Ottawa, Ontario Canada. Manor Park Public School - Health class - 1977.
As Mr. Conboy unveiled a diagram of the female reproductive system Katrina Velavadova took one look and threw up on her desk.
Some tittered, some took notes, all moved a little further away from Katrina's desk.
I, of course, was light years ahead of the curve having been amply supplied with books by my parents to "demystify" the strange, gurgling changes that were sweeping through me like fire through a wheatfield.
These books, as I recall, were called "Where Did I Come From" - in which reproduction was explained through the loving exploits of a pair of very chubby and very naked cartoon characters - from this book I learned that an orgasm is a lot "like being tickled... but you can't be tickled forever", and that when adults have sex little cartoon hearts drift up from the locus of their fevered loins.
"What's Happening to Me" - in which a pimply teenage protagonist informed me that masturbation was "OK".
Ha! OK? Show's what he knew - when one is thirteen - masturbation rates a little higher than just "OK".
But the jewel in the crown was "Show Me"...
"Show Me" was, at its essence, a progressive exercise in soft core porn and, to my pre-pubescent mind it was about "The bestest present ever!!". How I thrilled to the naked, black-and-white exploits of these naked (German?) hippies and their naked german hippie children in their naked german hippie commune. The book, which I think was put together by a pyschologist and an art photographer, documented - in painfully frozen moments - the random fumblings of a polyamorous german community. Accompanying text gently reminded the reader (me) that everything going in the pictures on was 'perfectly natural'.
From my perspective at the time it all seemed about as natural as the notion of a three-headed dog. The end result was that I had something like this floating around in my head for years...
My compliments to the chef. It reminds me of when my dad gave me "the talk" with a big copy of Gray's Anatomy when I was ten, and told me that, "right now your uterus is about the size of my thumb."
Posted by: Cricco | February 27, 2005 at 08:51 PM
I want that "Show Me" book. We could make a LOT of cash putting that on celluloid.
Posted by: Mitchissmo | February 28, 2005 at 12:32 PM
I wasn't even alive in 1977! I just had a birthday, so thanks, that kind of makes me feel better :-P
I never actually got The Talk, and I can't say I regret that.
Posted by: kim | February 28, 2005 at 09:09 PM