You may find this post to be a bit TMI, but when has that ever stopped me from sharing…or stopped you from reading, for that matter. Today I’m going to share with y’all how my parents taught me about the birds and the bees.

It was a day now lost to time, but it occurred sometime in 1981 during my sixth grade year. My Mother handed me a book called, “Parent’s Answer Book”, copy write 1969.

As you know, from reading the last post, my kids and I went to Tennessee to hang out with my parents for a few days vacation. On the first night I was there, my mom mentioned she’d found that old book she gave me about “how to have sex”. I was curious, because I’m always looking for some blog fodder, and told her I hadn’t seen that in years. She motioned me to one of the side wing storage rooms upstairs and said that it was in a box up there somewhere. The next day I went up looking for some of my old beginner reader books for my son and there, beside “Danny and the Dinosaur” was my long lost instructional book. Standing in the storage room and flipping through it I just knew I had to share my experiences with that book. Here’s a picture of the cover. Looks like the perfect Nixon era family, don’t you think?

Reading through it today at 38 I noticed something I’m not sure I noticed when I first read it at twelve. The entire book is written for parents and lists ways they can bring up the subject, discuss and explain the wonders of male and female body parts and reproduction. So it was actually an instructional manual for moms and dads to use to teach their kids. I wonder why my experience with the book was not in the way it was intended? Hmmm…Since I’ve been an adult my mom once told me how she had innocently asked her mother what the word “fuck” meant. (Of course in the re-telling she used the term “the F word” to describe what she’d said.) Her mother promptly set the iron down and slapped her across the face. In retrospect perhaps my dear mommy was afraid of being confronted with such possible scenarios.

Anyway I spent years with the book close at hand. It was kept in the little wicker magazine rack next to the toilet behind the Redbook and People mags. There were quite a few times I’d sit there taking my after football practice dump, flipping through and reading about vagina, vulva, clitoris, the hymen and Fallopian tubes. I’m proud to say that such reading would usually dive me to masturbation (not mentioned in the book, by the way) where I’d promptly ejaculate (is mentioned) into a rolled up wad of toilet paper (not suggested). This went on for years.

Reading through it again I found that there is a section called “100 Questions And Answers”. Since I’m your friend I thought I’d share some of my favorites with you here…

What is making love? I could show you pictures

What is an orgasm? What does it mean to “come”? Again, a ton of self pics…

What is petting and heavy petting? This one used to get my imagination going. Let’s run the bases baby…

What is a penis? (A penis is a man’s sex organ. It hangs on the outside of his body and is the size of a large thumb.) I can remember reading that one, and doing the same thing I did the other night when I read it again…I compared my dick to my thumb. I thought, as I did back then, there really must be some hella large thumbs out there cause mines much bigger than a thumb! Maybe they had smaller peni back in the 60’s.

Does the size of a man’s penis say anything about his masculinity? Uh, duh?

What is a wet dream? Only had two in my life, if you’re taking notes.

How can you tell if a girl is a virgin? I still wonder about this one…something about getting blood on your junk, right?

Are people born homosexuals? The books answer… no….and the book says a homo can change if they want to. Uh, hello? That’s not what Rosie O. believes.

And there were wonderful illustrations…

My favorite part has to be the chapter where they give you ideas of how and where to talk to your child about sex. For the Mother they suggest a long drive in the country where you can keep your eyes on the road and not have to look at the child. Then there is being on your hands and knees waxing the floor. That way you can concentrate on your work, and not the child. (yeah I can think of better ways for Mom to spend time on her knees…) For dad they suggest talking with your son while piddling around in the garage or basement. What? You shouldn’t invite them into the room to watch old Mom and Pop go at it? I did witness this at my friends house, with his parents being the fornicating subjects….but that’s another story for another day.

Well, there you go. A little fun look back into my childhood and my sexual development. And you wonder why I’m so messed up today?

My boss is in town working with me for the next couple days. May be mid week or later till I can get back with y’all. Have a good one!