Things Our Parents Told Us About Sex
Digging Around the internet we have managed to dig out some stories of people remembering the birds-and-the-bees talk and spilling all.
The Sex Talk
When I was nine, an older cousin sat me down and introduced me to the contents of “The Yellow Disk,” a three-and-a-half inch floppy filled with low-quality porn. Somehow, my mother caught wind of this, and decided we needed to have “the talk.” So she sat me down and said, “Sex is something two grownups do when they’re in love. It’s like very tight hugging, usually in a bed.” I’d just seen about a hundred pictures of a woman using a rather large dildo, and was feeling a little baffled; Mom’s explanation didn’t really help. — Ben
I was seven. My ten-year-old sister took great pleasure in terrorizing me, so she told Mom that I was hearing “the wrong things” about sex on the bus to and from school, and that Mom ought to just set the record straight. Mom sat me down and proceeded to explain to me the horrors of bleeding out of my vagina monthly, erect penises squirting god-knows-what into my Special Purpose, and bowling-ball-sized parasites emerging from between my legs. “Don’t worry,” Mom said, “It’s just like taking a really big poop, but from your vagina.” — Lisa
My dad’s pretty conservative and we never had “the talk,” but the closest he came was during a fight we had when I was fifteen over a woman’s right to have an abortion, spurred by some “pregnancy help center” pamphlets we got in the mail. I’m pro-choice, he’s not, and it was clear neither of us was budging. My dad’s way of ending the argument? Declaring matter-of-factly — out of nowhere! — in his heavy New York accent, “Boys these days just wanna take off ya clothes and see ya naked,” and leaving the room. Um, weird. Weird! — Jill
I think my parents were very straightforward with me, and I just didn’t get it, since I distinctly recall explaining to a friend that the daddy has a sperm (which is extracted from the penis, medically, of course) and gives it to the mommy (who takes this single sperm and swallows it, like a vitamin pill.) And boom: child in tummy. This, of course, had nothing do with S-E-X, which was when two people love each other so much they want to prove how much they trust each other by being naked together. The end. — Amelia
I saw the movie Hocus Pocus three times in theaters (I was about six) and bought the VHS when it came out. I was obsessed with it. There’s a whole plot point in the movie about how a candle has to be lit by a virgin in order to bring the witches back to life. I had no idea what that was, but it sounded bad, so one time at school (Catholic French school, so really hardcore) I told a classmate that she was a virgin in a really mean voice. My teacher overheard, freaked out, and sent me home early. In the car on the way home my mom very cautiously asked me, “So… do you know what a virgin is? Do you know what… sex is?” And then she gave me the whole speech, and I just remember thinking it sounded terrible. — Danielle
When I was five or six, my parents just left the book Where Did I Come From? in my room (maybe by mistake), and I read it. I then proceeded to replicate the pictures in it, at school, during “drawing time.” My best friend copied my drawing, and we were both sent to the principal. To this day I believe “making love” is supposed to feel like “a gentle tingly sort of tickle” that causes “a special kind of wriggling.” I like to say I’m self-taught. — Andrea
My dad asked me if I knew what a condom was… when I was fifteen. I said I thought I had the basic idea. I wish I could say he’d been reckless to procrastinate, but the sad fact is that while I obviously knew what a condom was, I was in no danger of needing one. — Pete
