would be incredibly embarrassed if they brought up the topic with me since I’d cover my eyes or run from the room if something on TV about sex was on.
My first real exposure to sexual education was in the sixth grade, which my parents would have had to consent to allowing me to attend the session. They segregated the boys from the girls. We boys got booklets printed in blue showing diagrams of the male anatomy and how it works in conjunction with the female anatomy, plus it included information on conception and childbirth; the girls’ book was printed magenta. IIRC, there was nothing about masturbation, STDs, contraception or any other social issues concerning sex. All of that came along in ninth grade Health class, which involved a two-week unit devoted to sex education.
While my parents never openly discussed sex with me, I know my mom got me a book, simply titled “Boys and Sex.” My mother did not give me the book directly, knowing that I would be too embarrassed to receive it from her. She gave it to a friend of mine who in turn gave it to me. My friend first told me it was his and he was giving it to me since he already read it. At first I thought this was true, but as I saw that the book was brand new I figured my mom must have arranged for my friend to give me the book. Upon asking my friend about it later, my suspicions were confirmed.
Overall, my sexual knowledge and perceptions from childhood were very screwed up. Other than knowing that boys and girls were differently equipped, I was 10 or 11 before I really understood the mechanics of it. I didn’t date until I was 17 and had my first steady girlfriend at age 18. This was the first time my mom openly addressed the issue of sex with me. My mom told me to “respect” her (my girlfriend). I said, “Of course I’d respect her.” My mom must have figured that I wasn’t quite registering what she was getting at, so she said, “You know what I mean.” Confused, I said, “No, I don’t.” She said, "I’m talking about sex! It was the first time my mother had ever spoken that word directly to me. In fact, it may have been the first time I ever heard her say it. It took me aback for a moment.
If I had been more comfortable about these things as a child I might be married today or at least have a better dating record. At age 37 I am still single and steady girlfriends (only three) have been few and far between.
I remember I was middle school age and I was watching TV with my dad. I reached into my pants to scratch myself, and he responded with shocked disapproval bordering on mild hysteria. He thought I might be masturbating! (please note: my hand had only been in there for 2 or 3 seconds).
Since that moment, I knew neither of my parents (both fundamentalist Christians) were people who I could rely on for information or feedback that was going to be rational, unbiased, or nonjudgmental.
I remember asking my parents a sex-related question when I was about 9 or 10. My dad looked at my mom, then shrugged and said, “If you’re old enough to ask, you’re old enough to hear the answers.”
He then proceeded to explain in a fair amount of detail the biology and mechanics of human reproduction, with my mom chiming in. I was a little embarrassed by the whole thing, sure. But my dad approached it completely unfazed. Man, it was fascinating.
I don’t think my parents gave me any kind of “talk.” I remember hearing the word “erection” at one point - maybe from staying up to watch Saturday Night Live, I’m not sure - and asking my mother what it meant produced a shocked reaction and being told to ask my father. From her response, I didn’t want to ask, and in fact didn’t.
I read a lot of books and encyclopedias, and probably came upon most of it that way. Also saw a few porn mags (owned by friends’ fathers), and starting in 5th grade we had the “separate the boys and girls and tell them about their parts” sex ed, plus the girls learned about menstruation. We had a little more in-depth education the following year, and by the time I got to high school it was all sorts of stuff - homosexuality, STDs, masturbation, and so on.
Back in 1965 when I was eleven years old, I naively asked my mom about something that I read in Dear Abby. “Mom, what’s statutory rape?” She told me it was when a man hurts a woman. Sensing my mother’s discomfort, I got the distinct impression that I had asked something I shouldn’t have. I suspected there was more to it than that. I had figured out the bare mechanics of human sexuality on my own, but still regarded them with disbelief.
That same year Johnny Belinda was on TV. A week in advance the network warned that this movie was unsuitable for younger viewers. My bedroom was an alcove off the living room. I stayed awake listening to the movie and that’s how I figured out that rape was a crime having to do with forced intercourse, although voluntary intercourse yet remained an incomprehensible mystery.
