Who told you the facts of life?

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

Who first explained to you how babies are made, and how old were you when you first found out what exactly people do when they do it?

My mother left a book on my bed: "Ann Landers Talks to Teenagers About Sex." Sadly mistitled, there wasn't a damn word in that whole book that explained what sex is. In keeping with the customs of our household, Mom never said a word about it afterwards, and I never asked her any questions.

I learned how the parts fit together from a "marriage manual" my older sister kept hidden in her desk under her schoolbooks. I was about 12 years old, and I remember flipping back and forth between the text and the pictures trying to make sense out of them.

[Blue-Jay]

1. Nobody.

My mom, however, left some books out that described the whole process for me to find. I remember a particular passage that described the penis as "thumb-shaped, but usually larger". Of course I compared it to my thumb and did a little dance: "YES! I'm normal!"

We never actually talked about sex, though.

[DarkPhenyx]

2. Playboy, HBO...

...PBS and the Biology books my parents bought for me with all the other sciecne stuff I wanted. :)

[VelmaD]

10. Sounds familiar...

except for the Playboy part. Although...my momma did let me see the Playgirl centerfold with Burt Reynolds. It warped me for life. :scared:

Ah, there was nothing like watching HBO late at night on the little portable black-and-white tv in my bedroom with the sound turned down really low so my parents wouldn't hear. :)

[Dogmudgeon]

3. A college woman named Patty

I was about 10 or 11 at the time.

Patty moved in with us as a boarder. She was studying pre-med in college. I was interested in the sciences, so she'd let me read her textbooks.

The bio text had a cross-section of a couple having sexual intercourse, showing where and how the spermatozoa and the ova managed to get together; previously, I had come up with the absurd notion that they flew, like bacteria were carried on the air.

The picture made perfect sense. I took the book to Patty and solemnly asked, "is this how men and women make babies?" The poor girl went chalk-white and stammered, "yes ... that's exactly it," and hurriedly got lost.

Years later, I learned that she lived in fear for weeks that I would ask more questions about the process. Of course, at ten, I think I would have rather stuck my tongue on an exposed pipe in the middle of a snowstorm than to ... well, you know ...

Patty graduated with honors, went to Hofstra, and, as she put it, got her MRS degree. This was just pre-feminism, a movement in which she also participated to the point of becoming the administrator of womens' studies at one of those NY state colleges. The time period spanned 1968 (when she was boarding with us) to 1975 (when she became an activist-turned-administrator).

And as for me, well, sexuality is the least of my neuroses.

--bkl
Currently posting immoderately

[Awsi Dooger]

4. Similar, my parents left a book on the dining room table

Impossible for me to overlook, when they left to play bridge on a Friday night. I was probably about 10. Must say I was completely stunned at the particulars.

Later they stuck another book in my Christmas stocking, "Boys and Sex and Growing Up."

There was never a spoken word until I was 16 and the family physician, a tomboyish older woman, suddenly accused me of having unprotected sex with every girl in the neighborhood. It was out of nowhere and such a joke I refused to deny it and even had some fun, egging her on. But my mom got a lecture from the physician and was crying on the way home, until I put my arm around her and comforted with the virginal truth.

[SarahB]

5. Mrs Garrett

Actually, my mom. I don't ever remember NOT knowing really. She was very comfortable answering my questions as they came up. I do the same thing. I don't understand why some people get so uptight about explaining this stuff. I think it just breeds dysfunction.

[BigMcLargehuge]

6. you beat me too it!

that was the first name that popped into my head. LOL.

[Beware the Beast Man]

7. Penthouse Forum

I thought the only way to make babies was to be a lonely pizza delivery guy working alone on the late shift with that sexy new manager :silly:

[MissMillie]

8. My mom

But only after the school showed us girls the movie about menstruation. I was in fifth grade.

[fudge stripe cookays]

9. Mom

bought me a 4-book set called "The Life Cycle Library" with really awful 60s type illustrations, and asked me if I had any questions.

She was pretty candid about everything. We also had a sex ed class at school, although I don't remember what grade.

But I was shocked while watching cable to realize people actually moved around when...you know. I thought they just laid there, like the pictures showed. It was much more active than I realized!

For all her prim and proper Catholic-ness when I was growing up, she was remarkably cool about sex when I got to college.

"Well mom, Mike and I are in love, and we're gonna do it."
"Well, I guess you better get on the pill."

FSC

[Lavender Brown]

11. Judy Blume (nt)

[indigo32]

19. A girls best friend

I read all her books.

seriously I learned the mechanics at about 5 from older brothers.

[jmowreader]

12. We learned on the streets...

There were four physicians in my town, and all of them had children of varying ages. All four of the physicians knew parents hate telling their children about the facts of life, so these guys front-loaded their kids with every possible thing there is to know about sex and reproduction while they were in the fourth grade, then sent them out to spread the word.

