Continued from R251-

Here’s an example that I can personally share from my personal experience:

When I was a kid, my mother was addicted to Spanish soap operas, aka: telenovelas. These storyline developments weren’t much different than the ones of their American representation in our own, such as All My Children, or Days of Our Lives, or Y & R.

Because I watched these with her whenever I got bored with my dolls or toys, or didn’t feel like climbing another tree or whatever, I learned about sex via the soaps, not her.

At the age of 12, I genuinely believed that people got married, and that because they kissed at the alter or after, the kissing caused pregnancy. Swear to God. I believed women became pregnant because they kissed their husbands. And I never understood why she had a belly that kept growing, nor did I correlate that to the baby, as I genuinely believed that storks brought the kids.

Imagine my shock, when one of my best friends as a kid, came over with a book that she had sneaked out of her mom’s library, written by Masters & Johnson!?!?

She opened the book up and showed me what she had just learned. We had ovaries, a uterus, Fallopian tubes, and boys had tested, and a penis. The penis went in the vagina and if the woman was ovulating, a baby was made. The only way to ovulate was to get something called a period, and menstruation made girls bleed and we had to wear maxi pads.

I was fucking floored. I had no idea. Not one.

Before this revelation, my step grandfather inappropriately touched me under my dress and rubbed my vagina over my underwear. I promptly told my aunt, who told my father, who removed me from the babysitting situation he had arranged with how wife’s parents, and picked me up from school where I spent every afternoon helping him fix cars as his little assistant, at his mechanic shop in Queens.

Before this book, I thought that if my Barbie doll kissed my Ken Doll, , a baby came.

My parents either removed me from harmful situations through sheer luck because I told my aunt my secret, or because they sheltered me in very unhealthy and harmful ways as my mother did, by never discussing with her daughter who at 12 years old, was developing breasts, that she was probably going to get her period soon.

Almost 2-3 months after my shattered innocence (lol), our junior high school had all the girls go into the auditorium, where we all watched this film that explained much of what the Masters & Johnson book did. We were then able to do a Q and A with the school nurse, who told us that she had a supply of maxi pads in her office for us in case our time came when in class. She had these huge boxes she opened up, where she gave each girl 5 maxi pads, a small book on what to expect when we get out first period, why we get cramps, and my first Judy Blume novel, “Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret”.

Fast Forward to 10th grade. We had mandatory Health 101 class. Here we learned to drive under the tutelage of our PE coach, and here, we learned along with boys in the class, about pregnancy, and preventing it. We were shown condoms and we all got a banana and a condom, that we then all were required to demonstrate how to use.

My mom NEVER did this and refused to discuss it, calling me a whore for asking.