I don't know if it's a cultural thing or just my family, but getting to grips with bodily functions, why they happened, and for whose benefit was never a strong point of our communication. School didn't help, so here I was, a taller-than-average Asian girl with little idea about how relationships worked and, not to put too fine a point of it, what the deal was with all this sex stuff that seemed so important to so many people (but not my parents).
My official education on this subject was not the best. We had the awkward classroom discussion where the boys went to one room and we were shown medical diagrams. It was all very serious as we nervously looked at each other, thinking "do we all look like this?" One girl in the class asked if it was normal to have hair growing down there. We all shuffled nervously in our seats as we were told that it was and it should be left as it was, maybe just trimmed at the sides if it resulted in poking at the side of underwear or particularly our leotards in gym class. I only had a tiny tuft of hair at the top, and it was black like the hair on my head. But there wasn't a lot so I wasn't clear if I was normal. We were told all girls were different, had different times of maturing and growing, and that it was similar for boys.
The teacher explained how you got pregnant and what to do to avoid that, which was described simply as "don't have intercourse." I knew that sperm fertilized an egg, but I wasn't clear how the sperm actually got up there. It involved a man and his penis, which sounded weird and a little gross, but that was about it.
My friends chatted about the class and talked about boys "jerking off." I laughed along though I wasn't sure what that meant. One of the older girls used a hand motion every time she said "jerk off" and joked about walking in on her brother doing it. But still I wasn't clear on what it meant.
I started to feel like I was the odd-one-out and that the other girls all knew things I didn't, so I eventually decided to ask my mother. She had never talked about sex, but always said to go to her with questions after I got my period and I had to wear a bra. I sat down with mom and told her about the class. She grimaced and took a deep breath, clearly uncomfortable, but asked what I wanted to know. I tried to keep it medical, like the class. I knew the penis would go in the vagina and that sperm would fertilize an egg. But how did the sperm come out? My mom got up and went to the kitchen. I figured she just hated the thought of the conversation, but she came back in with a cucumber. She created a circle with her finger and thumb, wrapped it around the cucumber, and motioned it up and down, just like the older girl had done when talking about jerking off.
Then she said that usually within a few seconds, it would "spit." She wouldn't say sperm, but I gathered that's what she meant, and then she explained that's how it got to the egg. But she had words of warning. "Boys, they always try to spit other places, in your mouth, on your face," she said, shaking her head and grimacing.
"Every time, spit on face? Spit on face?"
Then she made a gagging motion, her head still shaking, her shoulders shuddering.
"You mean daddy?" I asked without thinking. Mom stopped dead. Then shrugged.
She nodded, her eyes cast down. "Special days, birthday," she said.
So it spit. And it took movement with the finger and thumb around it. Got it. I think.
-
A few days later mom pulled me aside and asked me never to mention what she said, and then added I should never do it, even after I was married. But to be honest I was a little intrigued. I even looked it up on the internet, but all the sites that seemed to show this were blocked, and one I did find that was a doctor's educational video was all blurred out where it mattered so it was basically useless.
I also could barely look my dad in the eye on his birthday when he came downstairs with a big grin on his face.
When I got to college and settled in with my roommate it didn't take long for her to ask about any boyfriends, and how cute some of the other students were that she'd seen. I told her I'd never had sex and she was shocked. I didn't think anything of sharing that because it seemed so normal. None of my friends had done it, but this girl, Ori, said she had a few times. I didn't know whether to believe her, but she was very comfortable around boys as many of the rest of us stood around being shy and trying not to giggle.
One night Ori and I were chatting and she was asking what I'd seen and done sexually. The answer was nothing, which at first she didn't believe. Then I told her the story of the talk with my mother, and not really understanding the spitting thing. She laughed, said it was okay, she liked seeing it, and that my mom was just an old prude. That might be accurate, but it didn't help.
Two weeks later I returned to our room and I could hear Ori sobbing through the door. I opened it quickly only to see her naked, her legs astride a boy from our class—Dani—and not sobbing, but moaning. I stood there, frozen to the spot. She stared at me and then said "don't just stand there, come in and close the door."
I turned away and looked down as I closed my eyes and sat on the edge of my bed. I could hear Ori and Dani moving, I figured leaving.
"Hey, look up," said Ori. I did so as she was pulling on a robe. I got just a glimpse of her breasts, just small round mounds with tiny dark brown nipples, and down below a thick wedge of dark black hair. Dani was sitting up behind her, the sheets up to his waist, but his defined, muscular arms propping him up.
"First," Ori stated, taking total command of this awkward situation, "when there is a ribbon on the door handle, don't come in."
"I...I...didn't even notice," I stammered out, "I heard a noise and thought you were crying."
"Well, I wasn't, but since we're in this situation I had an idea, and Dani is game."
She paused and turned to Dani and leaned towards him, rubbing her hand down his smooth chest and kissing him on the lips. I looked away again.
"No," Ori barked, "eyes forward, and consider this part of your ongoing education."
The quizzical look on my face encouraged Ori to explain further.
"You know so little about this, but you really should. I mean, not even knowing about how a guy cums—sorry, as you say, 'spits'"—as she did air quotes—"is something you should learn. It's not hard...though it does need to be."
She giggled and looked at Dani who was grinning widely.
"Come on then," she said, nodding towards Dani. He swung his legs from under the covers and stood up. He was completely naked. I covered my eyes.
