Selena Robins, Author

Please join me in welcoming (LB) Lady Bug (as she’s known on the net), a funny, witty, intelligent, kick-ass friend of mine who has graciously agreed to share one of life’s most intimate moments with us….explaining sex to a parent.

Take it away, LB.

****

I’m Buying My Mom The Kama Sutra for Christmas

You know how they say that when you reach a certain age, you trade places with your parents?  You become the caretaker.  Well, in some ways I reached that point about 10 years ago when I realized that it was now my responsibility to explain the birds and the bees to my mom.  I will never understand how that woman managed to get pregnant and have children.

Discussing In Vitro Fertilization:

Mom:  How do they get the sperm for the—you know—process?

LB:  You mean for the fertilization?

Mom:  YES!  You don’t have to say that word.  You can just say process.

LB:  They get it from the man.  You know how that works, right?

Mom:  Uhhhhhh….

LB:  I’m going to take that as a no.  The guy goes to the doctor’s office and you know….. chokes the chicken.

Crickets and a stunned, disbelieving look from Mom.

LB:  Spanking the monkey?  Flogging the dolphin?  Charming the one-eyed snake?  Are any of these ringing a bell?

Violent head shaking, panicked look and more crickets.

LB:  Mother, do you know what masturbation is?

Mom: (Now completely horrified):  LB!  That’s enough! I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

LB:  But I still haven’t told you how they get the sperm.

Mom:  Well, I don’t need to know.

LB:  See, Mom, when a man loves his penis…..

At this point, she ran out of the room.

Discussing A Woman’s Libido:

Mom: Women don’t get horny or whatever it is that kids call it.

LB:  Huh?  What are you talking about?

Mom:  It’s not physically possible.

LB:  You can NOT be serious.  Where did you hear this?

Mom:  I just know.

LB:  I’m here to tell you that is not true.  Women can be just as horny as men can be.  I will punch Man Bug in the face if he works late too many nights in a row.

Mom:  Poor Man Bug.  Why are you so mean to him?

LB:  I’m pretty sure he likes it.

“What do you mean more than one position?“

LB:  It’s not a lot of fun going through fertility treatments.  It takes a lot of the spontaneity out of sex.  You have to take your temperature, check your ovulation, stay lying down for 30 minutes after sex, and you don’t have a whole lot of positions to choose from.

Mom:  What do you mean positions?

LB:  Uhhh… you know—-how you have sex.  As far as actively trying to get pregnant, missionary position is one of the few options.

Mom:  There’s more than one position?  What is missionary position?

LB:  Yes, there are multiple positions.  Wait—-have you only ever had sex in one position?  You are probably an expert at the missionary position—-you know—-man on top, woman on bottom.

Mom:  That’s just called sex.  Why do you call it missionary position?

LB:  It’s not just me.  I didn’t make that up.  99.9% of the adult population use that term.  How do you not know this?

Mom:  I’m not over-sexed like you are.

LB:  Oh, I’m just the right amount of sexed—-thank you.  Seriously—-you didn’t know there are multiple positions?

Mom:  Stop talking about it.

LB:  There are books you can get.  There are even videos.  Do you want me to get you some reference materials?

She never did answer me…..

I’m hoping that I’m out of the country and unreachable on the day she hears someone mention the term blow job.

Please tell me I’m not alone in this.  Have you ever had those awkward/funny/uncomfortable moments of trying to explain sex to an older family member?

*** 

Thank you, Lady Bug, for sharing these conversations with us. I laughed my ass off while I was uploading this blog post.

Speaking of blow jobs…

I had a similar conversation with my mum-in-law. During dinner one night, out of the blue (this wasn’t unusual for her to blurt things out like this) she asked; “What is a blow job?”

My dad-in-law almost choked on his chicken (the chicken on his plate that is) and my husband escaped, claiming he had something to do in the garage…..yeah, that’s not too obvious, need a tool (no pun intended) right in the middle of dinner?

My dad-in-law followed (dashed out the door more like it) so I sat there alone with her.

I struggled at first, how does one actually explain this to their mother-in-law of all people? So I just made it simple.

Me: Mum, it’s when a women goes down on a man.

MIL: Down where?

Me: It’s when the woman gives a man oral sex. You do know all about that, right?

MIL: Well of course I do. But I don’t see where there is any blowing involved? What does blowing have to do with oral sex?

She eyed the bowl of fruit on the counter, which had some bananas in it.

Me thinking: (No frickin’ way am I going to demonstrate with a banana or even explain the intricacies of this.)

Me: It’s just another way of saying giving head….

MIL: Giving head? What does my head have to do with it? Or his head?

Me: Again, just another term for oral sex.

MIL shakes head: Why don’t people just say, oral sex? Or do they give these names because there are many ways to do this?

(She takes a bite of chicken and I am holding my breath, praying she doesn’t tell me their way of doing this is. I’m still trying to scrub the image out of my brain that they even have sex.)

MIL: What spice did you put in this chicken? We should play Euchre after dinner. Oh, remind me to tell you about the new craft shop that just opened….”

Me: At this point, I thanked Mary, Joseph and the donkey they rode in on that my MIL mind’s was always able to veer off course. I yelled for the oh-so-brave-alpha son and dad to get their asses back in the house, as all was well with the world.

Mr. Robins usually proofreads my blogs before I upload them. I deliberately did not tell him the subject matter, his comment at the end…”I still feel awkward remembering this.”

(Ah, my hero, my brave man who will kill spiders for me, lift cars if he ever had to to save me…gets squeamish about this memory. LOL)

Please share your own sexual parental stories with us.