Your Boy and His Sex Problem

That’s the title of chapter one of the ‘hygiene’ book my parents gave me when I was eight, "Father and Son" by the Rev. M.A. Horn, copyright 1949. But I’m getting ahead of my self. I should start at the beginning.

In early 1981 my family went to a movie called Paternity. Burt Reynolds plays a rich guy intent on living the bachelor life to the end of his days. The only problem is that he wants an heir to inherit his wealth and lifestyle. So he puts an add in the paper, and after a few interviews he hires a woman to bear his child.

It seems simple enough, but of course he has to have a man-child. So he reads all these books and determines that having sex standing up will be the only way to insure he will have a son. So there’s a scene in the movie when the parents to be are standing close (wearing bathrobes), and the brave mother to be sees a dead fish in the aquarium. With a tearful eye she says:

"Oh, it’s just lying there." To which Burt replies

"Well, give me a minute, will ya?"

Now this is probably where I should point out that I wasn’t the brightest eight-year-old in the theater, so after the movie I had to start asking, "What were they talking about. I don’t get it."
My dad, being himself disinterested in child rearing tasked my mother with presenting me with Rev. Horn’s fabulous 100-page guide to the nether regions. It's an ugly little book devoted to teaching abstinance by showing pages full of ‘syphalitic degenerates’. Rev. Horn maintains that any boy allowed to let his hands linger in his pockets for no reason will undoubtedly fall prey to "self-abuse". My parents, must have thought highly of my maturity, as I was accorded the right to also read the accompanying "Mother and Daughter", a companion book devoted to convincing young girls that if their husbands cheat on them it’s because they’re frigid. (Maybe I’ll elaborate on that theory in another posting.)

Now the books have been a considerable source of humor in my adulthood. I shared them with coworkers at my previous job, and my boss henceforth would always remove his hands from his pockets as I approached. Although, I never figured out if his smile came before or after his hands were removed.

So mom showed me the cross section of the boy part and explained how squirmies came out of there and went into the cross section of the girl part. I should reiterate that for an eight-year-old I was dumb; real dumb. The pictures were on different pages, and there was no hint that any actual contact was involved, so I didn’t assume such. My walnut brain saw two people sleeping in the same bed while the squirmies made their long trek to the other side of the bed, so I definitely didn’t get the impression that there was any enjoyment to be had in this process.
So I asked the only question that mattered to me. I had no idea what I was really asking, but today I thank the heavens for my stupidity.

"How long does it take?"

My mother didn’t flinch. She lowered her head, looked back at the cross section, and in a calm steady voice replied:

"Oh, not long."

Captain Underpants, you are not alone.