music, books, love and kindness

Except for reading Elle for the book reviews, most of my adult life I have shied away from fashion magazines, not because of the fashion itself (though I know nothing about nor care for it that much) but because of the sex articles.

The degree to which some details are shared doesn't offend me (to each her own, right?) so much as it makes me feel completely inadequate and unadultlike. Sometimes, I feel as clueless as I did as a pre-teen.

Growing up, I used to think it was cute that my mom had to spell out words like "bra" and "sex," until, looking back now, I realized I knew little about either because they were two words that dare not ever speak their full name in our house.

I stopped believing in the stork around the same time I stopped believing in Santa, but still I had no clue about sex (no clue!) until middle school. I guess I thought babies popped up from flowers like in an Anne Geddes photo shoot or that two adults (as the narrator in Paul Zindel's Pigman imagines about his parents) bumped into each other accidentally in the bedroom and (bam!) a baby would soon be on its way into the world.

Just when it seemed it was time for my parents to finally explain, to finally explain it for real, "family life" (that was what they called it in the early 80s in my middle school) came along and 7th grade health class turned the silliest possible rumors about sex (you don't even want to know what some of the kids were saying) into sterile, sometimes uncomfortable, biological truths.

I had read a forbidden copy of Forever before middle school, but I honestly didn't get what the two characters did together. I thought it sounded funny more than anything else. It seemed about as romantic as a science experiment with rabbits gone horribly wrong.

My parents meant well, I'm sure, as they were both shy and sheltering when it came to that other "s" word. But I doubt they would have been able to get away with that approach these days. It seems like the age kids find out about sex (though hopefully aren't actually having it) gets younger every year.

My mother would still never dare talk about sex, or "s-e-x," with me now and not just because there's nothing to talk about and I would be mortified to, even if there were. Just as she doesn't seem to truly believe (much less accept) I'm gay, no matter that it's been almost twenty five years since I tried to come out, she seems to believe if you don't talk about something, it doesn't exist.

Maybe I've picked up some of that along the way because instead of reading the articles with interest, I kind of snap through the pages fast until it feels safe again to look at the magazine. How adult is that?