When I was about 7 I started asking questions. According to family lore when I was 3 I asked my mother what store she bought me in. Pretty cute. By 7 though the questions were becoming more sophisticated. Like any kid I wanted to know how babies were made.
My mother was a guidance counselor in an elementary school. Her room was the quintessential 70's feel-good room. There were posters of smiley faces and kids in bell bottoms playing. She had chairs arranged in a circle and a shag carpet that was burnt-orange and it reminded me of vomit. I loved going to school with her because I got to hang out a lot in the copy room and the smell from the blue paper from the ditto machine made me unusually happy and light-headed. I think my mother thought herself extremely progressive and open-minded. So it was during this era I became curious about sex.
I don't recall where the conversation took place but it was probably at a Coco's where we sat across from each other in a booth with vinyl seats and my mother ingested 472 cups of coffee while I ate a piece of french silk pie. My mother spoke in her best guidance counselor voice about the physiological engineering of sexual relations and at some point got to "a man's penis." I must have, at that point, looked completely confused and stopped shoving my face full of pie. I had no idea what she was talking about. I didn't have any brothers or boy cousins. I saw my father in his Fruit of the Looms once before my mom shoved me out of the room and slammed the door in my face like I was about to witness a murder or something. So there was the conundrum. I had no idea about The Penis.
Soon after that on a sunny day my mom picked me up from school and we went to Osco Drugstore. I stood behind my mom as she pointed out a magazine from behind the counter which was then paid for and put in a brown paper bag. A jar of Sanka was purchased, too. While we were walking back to the car my mother told me she bought me a magazine so I could see what a penis looked like. Even though I was only 7 there was a part of me that was already extremely uncomfortable. When we got back to the house she handed me the paper bag and I went to my room. I pulled the magazine out of the bag and there, in all it's Glory, was a Playgirl filled with penises.
The magazine fell out of the bag and opened to the centerfold. There, with 3 staples holding him together was this guy with a mustache and a smile. He was the hairiest creature that wasn't a dog I had ever seen. I felt baffled, yet intrigued, a little nauseous and very alone. I began to look through the pages and noticed that some looked like pigs-in-a-blanket which I had once at a friend's house (we didn't have them because we were kosher) and some didn't. I was so confused. They looked like huge hairy worms. I didn't know what to do. I was scared. My mother didn't discuss it with me at the time. There was no question and answer session. I didn't get a counseling session on her vomit colored rug surrounded by smiley faces posters like her students. I was alone, in my room, listening to songs from Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" on my AM radio, paging through this magazine trying to process these visuals.
Years later my mother told me how impressed with herself she was. "I thought it was very creative." She was unaware I had been traumatized. She didn't care. She was too busy being self-congratulatory. Images of fuzz and enormous caterpillars stayed with me for years. Eventually I recuperated and (ironically) became a sex therapist and sex educator. When I told this story to Dr. Masters while I was doing my internship at the Masters and Johnson Institute he semi-jokingly asked if I had any questions and concurred a homoerotic Playgirl in the hands of a 7 year old girl might not have been the best learning tool ever. (This was from a guy that passed out vibrators like they were candy.) Recently, I read Playgirl was ceasing publication. That gives me a sense of closure, I suppose.
