Sex Education

The first time I saw it, I gagged. I don't think I actually threw up, but I came close. There were several of us there; neighborhood kids, all boys. I was the youngest. I was nine.

Frederic is nine, and when I think back to me being that age, I can't fathom how young that is. To see what I saw. To process what was happening. To comprehend the realities of life. Wow.

Nine was when I started growing hair "down there." Nine was when my legs sprouted hair, and when hair appeared under my pits. I'm not a hairy person, really. I think I have maybe a dozen or so long hairs on my chest. Other than that, nothing. Hair really doesn't define a man, but it sparks the beginning of becoming one.

Frederic has hair on every spot I've mentioned. It's slow growing, but he's moved into that stage. Maybe it's a Fosco thing. Maybe it's the age we begin to be a man. My father had a full moustache at 13, so I assume he probably had hair some years before then too.

Now he was a hairy guy. He was one of those people who could grow a beard in a week. He had hair on his chest, on his legs, and on his back. I wonder what he looked like at nine.

We saw the thing, for the first time, in our basement. It was early evening, and my parents were away. It was summer. The summer of 1979. My brothers, both older than me, knew how to pick the lock on our father's dresser. It wasn't hard. And there it was, "hidden" in a brown paper lunch sack. In it's solid, most basic form, it seemed harmless. It was a VCR tape, and being it was 1979, selection was scarce. I didn't really understand--but I would soon learn--what the title meant. Deep Throat. Seemed to me like it should be a movie about a guy with a low voice. Boy was I wrong.

When my brother popped in the tape, you could feel the excitement from the older boys. It spewed out of their pores like sweat. Several of them giggled. One or two may have turned red when my brother pressed play and the "commercials" began.

That's when I saw it. That's how I still can see it today, in my mind's eye. The first commercial was for another similar type of tape. This thing they called a porno. The preview was for Meatball. Sounded like a cooking show to me. Not so.

I got my sex education from Harold Reems and Linda Lovelace. It warped the mind of a nine year old. I'm not complaining, trust me. Once I got past the initial shock. Once I could stomach the site of the real birds and bees, it became one of my favorite pastimes. That VCR tape got a lot of mileage out of everyone. I'm glad that my initial reaction didn't turn me into Alex from A Clockwork Orange. Or better yet, give me the same reaction he got after he was rehabilitated. That would suck.

And I can't imagine how Frederic may learn.