Authored by: Genie on Thursday, February 26 2009 @ 07:02 PM GMT+4

"Our Bodies, Our Selves" Every parent should leave a copy of that sitting around the house.

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Wonders Never Cease.

Authored by: cgrotke on Friday, February 27 2009 @ 12:17 PM GMT+4

Excellent book for young men to read, too, so it is good to leave around
even if a parent only has boys.

Authored by: Betsyu on Thursday, February 26 2009 @ 07:26 PM GMT+4

My mother and reading "Peyton Place" while baby-sitting provided the basics, but I really learned the most important fundamentals from the two years I spent with a wonderful, loving, respectful, curious, female-liking, good-humored high school boyfriend -- and he learned from me too. We were partners in learning by talking, responding, questioning, doing!

Authored by: paulgardner on Friday, February 27 2009 @ 06:21 AM GMT+4

My mama (that's what we called her) told me the basics when I turned 13.
I immediately told my younger (10 or 11) brother. "Our mother let our father do that to her?!" was his response.

The day I left home for college my father warned me about "loose women". He didn't define the term and I didn't ask. He started college in 1922 - I was starting in 1971 - there was a bit of a gulf there.

Authored by: pjmelton on Friday, February 27 2009 @ 11:56 AM GMT+4

Wow, that's an antiquated term. My grandmother would have said "Jezebels" and meant the same thing, though. The funny thing is, I have never in my life met a single human being who meets the description the "loose woman" stereotype calls to mind.

But why was he "warning" you? I mean, wouldn't young men want to meet up with a few loose women in life?

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"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR

Authored by: paulgardner on Saturday, February 28 2009 @ 02:05 PM GMT+4

Heck yeah!
But my father was always worried someone would take "advantage" of him and he briefly extended that to me...
"Jezebel" is a more colorful term. It speaks of revival meetings and snake oil salesmen. Did your grandmother grow up in Missouri or somewhere in the bible belt (not sure why Missouri - it's just the state I think of when I think of old tyme revival meetings).

The closest I came to "loose women" was a very brief stint working at a sleazy hotel in the mountains of Norway. There was a wing of the hotel for staff - very small rooms and they were mostly kids 15 to 20, male and female. There were a lot of sexual favors being given/taken and I was mostly blind to it except the one even i couldn't miss. There was a trucker passing through who wanted to talk to me because he'd worked on a freighter to America and wanted to show off his English. He spoke of being in New Orleans which he loved.
It was unclear to me why he was in our little wing of the building, but after a brief conversation he disappeared for a short while. Then there was a cracking, breaking noise from one of the bedrooms and he and a 19 year old blond housekeeper with too much makeup and no cloths emerged from one of the rooms. The beds weren't up to 250 pound Norwegian truck drivers and their partners, apparently.

Authored by: pjmelton on Sunday, March 01 2009 @ 02:39 AM GMT+4

Was that a real "loose woman," or just a prostitute? Hilarious story, whichever she was.

You've got the revival meetings right, but not the state. My grandmother was a religious fanatic who grew up in Indiana and moved to Ohio later. My grandfather was a Nazarene preacher, grew up in Ohio - birthplace of my mother, and also where I endured the first 18 years of my life before my great escape to the big city (Scranton, Pennsylvania).

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"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR

Authored by: paulgardner on Sunday, March 01 2009 @ 09:40 AM GMT+4

She was a part timer, but a prostitute, surely.
I never did ask my dad to define the term, so hard to say if she qualifies.

Indiana makes perfect sense. So it's not just a Green Mountain prejudice to think of Indiana as not a great place to live? Or was it just the particular part of Indiana you grew up in?

Authored by: pjmelton on Sunday, March 01 2009 @ 02:09 PM GMT+4

My grandmother grew up in Indiana, but I grew up in Ohio.

Ohio has some nice towns, apparently, but I didn't grow up in that kind. The part I grew up in...well, let's just say it might as well have been in Indiana. Closed factories, racially motivated violence, devastating rural poverty, extremely high teen pregnancy rates, hundreds of varieties of religious fanaticism, and cornfields and strip malls everywhere you looked as soon as you left the city limits.

In other words, the very worst American has to offer, all wrapped up into one place!

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"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR

Authored by: Mr. Buddy Love on Wednesday, March 04 2009 @ 10:55 AM GMT+4

My dad's only advice to me was two things: wear a condom to protect
yourself from VD and DON'T GET ANY GIRL PREGNANT. Other than that,
I was free to go out and do my thang. ha ha ha

Authored by: pjmelton on Wednesday, March 04 2009 @ 11:46 AM GMT+4

VD - now there's another antiquated term!