I think it worked--no one in my class got pregnant and we didn't have Abstinence Education, silver rings, pledges of purity or any of that other fundy crap, so obviously we had a little less sex going on than schools do now but there was still plenty.

[MisterP]

30. haha! information vectors!

[Padraig18]

13. My daddy, when I was 7.

He stammered and blushed a lot, but he got through it. We'd brought our mare to be bred, and I was asking questions, so I think he thought it was a good time to tell me what was what. :)

[tigereye]

15. Catholic school class, strangely enough

it was very clinical. Parents really didn't want to talk about the whole thing, as I recall. In hich school I read a lot of books on my own. It is funny now that I have a kid, and am trying to decide how best to give the info. "Birds and bees" books seem to be a good start.It seems that kids are told this information earlier and earlier and it is hard to decide when is best.

[Padraig18]

22. Before he/she hits puberty, I'd suggest.

A stitch in time, and all that. :hi:

[underpants]

14. Penthouse Forum

There was an article in one called "How to........." by Arthur Bagby that was/IS GOLDEN.

[pagerbear]

16. The Life Cycle Library

A set of books my parents had for me and my sister to read.

[bearfan454]

17. My Dad did.

Us kids were all about 9 or 10. Some neighborhood kids told me to ask my Mom what fuck meant. When I did they all took off running. My Dad came home and said we have to talk. He takes me out in the back yard and points his finger and says you know a man's peepee looks like this right ? I said yes. He made a circle with his thumb and index finger and said you know a girl's peepee look like this right ? I said uh huh. He then told me the man puts his peepee in the girls peepee and that is fuck. It makes babies. They call it fuck.

What an explanation for a 10 year old, huh ? I would never explain it like that to my granddaughter. It is a miracle I came out normal, huh ? LOL right now. That is an example of how NOT to explain it IMO.

[eyesroll]

18. My dad did -- I was about 4, and asked him while we were in the car

He answered my questions in a very straightforward manner, using correct terms. (Nothing highly technical -- he didn't give me the fallopian tubes/vas deferens version of the sex talk. But I did ask where the seed came from and how the Daddy planted it in the Mommy, and he explained how Daddies use their penis to plant the sperm in vaginas. I thought the whole procedure sounded hilarious.)

A few years later, though, my friend and I found a copy of "The Joy of Sex" in her (very uptight) parents' room, and of course we read it from cover to cover and laughed at the line drawings of rather hairy people. That was the first time I understood the actual mechanics. (I got that friend a copy of "The Joy of Sex" for her bachelorette party a few years ago...and, yes, she remembered...)

[Robb]

20. A lovely young woman named Kim

...more of a demo, really. :)

[WillParkinson]

21. Natalie, Tootie, Blair and Jo...

Oh, what wild days those were.

[GreenPartyVoter]

25. *lol*

[trof]

23. My mom. I didn't believe her.

And then I was like...eeeuuuuuwwwwww.

She was more or less forced into it.

I was in 5th or 6th grade (1952ish?). Billy Ansley (yep, I remember his name to this day) was 2 or 3 years older (and wiser) than the rest of us. He'd been "left back" a couple of times since 1st grade.

He sat next to me and a little girl sat in front of him. Just loud enough for her to hear, he was saying over and over "two-bit whore, two-bit whore". I don't know why. She paid no attention to him.

I thought Billy was way cool, so I said "two-bit whore". I had no idea what it meant.
Her hand shot up. "TEACHER! He called me a name!"
Busted.

The teacher asked me what I had called the girl.
"Um...two-bit whore."
Sweet Jesus! Straight to the principle's office, where I had to repeat what I said.
My mom was called. I cooled my heels in the office until she could come from work to fetch me home.
I told her what I said. She asked me if I knew what it meant.
"No m'am."
So my poor single mom had to first explain the birds and bees to her 11(?) year old son and THEN explain women who sold their bodies and that this was a very very bad thing. It was not a good experience for either of us. I was repulsed when it dawned on me what my saintly mother had done so that I could be born.
:-(

[GreenPartyVoter]

24. My mother, when I was 6 or 7, after a tom caught our girl kitty

out on the lawn in broad daylight. Saw the whole thing, so mother figured she'd have to explain it. *l*

My little guys are 4 and 6, and they know that a baby comes from a mommy's tummy and that a daddy put it there by giving her "special loves". They haven't asked for specific details yet, so I haven't given them.

