By John “Butch” Dale
Guest Columnist
OK, you “baby boomers,” think back to the good old days when your folks sat you down and explained the “facts of life” … all you needed to know about S-E-X. What? You don’t remember?
Well, don’t worry … you don’t have dementia … because if you were like most of the kids who grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, that “little talk” never happened.
So exactly how did you learn about the birds and the bees? In those days there were no sex education classes, and likely no mention of that topic in any health classes.
In freshman biology class, there was a short chapter on human reproduction, which consisted of scientific facts, diagrams of human anatomy, and a mention of “wholesome and moral decision-making,” including peer pressure and gender roles. The term “sexual intercourse” was never even mentioned.
The coach usually showed the boys an old military film about venereal diseases, while the home economics teacher talked to the girls about menstruation and personal hygiene.
The instructors stressed abstinence, the dire consequences of pre-marital sex, and “family values.”
Ho-hum … By that time, we knew all there was to know about sex. Well, we thought we did. We had learned the old-fashioned way. As a youngster, when our parents welcomed a newborn … “Mom, where did the baby come from?” Of course the answer was, “Well, the stork brought him.” I had seen many different birds on our farm, but I had never seen any storks, so I assumed that it must have flown in at night and dropped off my new brother and sister under cover of darkness.
When I was a tad older and realized that the stork story didn’t quite add up, I asked Dad, “How do you get babies?” He hesitated, took a drag from his cigarette, and matter-of-factly stated, “Just go watch the cows and the pigs for a while. You’ll figure it out.”
Ah yes, another advantage of growing up on a farm.
Mom was no help either, “I’m busy fixing supper … just read that section in the World Book encyclopedia.” Needing a bit more information, it was necessary to ask older boys, who gladly told of the gory details and bragged about their sexual knowledge … or should I say, their imagined knowledge, as most of them knew about as much as me, which was very little.
However, as grade school students, we were more interested in sports anyway. Who wants to hold some girl’s sweaty hand? They might have cooties.
For most of us, this all changed in junior high school. Some of the girls were starting to “develop.” As teenagers, the boys decided that the best way to learn about sex was to read about it from the one true authority on the subject … No, not Alfred Kinsey, instead the ultimate expert … Hugh Hefner. Fortunately some of our fathers had quite a stash of Playboy magazines.
Surely they wouldn’t miss two or three, which ended up in a secret hiding place in our bedrooms. Interesting articles for sure, and within a few months, it was time to remove the photos of our major league baseball heroes from the wall above our beds … and replace them with Playboy centerfolds. Much more enlightening waking up in the morning and seeing the Playmate of the Month, instead of Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron.
Of course, since we were regular attendees at Sunday school and church, it had been drilled into our adolescent brains that sex before marriage would ultimately pave our path to Purgatory. The minister and our Sunday school teachers surely would not lie about something like that. Yes, we felt somewhat guilty thinking about sex, but usually only during the services. However, in those days if a girl became pregnant, she had to drop out of school, and her boyfriend was disqualified from playing sports.
There was no way we wanted to jeopardize our sports careers.
We heard, “Girls will just get you in trouble” many times at the filling station, restaurant, poolroom, elevator and other hangouts of the old-timers. You could tell they spoke from experience, but you had to wonder … if a woman was nothing but a headache and such a problem, why did they marry one? After all was said and done, with the photos of the centerfolds floating around in our brains, we disregarded their advice, succumbed to temptation, and took our chances. We even took dance lessons so we could hold some cute girl’s hand, place our arm around her, and sway back and forth in a love coma to “Moon River.” …”I’m sorry, Reverend …I couldn’t resist.”
To sum it up, we baby boomers received the facts of life through a hodgepodge of information, misinformation, rumors, lectures, threats, admonishments, lies … or just plain stone silence during our growing-up years from a wide variety of sources.
Most of us had to figure out all of the details AFTER we were married … on the job training, so to speak. There have been documented cases of a newlyweds who still thought that storks brought babies! Honest to God. If only they had taken a few minutes when they were younger to watch the farm animals!
