...a Parent or other trusted relative at an age-appropriate time in your young life for that milestone?

Do you recall at what age & if it was helpful or enlightening for you?

& Pray Tell the MOST important question of ALL is:

Was it BEFORE or AFTER the Bishop asked you if you masturbated during one of those unwarranted psycho-sexual abuse interrogations euphemistically referred to as "Worthiness" interviews???

&/or did you simply become another victim/statistic of one of those unexpected & unwanted institutionalized Mormon-style one-on-one Sex Education Classes offered in a closed-door Bishop's office taught by an Orthodontist???

Enquiring minds wanna know!!!

Or so it seems to me...

The night before my (temple) wedding, my mom decided to warn me that men might think with their other head.

That was my entire sex talk. Gee, thanks, Mom. Like I hadn't figured that out and more by then.

Nope. No talk from any adult; learned it from the two worst sources: other kids and the Mormon church. You can imagine the confusion that ensued. . .

I was never, for obvious reasons, asked by church leaders about masturbation.

Basically the same for me. I look back and it definitely didn't help me with my pre-marital relationships and my first marriage. My former wife was a TBM and she was even more confused. In the end, I guess it worked out.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
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> I was never, for obvious reasons, asked by church
> leaders about masturbation.

Sorry to be clueless but what would be the "obvious reasons"?

Nothing. Zilch.
I learned about sex from my friends, my Mormon Dad’s stack of Playboys and my Sister handing me a copy of “The Happy Hooker” by Xaviander Hollander and 6th grade sex Ed, all of which gave me VERY unrealistic expectations about the opposite sex.

I must have been around 7 and my brother, his friend and I slept out in the back yard in my dads old army tent. They decided to tell me about sex. What they told me involved inserting the mans middle finger into the woman's VJJ and sperm coming out from under the fingernail. I think they were just messing with me, they were 3 1/2 years older and must have known better. They used to mess with me a lot.

Later that summer, I was walking one evening with my older sister and she asked me if I knew how sex worked. I excitedly said YES! Our brother and his friend told me, and I described the finger method to her.

She informed me that was not correct and proceeded to educate me in great detail. I was confused as to why my brother was so off base, but now I knew how it really worked.

Fast forward to me at about 12. My mom sheepishly approached me one day before I left to catch the bus for school and tried to give me "the talk."

When I figured out what she wanted to tell me, I informed her that I already new all about it. She reacted with great surprise and asked who told me. So I said my sister had given me the talk years ago, my friends all new about it too, so nothing more to tell me. She kind of went "oh, well OK then" and we left it at that.

When I was about 15 the bishop had a medical doctor speak to the youth group about sex. It was fairly bold of the bishop. The doctor was pretty graphic but about all I remember was how red faced all the leaders and youth were when he talked about masturbation.

My bishop started asking me if I masturbated when I was 12, before I'd even heard the word.

My dad on the other hand cornered me at my wedding reception and timorously informed me that my mother insisted he ask if I had any questions, with an awkward hesitancy to clarify on what subject.

When I finally understood what he was asking, I just replied that I had it covered. He replied that he figured as much, then walked away.

I was 25. Yes, I was that naive. I had my first question about it at age 12 and continued until that bishop was released for yearly and 6 month interviews and every 4 month dance cards. Masturbation, necking, and petting. I hadn't a clue. I thought that masturbation was touching yourself at all in private areas of your body when I was young. It was the bishop when I was going through the gay boyfriend stage who told me what masturbation was as he assigned me to keep track of my boyfriend's M habits as if we could get him to stop M'g (I'm just lazy, tired of typing today) that he wouldn't be gay anymore.

I learned more about sex from the bishop and my gay boyfriend than anyone else.

cl2notloggedin Wrote:
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> I learned more about sex from the bishop and my
> gay boyfriend than anyone else.

Sorry, I know your experiences were excruciating, but this is a pretty funny sentence in isolation.

My parents tossed an LDS approved book at me and said it covered everything.

I can't remember the name of the book.

It had two clinical chapters. Poorly drawn diagrams of internal anatomy. And lots of preaching on morals and the eternal consequences of committing the sins next to murder.

When I left for boot camp my Dad said.

