My real sex education began when my son turned 10

My real sex education started when my son Josh turned 10, and we toddled off to year 4 “family life” night. It’s a gentle introduction. We sit through a virtual visit to the zoo, looking at different creatures that make up a family – the compound of happy monkeys (mum, dad, two kids and a mortgage), the two giraffes (hubby and wife or hubby and hubby), the single otter (TV dinner for one in front of Footy Classified).

Just when things are starting to look a bit tame, two androids are drawn on the white board. The kids are asked to identify the bits beginning with P, T and S that make men different from women. Arms are pumping the air and voices shouting like an audience from The Chase. “Penis!” “Testicles!” Gee, it’s easier than the 10-times table. (What the hell is S?)

And what, beginning with FT, do women have that men don’t? Josh has his hand high in air, face flushed in triumph. He’s furious when his mate Zac calls out the answer from the back of the room. “Hey, Zac, I had fallopian tubes!”

The highlight of the night is when our instructor gives birth to a Cabbage Patch doll through a bundle of pantyhose (not being worn at the time). The instructor with the Scottish accent is getting hot and bothered: “You poosh and you poosh, phew, and you poosh and…” Wild cheering. The tot from Mattel is born.

Josh is in year 5 now and parents are no longer invited to explore the wonders of the hairy armpit, the yellowing zit, the fairy pillow that awaits when one “does puberty”. The three lessons, held a week apart in class-time, cover the greasies that happen to boys, the messies that happen to girls and finally the squishy things males and females do when they cuddle up closer, closer – and great jumping Jehoshaphat!

There’s a lot to absorb, and sometimes the facts get a bit skewed. After the first lesson, Josh is proud of his new-found knowledge and the prospect of things to come. “When a man gets an erection, it’s 35 centimetres long.”

And then the question: “So, Mum, do you use tampoons?”

“I think you mean tampons.”

“Whaddever!”

In spite of saying that men have a P and women have a V, Josh and his mates are pretty cavalier about the whole S.I. thing (that’s sexual intercourse to you). In fact, boys more than girls are throwing themselves into the subject. They relish their new task for homework – to interview an adult about their experiences with puberty.

“So, Mum, when did you first notice you were getting puberty?”

“I, um, noticed small lumps on my chest when I was 11.”

“Was one bigger than the other?”

“It was actually.”

“Yes, that’s quite normal.”

Before the final class, dedicated to “doing it”, the children have been asked to prepare a question for the instructor on anything they don’t understand.

One boy is going to ask which way pads go – sticky side up or down. Another is keen to know when he should start shaving. I ask Josh what question he has prepared. He’s been studying a picture in his puberty book that shows five or six different contraceptives.

He sighs. “Do you really need to use all those things just to have sex?”

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