I remember having ?the talk? with my mom like it was last week. I was seven, and I?d asked during dinner prep, ?So, I know that mommies have babies in their tummies, but how does the baby actually get there"? (Ever the reporter, I had a notebook ready to record her answer.) She expertly redirected my attention with a ?We?ll talk about it later,? and true to her word, she woke me up later that night, after my little sister had gone to bed, to address my query.
It was all very clinical?penis in vagina, sperm to egg.
?Like a key in a keyhole"? I?d asked.
?Sort of,? she?d said, with a laugh I only understood years later.
But the conversation that followed, and that continued to surface for the next decade or more, had much more impact than the explanation of conception. My mom, devoutly religious, told me that ?making love? is something that should only happen between a husband and wife, and that the purpose of the act is to create children. My mom wasn?t clueless or naïve?she was brilliant in so many ways?but this was what she knew to be true from her own upbringing. Sex is for marriage. You should wait to find the right person. She went so far as to tell me it wouldn?t feel good unless I was deeply in love; unless my partner was my soul mate. And so I waited. I dated casually but never went all the way. Part of it was nerves, I?m sure, but the other part was the idea that sex for sex?s sake was wrong. So much so that, when I finally did meet someone special, during...