Private Parts and Secret Places

My parents, contrary to the norms of the time, were very open about sex, and I didn’t rely on playground tall tales to find out what was what.  As I moved from boyhood into my teens I cringed at their willingness to talk so freely and stopped asking questions. It didn’t matter as they had a new inquisitor in my sister, Sally. Born when I was nine we all doted on her but my coyness led to me leaving the room if she started to ask questions about the birds and the bees.

When one evening over mum’s sausage and mash she asked me if I had “a little stick” I thought nothing of it and offered to get her one from the garden. ‘

“No Gordon,” she said, looking at me with big brown eyes “a little stick in your trousers like the boys in school.”

I concentrated on my meal as dad explained that not only did I have such a stick but that he did too. It seems one of the boys in school had wanted to play “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours,” and although she had declined to join in she’d been curious enough to take a good look at him. That was it apparently. Good job or else I’d have needed to have a word, even if the flasher was only five.

The embarrassment didn’t stop there. A couple of years later, once again at the tea table, Sally asked mum what a wet dream was. And even more memorable, was the only time I ever saw my dad embarrassed enough to say “I’ll tell you when you are older.”  She was 10 or 11 and came rushing in after school, trying to look grown up with her waistband rolled up but given away by scabby knees. She ran to kiss us in turn. Dad was on an early shift at the factory and I was home from teacher training college and we were drinking a companionable cuppa together. “I’ve a good joke,” she cried. “Go on then,” dad laughed.

“What’s the difference between a snowman and a snowwoman?”

“I don’t know, what is the difference between a snowman and a snowwoman?,” we chorused.

We should have seen it coming. “Snowballs,” she said triumphantly.  Dad turned beetroot and  I spat a mouthful of tea onto the carpet. She didn’t understand the joke of course and thought balls meant breasts. We talked about it years later; neither of us had forgotten the look on our normally unshakeable, father’s face.

So no front bottoms and back bottoms or willies and foofoos for us. We talked openly of penises and vaginas, of monthly bleeding and reproductive choices. Us kids were taught to respect our bodies and those of others. And even though I was embarrassed about some of the talk, I appreciated my lack of ignorance and my status as expert amongst my peers. But this didn’t stop me indulging in boyhood experiments with sexuality. I remember one particular scouts’ camping trip not for knot tying lessons and orienteering expeditions but because of THE COMPETITION. This involved the five in our tent making our penises as long as possible (I’ll leave it to your imagination how we did this) alongside a ruler. I measured up ok, if you’ll pardon the pun. Not the longest but definitely nowhere near the shortest.  I did my share of drooling over porn too; accompanied by the regulation hand movements. My parents never mentioned this explicitly but a discussion between them, whilst washing the dishes in my earshot one evening, left me in no doubt that they knew and disapproved.

"I was reading a piece in the newspaper about the increase in the number of women working in the sex industry," said dad.

"Yes, I know," replied mum. "Some of them are very young, no more than children really. It makes me shudder to think about it, so distasteful, so exploitative.

"Yes indeed."

I threw the magazines away.

My first sexual adventure with a living person was stereotypically behind the bike sheds after school. At 13 I was obviously a late developer; no showing of my bits in primary school. Susan and I had been walking home together for half a term and holding hands for three weeks. Despite my advanced knowledge of the theory I was unsure how to take our relationship further when Susan took the initiative and shyly led us to relative privacy. We shared a couple of teeth clashing kisses that first time but our technique improved. A couple of weeks later I ventured to explore Susan’s body and she allowed me to put my hands on her breasts (outside her clothes) and move them around a little. ‘Not my private parts and secret places though,’ she said which, from my superior position as a straight talker, I found charming. The relationship lasted another couple of months but our sexual experimentation developed no further.

There followed a few more years of innocent fun. My parents’ teaching in my head, I think, I hope, I never pushed any girl more than she wanted to go. It was difficult so I concentrated on my long ago abandoned stamp collection during many a necking session. This was the most boring thing I could think of.  I was fortunate to feel a few more breasts (sometimes even in the flesh), there was a bit of pressing of bodies together and once or twice a mutual feel of genitals (outside of clothing) but nothing more.

I lost my virginity at 17 with Kathy. We’d been dating for six months. We were in the same A Level group for geography and got together soon after term began. I loved her long hair and legs and remember her skin, the softest I’ve ever felt. She put up with my acne and my clumsiness and I felt proud that she’d chosen me for a boyfriend over the older boys that most of the girls in my year favoured. We liked the same music (she taught me to dance without showing myself up too much) and the same authors. We stayed together for more than two years until the relationship petered out in the second term of higher education which separated us by more than 250 miles. 

The night we first did it Kathy was babysitting her brothers.

"I've bought the condoms," I said when Kathy opened the front door.

"Where from?"

"The vending machine in the pub. I couldn't go to Boots, somebody might have seen me".

We giggled nervously.

 The twins were settled, her parents away for at least three hours and Kathy had thrown a scarf over her bedside light and lit a couple of candles, giving the room  a romantic, expectant glow. We’d been heavy petting for a number of months and were used to the feel of each other’s bodies but the sight of Kathy’s pink underwear and then her naked body meant that it was nearly over before it began. It didn’t last long but we were both (I think) happy with our performance and just as Susan and I taught each other to kiss, Kathy and I taught each other how to give and get the most from a loving sexual partner. Most of our full intercourse lessons took place in her bedroom and all the time we were watched over by her Rolling Stones poster. I like to think that Mick and the boys weren’t unimpressed.

