Musings - Mama Kat's Workshop (21st July 2011)

Sex education! How old were you when you learnt about the birds and the bees? Who taught you? Describe that experience.

The thing I remember most about sex education in my high school was the cartoon penis but I am jumping ahead in my story, I tend to do that so try and keep up...

I think I first knew that sex existed from watching it in the movies. You are probably thinking that my parents were appalling to let a young child watch the famous get it on but I am talking about films such as Top Gun and Dirty Dancing where sex was in silhouette and the most you saw were naked shoulders or the profile of floppy hair. For years I thought sex involved kissing a boy who had to be sweaty and / or covered in grease... oh such simple times.

Then I saw the likes of Pretty Woman and Cocktail (I am sensing Tom Cruise was very loose in the 80s) and my naive and simple illusions were shattered. But hey, I was a resilient kid, I decided to ignore it, it looked gross anyway and if I was watching a film with my parents it was better to play oblivious and avoid embarrassment.

So... sex education came when I was in high school hence the cartoon penis remark above. I remember that the woman who came to talk to us about how you do what with what was also the same woman who the year before had been checking our slightly shorter versions for head lice. Surreal? Inappropriate? While the experience is now vague and patchy I think of it with amusement, I think of...

• The whiteboard at the front with all the slang words for reproductive organs, some of which still make me twitch today.
• At thirteen finding that not all my class mates were virgins, what the hell!? I still hadn't had the nerve to let my Barbie and Ken have sex.
• The boys groans and giggles when the topic of periods came up.
• The girls giggles in retaliation when the boys were faced publicly with wet dreams.
• Condoms. And in the break watching some chap blow one up on the top of his head.
• Our parents still did it... erreugh.
• At some point we would WANT to do it.

And of course...

• Watching the video cartoon of a naked man and woman sat in a bubble bath with a plastic yellow duck. The nice gentleman on the voice over would ask each of them to stand in turn, and while the duck oglged, he described all manner of bits and pieces. 

It was all a bit odd which I guess sex is really. I mean if you think about it... there are so many design flaws its amazing anything gets 'done' ha ha. And that was it until I got to experience it myself which is a whole other post and one I will not be writing, I'm a prude Brit after all.

P.s. Writing this post has made me think about how I will discuss the birds and the bees with Katharine and after some thought and coming up with nothing I have decided to let Mr Cruise and the nit nurse clue her in instead.

Chicken? Me? Too right!

:) xx