NO SECRETS!

For a week before the event the girls in my sixth grade class and I would whisper about what was to come.  We had heard about the dreaded visitor from previous classes and knew it was our time.  We would stay seated in our classroom while the boys were ushered out to who knows where.   A woman from one of the sanitary napkin companies would come in and set up a film and pass around some pink pamphlets called “Growing Up and Liking it.”  The discomfort in the room was palpable as flipping through the pamphlet we avoided each other’s eyes.  For many of us this was the first we will have heard about menstruation.

Although the nice lady with the free samples of sanitary napkins taught me about my period she never went over sex and how it happened.  They just mentioned that when the egg wasn’t fertilized . . .  How WAS that egg fertilized???  I have no idea to this day what the boys from our class were taught while they were away.  Did they get little booklets to take home that talked about erections and wet dreams?   Or were they just sent out to play dodge ball?  There was never any talk between the boys and the girls about what we had learned.  We just came out of our respective rooms and that was it.  I would take my little pamphlet home and show it to my Mom and she would ask if I had any questions but I never did or I was too uncomfortable to ask, I don’t know which.  

I remember asking my Mom once how do babies get out of their Mom’s bellies.  She very simply said that all women have a hole between their legs and that’s where the baby comes out.  That was it.  I didn’t ask any more questions because I could tell she was uncomfortable talking about it which made me uncomfortable asking about it.  My Mom always answered my questions very matter of factly but we never had “the talk”.  I don’t ever remember talking to her at all about sex itself.  I don’t even remember where I learned how sex worked or who from but I do remember being very grossed out by the very thought of it once I did figure it out.  Sitting in church I would look at all of the couples, count their children and think, Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Drake had sex three times.  And Mr. and Mrs. Gallagher had it six times.  Then looking at Mr. and Mrs. Houlihan and realizing that ewww they had to have had sex nine times!!  My own parents had to have had sex four times resulting in myself and my three siblings.  I couldn’t even go there.  

Even in high school I didn’t completely understand how it all worked.  There was a “dirty” joke going around our band members.  “Why does Dr. Pepper come in bottles?  Because his wife died three years ago.”  I had no idea why that was funny but of course laughed with everyone else.  To this day I wonder if I was the only one who didn’t get it.  

One of my biggest failures as a parent was the lack of sex education I gave my sons.  I started out with good intentions.  I bought a book about how babies are made and how they are born.  I liked the book a lot and read it to my boys.  I also offered them a book for teenagers that I liked but did I ever mention it again once they took it?  Hell no!  That would mean I had to talk to them about it.  Like my Mom I always answered their questions but I am ashamed to say that they had to figure out most of it themselves and through books and the health classes in their schools.  I don’t even know if my husband spoke to them much about sex.  We never talked about it.  I am hoping he did.  I have a vague recollection of talking to them about condoms when they were in high school and teaching them respect for women but beyond that either I didn’t talk to them or I have conveniently forgotten the conversations we had. 

I do remember one day I was driving three of the boys home from school.  Jake, who I’m guessing was nine at the time was in the front seat.  Drew who was five was in the middle seat  and Sam who was seven was in the way back seat.  Out of the blue Drew said “Mom, I understand that a man’s sperm has to meet up with a woman’s egg to get a baby but what I don’t understand is how the sperm gets to the egg.”  Everyone in the car went silent.  I looked at Jake and he looked at me desperately, silently pleading with me not to go into this in the car with him present.  But you know, you have to take the opportunities when they arise so I said “Well, Drew”.  As I’m starting my explanation Jake is emphatically shaking his head trying to unsuccessfully disappear into the seat of the car.  “When a man and a woman love each other very much they like to cuddle.  So they lie very close together and the man puts his penis into the woman’s vagina . . .”  If it was possible,  it became even more silent in the car.  By this time Jake was bright red and Sam still had not said a word.  I looked in the rear view mirror and Drew was obviously thinking this all over.  “Ok”, he said “that’s all I need to know.”  Jake let out a sigh of relief.  He could not have endured another moment of  such an intimate conversation.   

Why did I have difficulty talking to them about this?  Was it because I didn’t have a role model and didn’t know how to broach the subject?  Was it generational? Was it the leftover puritan ideas of my ancestors?  Was it because they were boys, would I have had an easier time with girls?  To be perfectly honest, at the age of 65 I am still learning about men and their sexual side.  I just read a book about the male brain and the section on teen brains and their singular focus on sex intrigued me. 

When my sons were dating as young adults every once in awhile one of their girlfriends weren’t feeling well and they would tell me she had her period and frequently has cramps. I can never, not once, remember talking to my boyfriends about my period.  I don’t think I could have said the words.  Back when I was young many women referred to their periods as the curse, being on the rag, that time of the month, surfing the crimson wave, shark week, having the painters in.   In other parts of the world they are even more imaginative: In Denmark, “There are communists in the funhouse”.  In France, “The English have landed”.  It’s called “Mad cow disease” in Finland, and in South Africa, “Granny’s stuck in traffic”.  “I’m with Chico” in Brazil, “the cranberry woman is coming” in Germany.  I must say “Granny’s stuck in traffic” is 100% my new favorite.  No, this is not something I would have even mentioned to my boyfriends.  

My son and daughter in law are raising my grandchildren very differently.  My 5 year old granddaughter, Effie, talks quite candidly about her vagina.  When she saw me naked one day she said “You have a big vagina.  I only have a little vagina.”  An enlightening observation, nonetheless I was not quite sure how to respond except to agree.  Another day when she was at the playground she fell.  She explained to me later that she had fallen and hurt her vagina.  We also have frequent discussions about penises and how she does not have one.  She often rubs herself and you can tell it feels good and comforting to her.  Her mother explains that is something she should do in private and she is learning.  I don’t think I knew what masturbation was for women until I was in college.  I thought only men masturbated.  All those wasted years!  I am jealous of my granddaughter who will grow up to feel more comfortable with and have a more positive view of her body.  

At a recent neighborhood dinner one of the younger women was discussing a form of birth control she had decided to try.  She stopped for a moment and apologized saying, “I’m sorry if this is too personal but I think we need to be more open about discussing this stuff and not making it such a taboo subject.”  I agree.  I wish when I was young I could have talked about all of these things with my Mom, my sisters, my girlfriends, my boyfriends.  It would have made everything a lot easier and less mysterious.  

As Albert Einstein once said “Regarding Sex Education, No Secrets!”