At university I had a few short relationships and a couple of one-nighters. I met Alice, my first wife, during my final teacher training practice. It was lust at first sight. Alice was beautiful, sexy and sensual. Within weeks we’d moved in together and for the first year spent most weekends screwing, eating and sleeping. We broke the cheap bed in the rented flat the week after we moved in, a stack of books propping us up from then on. We married after two years and stayed together another ten. Towards the end of the relationship we rowed constantly and I tried to demonstrate my feelings through physical affection. Rather than pleasing her my advances inevitably angered her.

"I'm trying to show you I still love you Alice, I'm trying to make it better," I said, explaining my clumsy attempts.

"You just don't get it," she said. "I need our relationship to be right before we have sex, having sex doesn't make it right."

I get it now. But Alice was right, I didn’t get it then and her rebuffs left me frustrated in several ways.

Our divorce was messy and angry leaving us both unhappy. I felt I’d let myself and Alice down and also my parents who were still in tune with each other after 38 years together. It was my sister who helped me most through this period. Sally came to see me often. She helped me decorate the miserable flat I'd moved into, she cooked me meals when I couldn’t be bothered and when, in her opinion, I’d licked my wounds long enough, she took me out to the cinema, to the pub, to the beach. She laughed when people assumed that we were a couple. ‘This old man,’ she’d say, ‘no, he’s just my brother’. 

My sexual experience at this time was limited to lacklustre masturbation or ‘solo-sex’ as noted in the Sunday Times Supplement. I also kept an eye on Sally’s exploits. She wasn’t in any way promiscuous, just not committed to a steady relationship, and I met at least five different boyfriends in the three years I was single. They were all nice enough, but she was my little sister and looking back I know I was brusque with the boys and overbearing with Sally. She bore it well.

Then I met Bren, the love of my life. Sex was still important, but we each wanted more from our relationship. Bren had had a number of partners, but never married. Neither of us had children or had thought we ever wanted them. We soon discovered that we both did, with each other. We married quickly, quietly and enjoyed discovering more about each other's minds and bodies. After a year or so sex became more pressured as we followed our GPs’ advice on how best to conceive. To no avail. There followed a few tests for Bren and perhaps the most humiliating and uncomfortable day of my life. I appreciate that ejaculating into a beaker is much less challenging and distressing than displaying one’s private parts and secret places (a phrase I’ve never forgot) to all and sundry in the fertility clinic whilst your feet are in stirrups, but I hated it. Shown into a room with beige walls, the only furniture a beige chair and TV-come-video-recorder, I was directed to the magazines and videos in the corner.  Having not used either of these forms of stimulation since my parents’ conversation over the sink all those years ago I was horrified. I did the deed dryly and left the hospital feeling sore and shamed. We were lucky and only needed a little help to conceive. The problem, such as it was, lay with Bren, and although I have never admitted this to her, this news, I’m sad to say, calmed my masculine pride.

The pregnancy resulted in two children, two daughters, and for the following few years our marital bed became a family space. Instead of a haven for sleep, sex or breakfast with the papers it metamorphosed into the place where Clara and Emma retreated to after bad dreams or when distressed. Although generally happy children they seemed to have bad dreams or be distressed every time Bren and I went to bed. I’d stand on toys when I got up in the morning and could never find my book or my reading glasses as they were invariably hidden under children’s books, toast crumbs, pink nightwear and beakers of juice. Sometimes the bed became a place of magic and fantasy.

"Come on girls let's look for the fairies who live at the bottom of the bed," I'd say.

After some time of energetic searching one or other of the girls would complain; “I can't find them daddy."

"Me neither," the other would say.

"Here they are," I would shout, tickling Bren's toes and encouraging the twins to join in. 

And that is how I helped to break a second bed.

When not in bed or at work Bren and I were kept occupied caring for the children or carting them to and from school, play-dates or other extra-curricular activities. Sally and Paul (she’d finally found a man she liked enough to stay with) would babysit for us in the early years so that we could have some time alone. And when they became parents themselves we’d spend time together with our respective offspring. There were times when Bren and I managed to keep awake enough to make love but although these episodes were sweet they were tender rather than urgent and of less significance to both of us than our shared life together. The children’s teenage demands coincided with peri-menopausal symptoms for Bren and a pressurised time at work for me. Although I worried about the girls and attempted to do my share it was their mother who carried the burden of their daily concerns. Coping with her daughters’ worries over their changing bodies and changing emotions, along with her night sweats and my snoring, drove Bren to the spare room several nights a week. Having spent no more than a few nights apart since moving in together I missed her presence and was glad when her nocturnal wanderings grew less.

*

I am well into middle age now. When my parents were this age I called them old. But 60 is now the new 40. Happily, my mum and dad are both alive and well, still as frank and forthright and as publicly physically affectionate with each other as they ever were; holding hands, sitting close.  During a recent family get-together I walked into the kitchen and caught them kissing, my dad’s hand on my mum’s bum. It has been a long time since I found them embarrassing and instead of retreating quietly I laughed and said, “for goodness sake you two, get a room”. Sally, coming in after me with some more pots to be washed, giggled and my mum grinned and swatted us both with her tea-towel. Dad just looked pleased with himself.

What of Bren and I? We’re good, happy together in every way. As I write this she lays beside me reading. With no youngsters to worry about (the girls are both off living their own lives now) and us both semi-retired we have more time and are exploring new interests independently and together.  My feelings for my wife come from both our shared history and the excitement of new possibilities. As I watch her concentrating on her book, a slight smile on her lips, I feel as mentally and physically attracted to her as I ever have. My body responds in the old familiar way. Perhaps I can persuade her to finish her chapter later . . .  or . . . maybe I’ll just read my book too.