*Be forewarned…this post talks about periods, romance, and s-e-x…
When I was a kid, my parents were suuuuuuuuper prudish. It was a combination of living in a hyper-religious household mixed with the fact that my older sister dared to have a baby out of wedlock *insert sarcastic gasp*
They got over the baby thing pretty quick, and ended up being really good parents/grandparents and babysitting for my sister all the time. They really were awesome, so please don’t get me wrong about that. It’s just….they were flawed. All parents are flawed but mine were flawed in this regard. Like, big time. Like, really big time.
Growing up, my education on the birds and the bees was non-existent. I think they figured if they never talked about it, it wouldn’t be a problem? After all, how can one have sex if one doesn’t know what it is? Whenever we’d watch a movie, if people started making out, my dad would automatically fast forward. Didn’t even give it a chance. Just zzzzzzzzzzzzzip! Scene skipped. Consequently, in my naïve little mind, I assumed they must be doing something really bad for him to skip those scenes every time. So that must mean they were having sex. It was after that conclusion that I noticed the world was awfully full of public “sex.” I saw it at the pool, at the park, at my piano teacher’s house with her teenage daughter and her boyfriend. I was blown away by all this exhibitionist fornication! I’d talk to my best friend and say, “I totally saw people doing it at the pool today!” She, who actually knew what real sex was, was pretty shocked by that.
This assumption went on a few years until it somehow naturally faded away, but that didn’t mean I knew what sex actually was yet. I just knew it was more than making out and that a lot of times people were naked. Once, I asked my parents what a boner was, something I heard at school. Not only did I not find out, I was grounded for even asking. Sheesh. Talk about nurturing a child’s curiosity.
As you can imagine, I was too chicken to ask about sex (didn’t want to get grounded again) and my parents sure as hell weren’t about to volunteer the information. I was allowed to take one year of human growth and development. The year where they teach you about periods and you get to see the teacher put a tampon in water and laugh at how big it gets. Once it got to learning about “boy bodies,” they had the teacher give me library study time while everyone else got a more…thorough education. It wouldn’t be as fucked up if SOMEONE had told me what the hell it was all about. I mean, if you don’t trust the education system to go about it (you probably should, actually), at LEAST do it yourself. I don’t know what their end game was, I really don’t.
Oh, also, we didn’t say the word sex, by the way. My twin and one of our many older sisters (who was already fucking married and very well knew what the hell it all entailed) called it chex instead. You know, like the cereal. Chex. Chexy. Chexual. Chexyness. You get it. In fact, years later at my bridal shower, my older sis gave me lingerie wrapped in a chex box as a joke. You know what? She’s 53 and she still calls it that. Yeah.
Back to my formative years. We’ve established now that I knew absolutely nothing about the subject. But T (my twin) had a friend who had cable. She knew EVERYTHING, and passed this wisdom to my twin. T didn’t tell me anything, at first. It was an awkward subject for people in our household, and I think she figured I’d figure it out. I didn’t. I was probably about fifteen, yes fucking FIFTEEN, before I knew the actual gist of it. It was when I started sleeping on my twin’s floor every night (see previous blog post for reference). It was dark and late and I finally had the guts to ask her about it. I said, “Tell me if this is right. Is it when two people…” and then I told her my theory. I wish to god I remember what I used to think. I have absolutely no idea what I said. What I DO remember, though, was the cricket chirping silence that followed. I swear, it went on for like, thirty seconds. And then I said, “I’m wrong, aren’t I.” She informed me that yes, yes, I was very much wrong. At that point she quickly told me what the whole ordeal actually entails. I said, “Oh,” and went to sleep. See? It’s not that hard, geez.
Funnily enough, in spite of my trauma with the subject growing up (yes, I do consider the way it was treated traumatic), I could sometimes be pretty blunt about discussing it. As we got older, my parents figured we had heard about it somewhere and got more lax about the subject. My dad started breaking out dirty jokes, even! True, things were still a lot stricter than most households, but the taboo of the subject was over, the pressure on them to educate us was off. Not that there was much to say about it, of course.
