Beyond the Birds and the Bees

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I was raised in a weird combination of conservative Christian values and comfortable honesty. I was never ashamed of my body.

Growing up I spent more time naked than I did clothed. My parents never told me to cover up. I didn’t start wearing shirts around the house until my breasts grew in. I developed quickly though. I was tall and curvy before I ever hit high school.

I was really slow, almost backward with sex stuff, even though it fascinated me. I can remember at six years old rubbing myself against the hard button nose of a teddy bear. But I was afraid to try anything. My grandparents punished me for playing doctor. They said I would go to hell if I had premarital sex.

I was sixteen before I kissed someone. I’d never been afraid of physical affection. In my family, we hugged and kissed and held hands. But my grandparents made sex into something so scary. My mom had always said that sex was a gift from God to share with someone you loved. I didn’t love my first boyfriend but I sure thought I did.

I lost my virginity to him three months after we first kissed. It wasn’t very good sex and I never had an orgasm. That came later with a new boyfriend from oral sex in the front seat of his Dodge Neon. I’m 21 now and I’ve shared my gift with more people than I’ve loved. But I love my mom for never making me ashamed of it the way her parents did.

I told my boyfriend the other day, “I went really slow to my first kiss. I was almost seventeen.”

He laughed and said, “And then you went really fast.”