___________________________________________ 

Sex Ed: Circa 1944-1&2

 “You know,”

 the boy’s mother said, 

“you must talk to your son!”

“He’s got to know something,”

the boy’s father said,

“he’s got to have some idea!”

“You’ve never had a ‘talk’,

why would he?”

Hesitantly, “Well, okay.”

Then said with a leer,

“How’s ‘bout a little practice?”

“To refresh your memory?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“No,” she said.

Quiet a moment,

“How?”  The father asked.

“What do I tell him?”

“Use the book.”

“The book?”

“ Yes, the book:

‘The Joy of Sex’.”

            ****

Supper through, 

“Can you come in here,”

the father called,

“I want to talk to you.”

“Aw, Dad,”

the boy answered,

“ The Shadow’s on.”

At the kitchen table

a cigarette in his mouth

before him a book,

a pad of paper,

a pencil and an ashtray.

Wanting it over,

“This is important,”

the father said,

“come here!”

Lying in front of the radio,

rising from the floor,

wondering…

What’d I do?

“I do something wrong?”

The boy asked.

 Dragging on the cigarette,

“No.  Your mother, uh,”

exhaling smoke.

“Your mother, uh, and me

think it’s time we have a talk

about… things.”

Things?

“What things?”

The boy asked.

“Sit down.”

 Another draw on the cigarette.

“Sex,” his father said, exhaling,

then drawing deeply once again.

“I want to talk about, uh,

 what’s called, uh,  sex.”

Exhaling.

“You know what I’m talking about?”

Shaking his head,

a blank look came to the boy’s face.

“Sex, uh, sexual intercourse is what

a man and woman do when…”

stubbing the cigarette out.

“uh, among other things,

and most importantly, I guess,”

Lightening another cigarette, inhaling,

“sexual intercourse is what a man

and woman do when they want to have a baby.”

Confused, “A baby?”

Seeing the look on his son’s face,

 inhaling….

 “In order for us to talk intelligently…”

exhaling…

Wondering if he and his son could talk intelligently.

“Do you know the difference between men and women?”

“Would the difference,”

the boy asked,

“be the same for girls and boys?”

Thinking, Oh, God!

 Bowing his head,

covering his eyes,

Was I ever this stupid?

Drawing on the cigarette,

“Yes,” the father said,

“the difference is the same…”

Sensing himself being drawn deeper

than he’d wanted, “Well, almost.”

His son staring blankly,

“Almost?”

“Girls change when they get older.”

“Change?”

Oh, God!

Inhaling…

“Tell you what,”

…exhaling.

“To make it easier,

let’s not call them

men or women,

girls or boys.”

Inhaling,

“boys are male

and girls female.”

Exhaling,

“Okay! Understand?”

“Yeah,” the boy said.

The father doubted it.

                       Sex Ed: Circa 1944-2

Opening the book,

Opening “The Joy of Sex”

to a pre-marked page,

“Okay, then,”

the father said dubiously,

“here’s the difference.”

The boy stared at black ink

line drawings of a man…

correction,

of a male and female

with lines pointing to various

parts of their bodies at one end

and to a list of words at the other.

Using the eraser end of the pencil as a pointer,

taking a deep breath,

along with a deep draw

of the cigarette,

“This is called, uh…”

Prick  

Having learned a few things on the street,

prick, the boy thought,

but said nothing.

Blowing smoke,

“This is called, uh, the penis.

“And besides using it to urinate from…”

“Urinate?” the boy questioned.

Sighing,

“Urinate is when you got to pee,

only that’s really called urinating.”

Stubbing the cigarette out,

“But besides using your penis to urinate from,”

Thinking, Oh, God!

“When a man and a, uh…”

Coming to the hard part,

the father lit another.

“When a male and a female are in bed together…”

Inhaling deeply, buying a moment, exhaling.

“ ‘it’, the man’s penis gets big and hard

and when that happens it’s called…”

A boner, the boy thought,

“an erection.” The father said.

Having witnessed this phenomena,

a number of times,

the boy’s interest now piqued,

“Like in the morning,”

he asked,

“like when I gott’a, uh,

what you said.” 

“ ‘Urinate’. Yes… well no,

not like when you’ve got to urinate…”

Wondering how to explain this:

“Well, it’s kind of like when you gotta go,

but when a male and female are in bed together

the male doesn’t really have to, uh, urinate.”

“ ‘It’ only looks like he’s gotta?”

“Yes, uh, kind of.”

Oh, God! The father a bit confused.

Dragging deeply on the cigarette,

thinking it best to take a different tack.

“We’ll get back to that…”

The boy thoroughly confused now,

questioning:

“The male’s, uh… what’ch’ma’call it

looking like he’s gotta, you know,

but doesn’t really have to?”

His hand onto his forehead once again.

“Yes, we’ll get back to that later.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Relieved at changing the subject,

pointing the eraser end of the pencil

to the upper portion of the female line drawing,

“These two, uh, things are called…”

Titties, the boy thought.

“These two, uh, things are called breasts

and when a female is young her chest

looks like yours,

but when she,

when the female gets older …”

on a roll now,

“when she,

the female gets older, oh,

maybe when she’s fourteen or fifteen,

they…”

“The female’s chests?”

The father’s chain of thought broken,

“Uh, yeah, her chests… Uh, breasts!

The female’s breasts start to grow

And begin to look like…”

tapping the eraser, “this.”

“But why?” The boy asked.

“What are they for?”

“For one thing,” the father smiled,

“they sure look nice.”

Seriously now,

“But God really made ‘em for feeding babies.”

“ ‘For feeding babies’?”

The boy asked incredulously.

“How?”