can you say va-jay-jay?

i let loose caleb and maddy the bonds of nap time and turned on the tv to hear "and the erect penis goes into the vagina" even before the picture became fully lit. oprah. at 4 pm. i've never scrambled so fast to find that super-hero word girl on iptv.

it's 9 pm, little ears are in bed, and i'm taking advantage of this program's re-airing on the fancy-schmancy digital abc pt 2.

dr. berman is playing wing-man for a mother talking to her 10 yr old daughter about the mechanics of sex, the great period, and whatever else the child wants to ask. diagramarama. "but, where does the period come from?" followed with something like "i better stop wearing white pants, that could be dangerous." oh. priceless.

mine with my mother started in the car headed home from horseback riding lessons wednesday nights. mom would pull out some prop or diagram finishing up our conversations in pj's before bed. never a photo picture. but once a wooden-handled back massager and a condom. i was 8.

i asked mom just before leaving for college why she told me so much, so young, and she gasped, "you were asking!" ah, so. kids. they tend to forget the details. i thought all through my teens that mom was just a real women's libber at heart. like in college she may have burned her bras had she not actually needed them for comfort and support. no. apparently i ran out of things to say about my day at school, homework and horses 5 minutes into our 25 minute drive. i spent the following 20 minutes giving my mother hives.

and now what the doctor suggests to discuss with an older 15-16 yr old girl...

oral sex
sexual response
vibrators
self-stimulation
self-control

omilord

gayle's throwing up her skyped hands and oprah's fidgeting a time or two.

i spent a summer month or so with my aunt and uncle in indiana watching their two toddler boys. it was just before i entered the ninth grade, and i still question whether i was really old enough to be watching a 3 and 2 yr old. but there i was. feeling pretty grown-up. away from home for the first time. defining myself.

one day i walked into their guest room-turned-mine to find my aunt and uncle had left two books on the bed. the one i no longer remember, but the cover and title were equal in 70's flair to the other i do: 'the joy of sex'.

i'm still all these years later at a loss to describe my reaction. sheer thrill embedded in...terror? nothing was ever said about this inter-room loan. i kept the two books stuffed deep under the guest bed-turned-mine. meaning at night i would sometimes have to crawl underneath to retrieve them again where i would be up late pouring over the pages.

no more diagrams. these were pencil-drawn folks with faces. and skin. and in the other book? real people. and skin. some of it i found exciting, some disgusting, most of it i'm sure went over my head. all of it, i realized, just wasn't all so forbidden. or racy. these people in pencil and real were old. and i have to say. not all that attractive. i had a new found appreciation after that for the imagination clothing allows to flourish.

when i left for home, i tucked the books under the guest pillows-turned-mine, and that was that. mom filled in pieces here and there when i would ask, and i felt confident throughout high school that i need not be doing it to know about it. i questioned whether i would ever find a husband, not whether i'd know what to do with one.

i cannot imagine had someone left a vibrator on a guest-turned-my bed.

mom never even had the sex talk as a teen. she actually once suffered banana confusion. sex to her was intercourse. straight up. oral was beyond intimate. in fact she often subtly reminded me that the fun of being married (aka 'having sex') was finding all the other erogenous zones. like the ear. not in addition to, but instead of. ya know. as in 'tickle the ear, you don't need to touch anything else. he won't believe you maybe at first, but trust me... it works just as well.' (i have to say. vern's ear is not ticklish or otherwise, and when i realized that i busted out laughing wishing so badly to call up mom.) and here these middle school kids think oral is just a step after kissing and under-the-shirt. and sexting each other. and ___. and i feel an emerging case of the hives.

dr. berman makes the point that girls need to be able to learn their own sexual response, and if your girl understands her own body and can do it for herself, she's less likely look for it elsewhere. and that climax is often hard to acheive without clitoral stimulation. and that she believes every woman should have one. berman's not waving around anything obscene. i mean, it's little, and does not look male.

but wow.

but.

yeah. you can be book smart and still get caught up in the moment. not be able to recognize that moment for what it really is. not be able to separate in that moment the feeling from the person you're feeling it with. it can all be a little overwhelming. we do have our kids run through fire drills for a reason. so they can think through the emotion. so they can stay safe and make the smart decisions you hope you've guided them to.

but. whoah.

and. is it so different for boys? and do we not teach them self-control?

i'm glad i have 14 more years to think on this with vern. i can handle the great period questions. i can point out girl and boy parts on a diagram. we have somewhere 'the joy of sex' for later years. but i do not have a vibrator. manly or otherwise.

the matter of sex ed is two-pronged. i do not want my children to be having sex until they're married, or way-old in a committed relationship. way-old and married. but really, it's not up to me, the when. i want them to always have respect for and ownership over their bodies. and when they do have sex, i want it to be good. simply waiting until marriage does not guarantee the good part. mom taught me that. still. a vibrator? for my teen daughter?

oh. for now to bask in the pre-school confusion over phonics, and ponder privately if i'm really missing as much as mom was always just touching dad's ear.