It’s time
4 months ago
9/30/2005
I thought I had many many years before I had to explain the birds and the bees. I was wrong. My brother, who has been a single parent until recently, called to ask me if I'd explain sex to my niece. She's a teenager. She hates her step-mother so there really isn't any other woman in her life that can explain it to her. It's not that he waited until now to shed any light on sex, he bought her the appropriate books, she sat through sex-ed at school, he tried his best to explain where babies come from, but this is different. She's a teenager...did I say that already? She has a serious boyfriend (as serious as you can be at that age). He's a jock, he plays football, basketball, and baseball. He has pressure to be cool, therefore he wants to have sex. Isn't that funny how boys have sex to be cool and girls have sex to be loved? Messed up! Anyway, my brother would like me to explain how having sex too young is wrong, horrible, can screw up your life. I guess he thinks I'm some sort of expert on the subject. I can't say having sex so young screwed up my life but it did skewer my view on relationships for the better part of my life.
So, she calls me. I can tell she really doesn't want to talk about sex. She's like most teenagers, she thinks adults are idiots. I ask her point blank, "so your boyfriend wants to get in your pants?" "What," she exclaims. Oh sorry, I mean your boyfriend wants to 'make love' with you. "Yes auntie, he said he loves me and that it will bring us closer." I'm about to puke because memories are rushing back in my head...it would appear that after all these years the pick-up line is still the same. So what do I tell her, the truth. Boys, I mean men, I mean boys, will tell you just about anything they think you want to hear in order to 'get into your pants.' They will tell you they love you, that you're special, that they will wait until you are 'ready' (all bull of course). They'll try to make you believe that this love thing you have will last forever (knowing the whole time it will last about 5 mins.). They'll give you promise rings, and hold your hand, and kiss you, and hold you, all the while shoving that hard c*ock in your back so you don't forget that they are a "boy", a "man", and they have needs. Needs that incidentally must be filled by you, a "girl", a "woman". I'll tell her about how special that 'first time' will be. How he'll take you to his sister's 'mobile home', fill you with cheap booze, and tell you again how much he loves you. You'll lay on his sister's bed while she watches tv in the 'front' room and you'll 'do it'. He'll 'shhhhh' you while you yell "it hurts" and all the happy bliss will end in about 3 minutes. It will all be worth the life time of bad judgment calls you'll make every time you pick another guy who makes you feel responsible for his happiness. You'll go back to school thinking you're special, he'll go back to school telling everyone he's cool. You'll be labeled easy, he be labeled a 'stud'. It will all be worth it. It will be worth it when you wake up one day, twenty years later, while you are still laying next to some guy in the back room of his sister's trailer and he's telling you he loves you...only this time it will be you saying "shhhhh" because you'll finally realize that love, doesn't exist to those too young to understand it. Love, is never forever. Being special, is something you are not what someone makes you. You are not responsible for anyone's happiness, except your own. You'll realize all of these things, but it will be too late. The scars exist, the mistakes made, the choices, final. You'll leave that trailer, you won't look back. You'll go home, alone. You'll wonder why you can't pick the right kind of guy. Why love hurts. Why life is so damn hard. You'll remember, one time, a very long time ago, you asked your auntie about sex and love and life, she told you the truth, and you didn't listen. Next time you'll listen.
I told all of this to my niece, she sat in silence not knowing whether to believe that she could be me, I could be her, she could make a choice. She finally spoke, "auntie, did you really do it in the back of a mobile home?" "no," I reply, "it was a double-wide."
I wonder if she'll listen.
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If she's really lucky, she'll end up like me, with no unwanted children, no diseases, and a complete and total misandrist.
But let's face it teens are going to boink no matter what they're told. Just keep drilling into her head the word "condom".
But she is a teen and chances are, she like most of her freinds and other girls in the school, america, world, will keep on making the same mistakes, and boys will be boys.
Hope things do work out though.
- el
As for boys and girls, they're not so different these days, NWC. So far as I can see, anyway.
Thoughts?