DIY Sex Ed

Plumbing the Mystery of the Birds and the Bees

As a callow, overweight youth just having graduated from Tween University with a degree in Acne, I felt certain stirrings and had heard certain rumors about “doing it.” One day I repeated a crude joke from the playground to my mom. When she failed to laugh at it, I followed up with:

“What’s a cunt?”

“Well,” she said, drawing a breath and letting it out, “it’s part of the female anatomy and I’ll leave it at that. I think you and your father should have a little talk about the birds and the bees.”

Assuming she had prepped Dad to have “the talk,” I waited for it to happen, face flushing whenever we menfolk were by ourselves, but he never did tell me anything about reproductive rites. But it wasn’t long before a little book that I didn’t think had been in our library mysteriously appeared on my bedspread, called Facts of Life and Love for Teenagers by a nice lady whose name has given me the Freudian Slip.

So I did what any 13-year-old would do: I immediately hid the book, lest a friend come by and notice it, and furtively read it in bed by flashlight, looking for the good parts. There was, alas, no mention of birds or bees. It occurred to me that I had never witnessed birds doing it, and certainly not bees, but perhaps those two houseflies I remembered seeing united in flight were making whoopee. It must be a thing, I figured, recalling listening to Noel Coward croon “Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it” from our phonograph, but really, how do birds do it? Do they take off their feathers first? Do Bees lay aside their little stingers?

And whatever was “doggy style,” I wanted to know. I consulted the book, but failed to find anything that concerned canines. Recalling that dogs spend a lot of time sniffing each other’s butts, I wondered if that was something grown-ups did in bed. Another term I had heard, “Missionary Style,” also baffled me. I figured Bibles played some role, but couldn’t imagine what it might be.

I did pick up some useful info from the book, like what clitoris, vagina, semen, and vas deferens denoted (enabling me to nickname Anthony Spinelli Spermatozoa), but precious little about technique; that I would have to do myself.

And so, I did it myself, for quite a while. Truth be told, I only managed to do it with an actual female when I was 21. And speaking of technique, do you know how she responded at the peak of passion?

“Hey! That’s my anus!”