When I was in the 6th grade, my father was a 6th grade teacher in a neighboring school district. He was involved in writing the sex education curriculum for New York State elementary schools and he taught sex ed to his students (arousing the ire of the conservative machine which ran the town, resulting in my father’s harassment by the police, but that’s another story).
One weekend, Dad took me to his classroom and showed me the same educational filmstrips he showed his students. He explained that sex is how a man expresses his love for a woman. The consequences of that noble advice were semi-disastrous. By the time I became sexually active at nineteen, I found myself falling in love with every person I had sex with (beginning with women and graduating to men). I was envious of people who were able to separate sex from feeling. I knew nothing of lust.
When I was in college I vexed my friends no end by insisting that “sex and love” are the same thing.“ You can image their howls of protest. “Sex and love are two different things,” they insisted. “They can be,” I argued.
I longed to experience the pure sensuality of sex. For years, I could only experience raw sex for its own sake within the secure, trusting embrace of a relationship. Only thus could I attain that rung of selfish pleasure. Between relationships, I strove to separate sex from feeling. For better or worse, I succeeded, but that too is another tale.
Never got anything from my parents. I was homeschooled, and around the age of 14 my Dad told my Mom that “he’ll have to have sex ed this year too”. My mother gave the blustering embarrassed reply of “But that’s common sense!” He retorted with “to a 40 year old woman, maybe, but not a 14 year old boy.”
I sat silently wishing they would just shut up, because I had already looked everything up in the encyclopedia and the internet.
I gave my Mum the talk myself a few months ago, telling her that I didn’t want my brothers finding out the way I did. She was no less embarrassed this time around, so I doubt she did.
I thought of one factor that might be important - AIDS. I wonder if the post-AIDS generation gets the talk far more reliably than those of us in the pre-AIDs generation. We had to worry about pregnancy and VD, but neither is quite so scary as AIDS.
I got the ‘‘bare-bones’’ talk when I was 6 and asked my mother if sex was illegal (everyone always acted hush-hush about it, so I assumed it was against the law if it had to be done behind closed doors.)
Then when I was 10 I read my mother’s copy of ‘‘Our Bodies, Ourselves.’’
But I got my real sex education from my Aunt and her friends once I turned 13 (she was 26 then.) They were wild and single and loved to talk about sex constantly. I spent every weekend at her house eating pizza and listening in on many explicit conversations about sex of all kinds–straight and gay alike. It was discussed in the context of monogomous relationships and in the context of one night stands. We talked about contraception, oral sex, 69, anal sex, threesomes and everything under the sun. We talked about how to know when you weren’t ready, how to know when you are ready (the answer is: if you can deal with ALL of the consequences no matter what happens in the relationship), not to confuse lust with love, ALWAYS speak up if you aren’t enjoying yourself and don’t be afraid to be sexually aggressive even if you ARE a woman–some men can’t deal with that, but the ones who can are better lovers anyways. I saw Madonna’s censored videos and ‘‘Truth or Dare’’ and ‘‘Bedtime Stories’’ and they showed me gay porn magazines so I knew what a penis looks like and how beautiful men’s bodies can be.
Confused the hell out of my first sex partner–I was 18. First time we had oral sex I went to town without a moment’s hesitation and afterward ran to the bathroom to get a warm wet washcloth for cleanup. He was blown away by my sense of competence. Nothing was unexpected or scary and I knew damn sure what my personal boundaries were and was able to stick to them and have fun at the same time. I think my attitudes about sex on a macro/social level are about as balanced, rational and positive as you can get.
My mother started in on “the talk” when I was fifteen, and she found out for certain that I was sexually active. (She came home while my girlfriend and I were in the shower.)
I was a bit taken aback, since I had been sexually active for a few years by then, and made no attempt to hide it from her, apart from the bare minimum (like not actually having sex in front of her.) Christ, my girlfriends slept over frequently enough. What did she think we were doing up there? I don’t even know how to play pinochle.
Later, she said that she couldn’t imagine that I would have, you know, actual sex, because I was just a “baby.” I don’t get it – she was married at sixteen.*
Maybe it’ll make sense when I’m a parent. (If I huff enough glue between now and then.)
Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom – but I hope to god I have better parenting skills than she did. Eesh.
*Actually, to be fair, she did say that the whole sex thing was pretty much a complete surprise to her at the time.
Before I got the book I saw part of a TV special about safe sex. It included a “demonstration” of condom use. The demonstration consisted of a man opening a condom wrapper and putting it on his first two fingers. As a result I though the proper term for those fingers was a “penis”.
We got the VD slideshow in 11th grade. Not only was it mandatory (though I assume parents could’ve gotten their kids out of it), but the teachers walked up and down the aisles of the auditorium to make sure nobody had their eyes closed. This was the only time in my life I was happy to be blind as a bat without glasses . Us guys had to watch slide after slide of diseased penises, testicles, and anuses its. For some bizarre reason the girls had to watch the same slideshow in addition to the female version. What’s up with that?
Somehow, I doubt it. I suspect most parents wouldn’t worry about their kids getting AIDS unless they had gay friends - and yeah, that makes absolutely no sense, that’s the point. Last I checked the stats, the fastest-growing group of people newly infected with HIV was teenagers.
Our Bodies, Ourselves was mentioned earlier - I have a teenage niece who until a year ago lived in an apartment upstairs from my husband and I, with her divorced mom (my SIL), starting around age 12 or so. Even a couple years ago she showed an extreme reaction to any kind of media showing kissing/nudity/sexual content, especially around her mother; she even covered up a sticker with the Venus de Milo on it. I suspect it may have been an exaggerated attempt to look like a “good girl” to her mom, or embarrassment at seeing that sort of thing in movies with her mom around, but I was still concerned, especially since during the last couple years she had started dating steadily an 18 or 19-year-old guy who had his own apartment. I left for her - with her mother’s permission - a copy of the most recent edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves, the adult edition instead of the teen version. I was pretty well-read in college but considered it an extremely useful “manual” for my body. I was disappointed to find it, after they moved out, in the piles of stuff they left behind in the garage. Whether she didn’t want it for a variety of reasons, or whether her mother peeked at it and realized that no, she didn’t accurately remember what the book was when I described it to her, I don’t know.
Word on this. Olive’s post here confused me too. Wasn’t she the same one who said she was sexually abused throughout her childhood and now cannot even bear to have sex with her husband? Now she’s saying she didn’t have her first partner until she was 18 and her attitudes about sex are “…are about as balanced, rational and positive as you can get.”
I got most of my information like my fellow nerds, by looking stuff up in the dictionaries, encyclopedias and promising-looking books at the library. Plus, in middle school I read the works of one Jane M. Auel. Thanks, horny cave people!
I was way too uncomfortable to ask either of my parents about it. We had some sex ed in school, with very simple line drawings and classes split between boys and girls.
My mom finally gave me The Talk by taking me out to lunch when I was maybe 10 or 11 and explaining some of the basics, along with what to expect when my period came. I remember being just frozen by agonizing embarrassment – plus feeling somewhat betrayed because here I was getting taken to lunch, just me, no siblings, which was an extremely rare treat, and she had to go and ruin it by giving me the Talk.
She also gave me a book, but it was by Anne Landers and written in the 60s, containing ideas that today are hideously out-of-date. Like boys become gay when they don’t have a proper male role model, and masturbation is a sign of weakness and certainly is not indulged in by adults in loving relationships. That book gave me some serious guilt over the latter issue.
When I was around 10, I got the “You’re Becoming a Woman” pamphlet, “readiness kit,” and talk, but only about what to expect when I got my period.
As I was leaving for college, my mom informed me that she hoped I’d wait for marriage, but if I did decide to “share my body” (direct quote) , she hoped I’d “be careful.”
My dad can’t even deal with the word “sex” in the context of gender. I should ask my brother what kind of talk he got!
. Us guys had to watch slide after slide of diseased penises, testicles, and anuses its. For some bizarre reason the girls had to watch the same slideshow in addition to the female version. What’s up with that?