Anywho, I was an odd mix of extremely repressed in terms of sexual subject matter, and also uncharacteristically open. I’m still kind of like that. I mean, you’re reading a blog about my history of learning about sex, for fuck’s sake. Here’s an example. T started her period a year before me, at the age of 11. She was horrified and hid it from my mom for months. She stole our sisters’ pads, regularly threw away her stained underwear, and didn’t mention it at all until my mom finally got wise and started wordlessly leaving her supplies without any other acknowledgement of the situation. They just didn’t talk about it. Cue ME starting a year later. We were at church when it happened and I had to deal with that fun business until we got home. As soon as we got in the door I said, “Mom. I think I started my first period. I need one of those pad thingies and a hoagie.” And that was that.
This openness continued as I got older. T and I were once again sleeping in her room and somehow the subject got on female anatomy and how many “holes” they had down…there. T, in spite of her MTV connections, was certain the answer was 2. I, however, knew it to be 3. We happened to have a series of medical encyclopedias as my mom got suckered into buying them from a door to door salesmen. It was the 90s-yes, that was a common thing. I regularly perused them, coming up with fodder for my massively hypochondriac paranoia. I’d seen many a section on gynecology and knew in my soul of souls that the magic number of nether-region holes was 3. T didn’t believe me. I got up, knocked on our parents’ bedroom door, was admitted and asked, “Real quick, how many holes do women have down there? Is it two or three?” My bewildered parents stared at me before my dad finally said, “Three.” I said thanks, closed the door, and lorded it over my twin thereafter, as one does.
You may be asking, why am I telling you all this? Because, though I’ve come a looooong way, there’s still a small, naïve part of me that is that ignorant little kid who was raised to think that sex was bad. I mean, obviously I know it’s not. But I have a lot of catching up to do in terms of actually being comfortable with the subject. I’m still learning euphemisms to this day that no one ever told me, like when someone says, “they like to eat a boxed lunch,” I had no idea what that meant. I had to have it explained to me just a year ago. I’m almost 40. By the way, if you didn’t know, “box” is a euphemism for -*whispers*-vagina.
Lately, I’m trying to get over some of the mindsets I was given in my formative years. I’m definitely not a prude, and I make dirty jokes all the time (the ones I understand, anyway). But there’s still that person inside me who is late to the game. Who doesn’t know all the ins and outs that everyone else does. And who definitely doesn’t consider herself sexy. Honestly, I feel like a dumpy idiot who has no right to consider herself attractive or in touch with her sexuality. Isn’t that sad? Everyone should have that kind of confidence and self-assurance. But I feel like I’m too silly, too awkward and too foolish to ever be taken seriously in that regard.
I’m not a sexy person. I’m the plucky comic relief in my role in life, not the gorgeous leading lady. I joke with my husband all the time and pretend I’m a stripper by shaking my sweatpants clad butt, holding my hand out and saying, “Give me a dollar! I want a dollar!” and then I laugh and laugh and the poor man has to pretend it’s funny, every time.
But you know what? Life is too short not to be the leading person in your own love life. Whether that is a sexual one or not. To feel confident and attractive, even if you’re not in a relationship, is a good feeling. But god is it hard to do. At least, if you’re me. So I’ve been giving myself homework. I’ve been listening to erotica audio books on my headphones while I do dishes. This is some raunchy stuff and it’s really not my thing, honestly. Definitely doesn’t do it for me. But it has been educational! And it is getting me used to that subject being more front and center in my life, even if I do literally make THIS face throughout the entire ordeal.
Recently, I’ve taken this to the next level and have started writing my own short romance. Why? Because I just can’t stand most of the stuff that I’ve been listening to. There’s a lot of tropes in the romance industry I absolutely can’t stand and I figured if I want what’s more to my taste, I should write it myself. Also, I’m pretty sure a therapist would say this is exactly what I need, because it’s forcing me to be involved in a subject that I’ve never allowed myself to be immersed in before. It’s making me take myself seriously enough to get out this stuff on paper. I’m both horrified and having an absolute blast. The idea of someone reading it makes me want to scream, but I might actually do it and put this mofo out there. Maybe. We’ll see. Even if I don’t, though, it was a good exercise for me and one I might continue. Who knows, maybe someone else will enjoy it. I can’t promise it will be your cup of tea, or that it will even be good. But I can promise you, a chexy, chexy time.
Mildly Miffed 