Let's Talk about Sex, Baby...

I'm fairly sure this goes back as far as the times of Caveman Daddies bating Caveman Mammies upside the head out of sight of curious Caveman children but sex education is not easy. Anyone that claims it is should be looked at. Seriously.

Being a child of 80's Ireland in a Catholic school meant our 'education' was an annual night for 6th class ONLY & their mortified parents. Our educator? A lone Nun that, after prayers, would sit on a stool at the top of the hall and proceed to answer questions about sex, from a pile of anonymous scribbles, providing they weren't 'too dirty'. What did we do? We placed bets on who could think of the dirtiest questions, scribed them in our left hands and tried to guess who's question she was reading by the level of steam rising from her habit. It was the 80's, entertainment was thin on the ground.

The only help we got from this night was the instruction to ask our Mammies & Daddies to buy us a 'special book', I still have memories of a, not too distant, relation asking and asking and still gathering the courage to ask for his book, long after his goatee was needing a daily trim.

This is NOT my relation..

It's awkward, end of. Having been a teen Mam, obviously not grasping the finer points of sex education myself, I knew this was something I'd want to change when the lads started asking questions. And boy did they start early. I was fending off 'Yeah, but how?!' from a 5 year old until the best answer I could give was 'Well the man is like a plug and the woman is like a socket, K?' Neither eloquent nor all encompassing but serving to quell the questions, for a while.  I've tried to adopt the always Answer Honestly policy, well as honestly as I can without information overload and it seems to be working. 

 Random sex analogy 10 yrs ago? The web have a pic for that!

The lads are 14 & 15 now, I remember being 14 and/or 15 and it's not easy. We talk openly about feelings and thoughts so 'issues' are just common place chats. 'Pah' I hear you say, well I'm not completely naive. I know for every question there's 5 that go unasked because I'm a girl and they're boys, that's a fact. At those times I'm hugely grateful for a big bro that, although lives in another country, is never farther away than a text/call/email or FB message. According to the boys he's the definition of all things manly so if he says 'Don't go for the feel' the consensus is not to go for the feel (I hope). 

There's also the little invention of the interwebs, embarrassing questions are never quietened quicker than a 'Why do I' google search and seeing the automatic questions asked. As for visually graphic television shows such as The Sex Education show where, this week, I learned that its a myth that dwarves have enormously large penises (A myth, most likely, perpetrated by dwarves themselves). Or Embarrassing Bodies where 'John from Uttoxeter' need not bother his GP with growths anymore but has no problem dropping voluminous trou in front of a web cam for all to inspect his questionable undercarriage.

John, Please!

Try, as I have, to avoid information overload with the lads when it comes to sex, the information is out there, in abundance. I'm resigned to the fact that I'm not their only source of knowledge but I am a source. Only thing I can do is be here for them and try my very best not to be slightly jealous that their love lives are, without doubt, more promising than mine. Those gorgeous swines. 


G'wan tell us... How did you learn about those durrty birds & bees?