1. Women only do the things you see in stag films because they're paid to.

2. Beware women from California.

He wrote two books on reproduction that were approved by the Church. One was called " You were smaller than a dot." The other one I can't remember the title but it was for older kids. He was a good friend of my Cub Scout Den Mother. She gave a copy to her boys and we got an enormous laugh out of it. Unfortunately she heard us mocking the book in her basement while we were playing pool. She came down to correct us, but she started laughing too. She was no prude, but her husband was our bishop and he was a prude, he turned bright purple when he heard his wife was making jokes about the book with us.

About Life and Love.

Dad gave me a couple paperback books...pamphlets really...that gave a very clinical description of female/male sexuality and the dire warning that masturbation was VERY bad.

Seems to me we had a class in Jr. High school reg. the birds and bees. I remember pretty well, in that I got kicked out of the room when I let out a loud woo-hoo (spl?) whistle.
It was all down hill for me from then on.

Even so, yes, my father set me down at the kitchen table for a quick lesson--which consisted of his asking me if I knew something about where babies come from, and his very re-leaved face when I told him, "yes". Lesson over.

Also, on a trip where we were all in the same cabin bedroom, I heard some action going on, and whispered this information to my older sister, informing her that we would soon have another baby in the house.

One of the clinchers to confirming my self-taught wisdom, was when I found part of a green garden hose in an empty lot behind our house. It was about 7" long--obviously used as a contraception by some man to prevent getting his wife from getting pregnant.

Even so, the inside of the hose I held looked awful narrow, considering what I had seen under a washcloth my father put over his "private" area while he was soaking in the tub, and I was using the toilet, and therefore clearly saw him about 2 ft. away from me.

Anything else you want to know, just ask. :-)

Not one word.

Yes, my life was hell. Still is.

Here's a non-LDS experience:
Like most kids in the mid-20th century, I got the basic information from other kids. A couple of them were Catholic, and at first I dismissed it as Catholic propaganda; but later it was confirmed by independent sources.
Back then, males were mostly left to their own devices; but I suspect females got some more specialized instruction, both in high school and even in college. There was a special part of freshman orientation that was strictly "girls only."
Years later, my stepson got the full treatment in the Unitarian church youth program, where it took up almost an entire year. He was about sixteen at the time, so I'm sure he had heard some of it before from other kids. This program was co-ed, and very detailed. The instructors were a married couple who had been to a special training program. The parents had to come to a special briefing so no one could complain that they hadn't been properly informed.
This was still pretty early in the AIDS era, so a lot of the emphasis was on STDs. It was also at the beginning of LGBT awareness, a very big issue with UU's, so that was covered too.

I learned sex on the streets just like you are supposed to.

My Mom (a total Smart Ass, and knowing that I already knew) said "you know you're old enough go be a father". I said yeah. She said "don't". And that was it.

The only "sex" talk I got was the night before my wedding. Dad sat me down and said that occasionally the wife may be dry and K-Y jelly is very useful.

After years of marriage and never had my wife "dry", I figured out my dad was just a bad lover or didn't know about proper foreplay.

My Mom was an OB nurse, we had textbooks on the living room bookshelf. No lack of knowledge at our house. We were also more than happy to walk our friends through the books.

I grew up in sort of a progressive area of the country where they taught sex ed basics during 9th grade health classes. So that's where I got the basics.

I guess I was about 14 when my mother attempted a birds and bees lesson, but all I remember was how if a girl doesn't want to go swimming, don't push the issue because... well... um... her period. Then, disgustedly, she added, "Your father didn't know ANYTHING about that when we married."

That summer I spent a few weeks with my married brother. We were out on his boat when he told me Mom had asked him to tell me about sex. He started with, "What do you already know?" I gave him a rundown of what I'd learned in health class, to which he replied, "Yeah, that's pretty much it. I've got a book for you to read." Later he said an advantage of not having sex before you're married is that you and your wife don't have anyone else to compare each other to. If you're having bad sex you won't know it. Um, okay. A couple of years after reading that book I learned there was a lot of bad information in it.

As for Dad, the only sex talks I ever had with him were annual priesthood interviews when I was a teen and he was my bishop. I knew enough to lie about masturbation, and either he bought it or pretended to believe me.