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"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR

Authored by: annikee on Friday, February 27 2009 @ 09:20 AM GMT+4

My friends and I had a copy of "The Sensuous Woman" that was passed around and discuseed in low tones. In JHS we had "Hygiene" class, which filled in some of the blanks. In HS "Our Bodies, Our Selves" came out and we got the whole story.

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"I have words in here & I'm not afraid to use them!"

Authored by: Belfast on Friday, February 27 2009 @ 02:17 PM GMT+4

I learned these things almost solely from books.

First encounter with the material was in Sara Stein's "The Science Book",
(general science book for kids & teens) section about chickens & eggs
which segued into next topic subheader: "and how do humans do it ?".
Gosh, I was taken aback by the bare (no pun intended) biological facts...

Subsequent information was incrementally supplied by:
-"My Secret Life": anonymous "Victorian porn memoir" my mother had
(which I'd sneak peeks at when she wasn't around).
-The "Playboy" magazines I found stashed in cupboard at relative's house.
-"Our Bodies, Ourselves" (of course).
-"What's Happening to my Body ?": humorously illustrated series (there
was a sequel or two) of books for adolescents.

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"You cannot administer a wicked law impartially-it destroys everyone it touches, its violators as well as its upholders."

Authored by: annikee on Friday, February 27 2009 @ 03:56 PM GMT+4

I forgot Allen Nilson bringing a Playboy to school! 4th grade, and all of us laughed at pubic hair (women still had it in those days).

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"I have words in here & I'm not afraid to use them!"

Authored by: Floyd on Tuesday, March 03 2009 @ 05:58 PM GMT+4

Asked my daddy when I was thirteen
Daddy can you tell me what love really means?
His eyes went glassy, not a word was said
He poured another beer and his face turned red

Asked my mother, she acted the same
She never looked up, she seemed so ashamed
Asked my teacher, he reached for the cane
He said, don't mention that subject again

So I read about love-read it in a magazine
Read about love-Cosmo and Seventeen
Read about love-In the back of a Hustler, Hustler, Hustler

Richard Thompson

"Read About Love"

Authored by: Mr. Buddy Love on Wednesday, March 04 2009 @ 10:53 AM GMT+4

Floyd,

Take it from Buddy Love: Sex and love are not necessarily the same
thing. That guy got it wrong---typical American!
Part of the reason we have f-ed up people in our society is because
they are taught that sex is a sin, and violence is cool. You can see it
reflected in the movie ratings system, which allows NC17 to have
pretty gruesome bloodiness, but put a penis anywhere near a vagina
and the film gets censored big time! Even our swear words reflect our
puritanical fear of the act: WTF?

-Buddy

Authored by: Floyd on Wednesday, March 04 2009 @ 01:02 PM GMT+4

"That guy got it wrong---typical American!"

Not so typical it would seem as Thompson, a musician who has released several dozen albums in his 40+ year career, is British by birth. Although he has been a southern Californicator for two decades now, he remains an astute observer of the human condition and its many absurdities.

He was using metaphor; a common device for some literary types including many songwriters who eventually got past puberty.

A song called "Read About Sex" would not have been quite as subtle.

The point of the song is pretty much what you are talking about concerning our attitudes toward sex, nakedness, and gender roles among other related issues and taboos, so I think he was right on target.

You once yanked a Thompson song playing off the Meg A Seg at the conclusion of your show at VEW because you said you were sparing the audience from having to listen to him despite the fact that he is arguably one of the best 10 guitarists on the planet and commands the respect of pretty much any professional musician who's ever listened to him.

Authored by: Mr. Buddy Love on Wednesday, March 04 2009 @ 02:50 PM GMT+4

Huh? I haven't been on the radio since I had a show on radio free
brattleboro. You must be confusing me with somebody else.

Much of white America gets its culture from Anglo Saxon Britain
originally, and Puritan Brits who came here at that. So my "typical
American" tag stays. It's Anglo Saxon culture that is the root of
American puritanical prudity. If you don't believe me, ask anyone from
the REAL Europe, which is the continental countries.

Authored by: Floyd on Wednesday, March 04 2009 @ 03:21 PM GMT+4

Yeah, I must have confused you with somebody another less credible DJ.

Now that I recall, that guy had to leave town shortly after his tragic Thompson error. What a screw up that was! No one in town would forgive his blunder.

Authored by: Mr. Buddy Love on Wednesday, March 04 2009 @ 03:46 PM GMT+4

Yeah, he probably got run out of town by a bunch of nude hippies
wielding love beads and bongs.

Authored by: P on Wednesday, March 04 2009 @ 05:45 AM GMT+4

When I read "Forever" by Judy Blume in 7th grade.