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In last week’s column I wrote about sexting. You know, sending sexy words and images over a cell phone. After it was submitted, I found out this week was the special Sex Issue in buzz. Thus, I’m writing two columns in a row about sex. I have to say, another sex column is probably exponentially more interesting than some of the other crap I could write about, but still. It’s weird, I can joke about sex all day long, but I think the joy that comes because it sort of still feels like I’m doing something wrong. Talking, or even writing, about sex just isn’t the easiest thing in the world. I guess some guys just can’t be Henry Miller.
I think a lot of the problem comes from how I learned about sex. As a little kid, the topic just never came up around the house. I was never once at dinner with the folks sucking down some tuna and noodle casserole when someone decided to change the conversation to something about the missionary position, vulvas or even fisting. Sure, my dad often talked about things being in peoples’ asses, but he was mostly referring to my head being up my own. I’m not upset about the lack of sex talk. In fact, even now, I’m sort of grateful.
I mostly found out about sex from the other kids at school. I was using that pesky f-word long before I knew what it actually meant. I think I was in third grade before I even had it explained to me in any way. Even then, it was explained very poorly. Some kid, whose name I think was Wendell, told a group of us fellas that girls had some sort of weird hole where boys’ belly buttons are. If you ever inserted your penis into this hole, even accidentally, a baby would come out almost immediately afterward.
I was confused and more than just a little repulsed. I’m not sure if Wendell was repulsed or not, but he was definitely confused. Anatomy and gestation periods were apparently not taught to us for another few years. Either way, after that inept conversation, sex was all I could think about. I found myself staring at the belly button of every female I encountered, trying to sense some visual image through the fabric. The imagination can be a really creepy thing at that age. Actually, it still is. At least nowadays I know to look a little lower.
Sometime in 6th or 7th grade I actually kissed a girl. It made me feel funny and I immediately wanted to see her belly button. This request was only one of the reasons it was such a short-lived relationship. At this time in my life, it would have been perfect to have some sort of sex education class. Since none were offered, we all just started buying pornography books from the pool hall. It sort of worked. I quickly became aware of what the vagina looked like, and I could at least find it on a map. Bonus.
Some of those books we traded back and forth were actually sort of graphic. I discovered that all men who have intercourse are mustached and purse their lips almost constantly. I also discovered that only trashy, sad looking women have intercourse with these men. The women, by the way, were also often mustached. Looking at the pictures, the act of sex never particularly looked like fun, but still, for some reason I couldn’t wait to try it myself. My biggest problem was growing a mustache.
After all that valuable sex learning, we were on our own for a few more years. The first time I actually had a sex education class was when I was a sophomore in high school. It was actually half of a class since it was lumped in with driver’s ed. This was several days late and several dollars short for many in the class, but it did give us an opportunity to giggle uncontrollably for an hour a day. The teacher was also the football coach, and though he may have been well versed in the ways of love, it quickly became apparent that he had no interest in sharing that with the rest of us. He decided to open the floor up to questions on the very first day, which was a risky decision to say the least. Every raised hand was greeted with a wave of hilarity.
After a few questions that didn’t really require an answer, my friend Mark made a sincere inquiry about the merits of cunnilingus. The teacher/coach immediately explained that this wasn’t a class in technique but instead a requirement from the school board. That was the end of question time, and the rest of the year consisted of looking at diagrams in our textbooks and not making eye contact with the teacher. Some of those pictures in the textbook were more disturbing than the ones in the porn magazines we still looked at.
It was around this juncture when I realized there wasn’t going to be much talking about sex, ever. Oh, I talk about it with the guys now, but it’s mostly in a joking way. There has never been a moment still where I think I know everything there is to know. It’s tough to learn by information and misinformation over a period of many years. It’d probably be much easier to just give up. It’s just that the unknown is so damn fascinating.
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