The following is a chapter from my autobiography in progress:
The Birds and the Bees and the Flowers and the Trees
I never even thought about my parents having sex. In retrospect, I’m sure they did—there are six of us children and only occasional suspicions about parentage. I don’t suppose any child is comfortable conjuring up images of his parents doing it. So when did the first bubble of sexual awareness emerge in my psyche? I’m guessing it had something to do with animals. I dimly remember two dogs getting stuck together, and my mom spraying them with a hose. (Pretty sure they weren’t even our dogs!)
I remember going into my parents’ bedroom on a weekend morning once when I was a small boy. They were just getting up, and my mother was wearing a flimsy nightgown. She bent over to get something and I got a child’s eye view of a breast hanging free under the nightgown. Then I looked at my father, and he had a funny indefinable gleam in his eye. It just clicked. I knew immediately that there was a certain part of their life together that I knew nothing about.
When I was in the second grade and my brother Carl was in the fourth, my father took us out to lunch. We knew that something was up, because he hardly ever did that. Carl rode in the front seat and I rode in the back, and we went to Dairy Queen, which I believe was the only fast food restaurant that existed at that time. My dad had decided that it was time to explain the facts of life—I mean, the mechanics and everything. I don’t recall exactly how he brought it up, or even specifically what he said. I only knew that I didn’t believe him! I remember cornering my brother in the restroom after our luncheon and demanding to know if Dad had been telling truth. I just couldn’t believe that what I used to pee with could have an entirely different function. I still think it’s a biological incongruity—waste and reproduction through the same instrument. How great Thou art.
My next recollection of sex probably closed out my childhood era. I found a Playboy magazine hidden in one of my dad’s drawers. (No, I don’t know why I was going through his drawers.) That really shocked me. But I was getting older by then, and I thought the magazine was very cool. Jayne Mansfield was in it. Pretty soon I was searching through my dad’s stuff, looking for other Playboys.
Oh my goodness this made me laugh! I remember responding with ‘ewww’ when my parents would kiss and my mother would say ‘well how do you think you got here!’ Needless to say I thought babies came from kissing for awhile…
they sorta come from kissing…