First time I really recall thinking of it (outside of the normal stage as a kid where I wanted to be naked all the time) was when I found a crude joke under the playground ("What did the di
ck say to the condom?" "Cover me, I'm going in!"). I think I was about 9 or 10 at the time and asked my mom what a condom was. She ended up getting a book for me, and trying to be the good parents she was, asked me to read it and discuss each chapter with her. I was confused by it; the reading level was probably for someone a few years older than me. So I skimmed it, chatted with her, and promptly forgot.
In 6th grade we had the "Changes your body is going through" presentations. I remembered being super curious because boys and girls got different pamphlets and got to watch different movies. It was considered the height of awesome to get your hands on the girls' pamphlet, even though we had no idea what things like "periods" or "tampons" were. The guy's presentation was poorly done, I recall. We had a worksheet that asked us "In what order do these changes usually happen?" It was standard fare like "Sweating more," "acne," "voice changing." I had no clue about any except for one: I was proud handing it in, sure that "public hair" had already happened (hair on my head, right?). Yeah, there was no "L" in that
In high school we didn't have any sex education except for STD stuff in Health class (9th grade). Seriously, zero. It was bad. I finally ended up talking to my dad about it, in one of the most awkward conversations ever. He basically said, "Look, don't have sex. Just don't do it. But just in case, always have a condom. But seriously, if you start having sex right now and get a girl pregnant, you will f*ck up your whole life." My dad NEVER swore around me, so I was pretty shocked. Eventually my mom reminded me about the sex ed book she gave to me several years ago, and that's where I got most of my answers.
Oh, and I was like 12 when I discovered we had a Black Box on our TV in the basement. At 11:30, the channels changed from BET to "TEN, the erotic network." A few nights sneaking down there taught me much of the non-scientific stuff. Then I got caught one night on the stairs, claimed I was just going downstairs to get some water, and never risked it again
Edited, Oct 31st 2011 3:28pm by LockeColeMA