I overheard a kind of funny conversation the other day between the boy and his friend, the other boy. As I walked past his bedroom, I heard them talking about sex, so I had to listen in and see what they had to say.
The boy: Sex is when people take off all their clothes and kiss and kiss and kiss.
Other boy: No, sex is when you put your finger in a girl's, you know.
The boy: Balls?
Other boy: No, her pee-pee. You put your finger in her pee-pee and that means you're having sex.
The boy: She'd slap you if you did that.
Other boy: No, they like it.
The boy: No, girls would slap you for doing that.
Other boy: No, really, girls like it. It makes them go crazy!
The boy is seven, while the other boy is almost nine, which might explain why he has a more technical idea and a more accurate sense of what sex is than my son does.
Gee, can you remember that? The curiosity and total ignorance we once had about this super-significant, massively secret but at the same time all over the place, mysterious act called sex? At some point, sex became so ubiquitous and commonplace it's easy to imagine we were born knowing all about it. I remember, though, when I was a kid, trying to find out without daring to ask anyone who would actually know--what the heck is it and why do people do it, and especially why do people talk about it all the time?
Ah, then puberty brings enlightenment, and it isn't long before we're adults and so jaded that there isn't a sex act performed anywhere on earth that would shock us.
