Currently viewing: October 2010

looking for sex in all the wrong places

October 27th, 2010
Category: rereading

I googled something about noses the other day and cannot tell you how many odd things sexual sprang onto my screen. A list of very descriptive titles – no need to ‘read on’ to get the gist. Any kid doing a ‘nose’ search could have the same images put into his or her mind at one key stroke. It made me remember just how difficult it was to excavate any information about sex when I was a young. And that we’ve gone from ‘huh?’ to ‘waaaay too much information’ in one generation. I was fortunate in grade six to have a know-it-all friend who told me about sex. She described the mechanics of coitus (I tried to keep a poker face) and told me that this wildly implausible thing was called ‘intercourse’. From then on the antennae were alert for any further and better particulars. Nothing much came my way. In fact nothing. Until I was reading ‘The Getting of Wisdom’ by Henry Handel Richardson and came to a passage in the book during which Laura, visiting her friend Tilly, is left in the dining room with Tilly’s cousin Bob. Imagine my surprise when I read: ‘During this time Laura and Bob were alone together. But even less than before came of their intercourse.’ Their WHAT? They’d already had sex? – and now they were at it again? Where? Under the table? WHAT? I read and re-read the preceding pages and the page in question but was none the wiser. It eventually occurred to me to consult a dictionary and I realised that Laura and Bob had been up to nothing saucier than ‘social communication’. Futher reading was required. As usual, I turned to fiction, the best source of real life at my disposal. In forms one and two (years 7 and I found some more satisfying accounts if not of sex itself, at least of its consequences. I adored books that showed me what I imagined to be the seedy side of life, and how a girl might cope if she were down on her uppers. ‘The L-Shaped Room’ by Lynne Reid Banks and ‘The Millstone’ by Margaret Drabble were two of my favourites. It would not have occurred to me to ask an adult about any of this stuff. I far preferred finding my own way, one book at a time.