Beyond the Birds and the Bees

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or bookmark the page in your browser. Also, please consider submitting your story for inclusion on the site. Thanks for stopping by.No matter how prepared (or smart) you think you are to talk to your children about sex, sexuality, love, puberty, [...]

“How big is your bladder?” my dear son asked me one night a few weeks back.
I told him it all depended on how much urine the bladder was holding. “It’s like a balloon. If there’s a lot of fluid in it, it gets big. If there’s not a lot in there, it’s smaller.”
“So, if it’s [...]

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 [...]

Oftentimes as children grow up, they say “I’ll never do that to my kids!” or “My kids will never have to clean the bathroom!” or something along those lines. Generally it’s being said under their breath after the parent has brought down some incredibly unfair judgment call. You remember those times, right? Yeah, I do [...]

When I look back on my life and try to figure out the exact moment when I realized what sex was, I find it a bit of a letdown that I can’t come up with one. There were always moments that I can say contributed to my not-insubstantial wealth of knowledge on the subject, but [...]

When I was young, sex was never talked about. I don’t remember ever asking any questions of my parents, I wasn’t a big talker and I’m still not.
About the age of 12 I came home one day to find a book on my bed called “Growing Up.” No one said a word, or asked about [...]

For the third and (I believe) final time, my household finds itself in topsy-turvy tempestuousness with potty-learning passion.
I really should have a better grasp on how these things work by now. If I consider it rationally, I know that this is a normal progression which in a matter of weeks will be nothing for [...]

My father’s side of the family is Finish. My father, though born in North America, was raised in a tightly knit and traditional Finnish community.  The language and culture are his first language and culture.  This, among other things, means we have a sauna at my cottage and I have been going in the sauna [...]

My parents never told me anything.  Learning about sex in the late 70s-early 80s was like taking an independent study course with a couple of professors who couldn’t be bothered to keep office hours.
I was a first-born, serious girl.  I had spent my preschool years playing outdoors with my older male cousins.  Sometimes our games were sexually charged: as [...]

I endeavor to avoid writing about politics on this blog, except when politics intersect with sex. I avoid politics because I don’t want how I feel about deficit spending, or gun control, or NAFTA or other rancorous issues to become entangled in how people understand my films. So much at I might be tempted to [...]