[Lizz612]

26. Encyclopedia

It was a children's illustrated one, lots of bright pictures and the biggest book I owned as a child. It had two pages on "Reproduction" first page was sex and sex organs, second page was fetal development.
When my mother asked me what about the Monica scandal I wanted to know, I think she assumed I would ask what a blow job was. I asked her why a young Monica would want a grey haired Clinton. So instead of explaining the physics of a blow job she had to explain the psychology of power and lust. I was a strange child.

[Rabrrrrrr]

27. Mostly from my minister and a woman in my church

when I was about 12 or 13. My church has long held a class on sexuality, with slides and photos (I'm sure now videos and other fancy things, but when I was a kid, the VCR was JUST appearing), for the 12-13 year old range of kids.

Excellent, wonderful class - learned a lot about anatomy, what every piece is called and how it works and how they fit together, hygiene, all sorts of birth control options, homosexuality, masturbation, etc., and then also did a lot of looking into these issues from a social and Christian perspective, and were left alone (as is the habit of my church, what with it not being dogmatic) to come up with our own faith responses and decisions.

it's too bad that all churches don't do this - speaking from a purely Christian point of view here, the human body is made by God and sexuality is a gift from God, and thus we should know about it, learn about it, and celebrate it, and not make it a taboo, or something dirty. Sadly, I bet if we did a survey, we'd find that the majority of churches which do offer classes on sexaultiy for teenagers don't offer any real information: more than likely, it's all "No sex until marriage" and "control yourself" and "birth control is for whores" and "AIDS is God's punishment for the wicked" and "abortion is wrong", or some variant variations on those themes, but nothing about "these are the parts of the body, this is how they fit together, this is how a baby is made, these are the veneral diseases and treatments for them, etc. etc. etc.

I have always considered myself lucky to have grown up in the church I did, and especially for that sexuality class. I think it was 6 or 8 weeks, one night a week, boys and girls in the same class. It was wonderful.

(and no, there were no demonstrations or "lab time" :evilgrin: )

[NMDemDist2]

28. when i was 8 years old, my mom went to nursing school

she "taught" me her homework every night. She was also a professional dog breeder so I had the basics by 8 years old.

We also had Masters & Johnson around the house when I was about 12 and I read that too

edit to say she was very "matter of fact" about the whole subject so I got a pretty good education for a girl growing up in the early 60's

[noonwitch]

29. The pediatrician

My mom would answer questions, but didn't usually initiate the conversation. Considering she told me "It won't hurt the first time if you're married", I think the pediatrician was a better choice.

[Dedalus]

31. "Somehow, I've Always Known..."

I think only a slightly older person would even think to ask this question (no offense intended)... I'm 26, and I seriously have no memory of a time when I didn't know that babies were made by fucking. I guess I learned that through a combination of playground & TV--there was no "all at once" revelation... I think it's the same for most people my age. 5th & 6th grade health class cleared up some of the fine print for us, like what girls' "periods" were (I'm a boy), and "How do girls pee?" was a topic of contention well into Junior High, but as far as the pole/hole stuff, we had all been on that page for a long time. And you know what? We turned out fine! I'll be damned if I'm going to talk to my kids about sex--I want them to learn from TV and older kids just like I did! When I was a teenager my parents made some half-assed attempt to initiate a "Sex Talk," and I was like, "Are you kidding me? Where were you when I was four?" Later I realized--"Shit, I'm glad I learned all this stuff already, 'cause talking to my parents about it would have sucked."

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

37. No offense taken

I'm 50 so yes, I grew up in a different time than you. Even for the times I was a late bloomer, and kind of oblivious to a lot of stuff - e.g., my mother swore she told me about menstruation before I started, but it was all a big surprise to me when it did - and if my parochial school girlfriends knew more than I did, they weren't talking. Thank god for the smutty books I found in my sister's desk...and the ones I found under my parents' bed.

[Nikia]

32. I walked in on my mother and her boyfriend when I was 6

I was confused about what had been taking place and thought that he was hurting my mother. After that incident, my mother bought the book "Where Did I Come From?" and read it to my younger sister and I.

[SmileyBoy]

33. A cartoony book enitiled "Where Did I Come From?".

I know that it was very blunt and to the point.

[trof]

34. OK, I'll tell the joke.

5 year old Billy asks his mom where he came from.
She takes a deep breath and explains the facts of life to her little boy in the best way that she is able.
"Do you have any questions, Honey?"
"I'm not sure about that stuff. Tommy said he came from Chicago, and I just wondered where I came from."

[ronnykmarshall]

35. My first boyfriend

[TrogL]

36. Sex Ed Class

which I promptly flunked.

Then I leafed through Everything you wanted to know about Sex but were afraid to ask which just confused and upset me (the section of homosexuality is just plain wrong).

My sister was a nurse and I went through some of her textbooks and finally got it right.

(edited for formatting and accuracy)