*for best results, don't sharpie body parts out of textbooks.
Growing up I did not have any sex education… at all. In fact, I didn't even know that sex existed. I was always told that babies come into being when God decides that a man and a woman who are very in love deserve one.
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| My biology books that dealt with male and female anatomy had sharpied in swimsuits to protect my young eyes. |
I remember that I came very close to uncovering everything when I was about 11. A friend of our family had become pregnant at 17, and her parents didn't want the father of the baby anywhere near their daughter. I was terribly confused as to why everyone was so upset.
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| *Actual conversation |
Sure, I frequently heard the words “abstinence” “virginity” and “purity” thrown around, but I didn't have the slightest idea what any of those words really meant.
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| In my mind, virgin meant "Very Holy" |
Eventually I did learn about sex… albeit in quite an unconventional way.
When was 14, I started sneaking downstairs after my parents had gone to bed to talk to my friends on AIM. One night a friend asked if I felt like giving a public chatroom a whirl. I was feeling a bit adventurous that night, so I did. Everything was pretty cool, and I was having a good time talking to people about Green Day and Evanescence... until I got a little side chat. A boy from the chatroom had messaged me privately! I don't remember what his screen name was, but I know it started and ended with a lot of xxxs.
Our chat went something like this:
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I had no idea what horny or f*ck meant. I mean come on, I was growing up in a house where saying “butt” got your mouth washed out with soap. The gears in my head were spinning rapidly. What was he talking about? I couldn't let this kid in on my ignorance, what if those were words that everyone my age was supposed to know?! I’d seem so lame! So I rushed downstairs to the classroom in our basement, pulled out Webster’s dictionary, and found the definition for “f*ck” inside.
usually obscene : to engage in coitus with —sometimes used interjectionally with an object (as a personal or reflexive pronoun) to express anger, contempt, or disgust
"Ok", I rationalized; "So either this kid is calling me disgusting, or he wants to engage in coitus with me… but what does coitus even mean??"
I needed answers, so I decided to call on an outdated encyclopedia we had in the basement. Inside, I found scientific illustrations that had not been stickered or sharpied over, (I guess my mom didn't think I'd go looking up “coitus” when I didn't even know for sure if men and women had different anatomy “down there”). After reading what it was and looking at the diagrams, I sat in shock for several minutes before finally going back upstairs to the computer. xxXteenageboyXxx had logged off. I closed AIM, shut down the computer and went up to my room where I stayed up all night hugging my knees in bed, thinking that I had just found something I wasn't supposed to, and that I'd never be the same again.
I was basically Sheldon without the brains.
To be continued…
