This caught my eye this week (read it here). Sydney just had SEXPO (no, I didn't get to go as an 80th birthday took precedence - not mine, mind you!) and attending Sexpo was James Deen, one of the current leading porn stars.In this article he says he wanted to be a porn star since he was a kid. He remembers being suspended by his third grade teacher for saying so! He lost his virginity at 12.
I'm sad to say, I didn't know what a porn star was until I was...hmmm...certainly well into high school. I had such a sheltered little childhood. High school needlework, years 9 and 10, is where I started to learn about the world. The girls in that class opened my eyes to this whole dimension of life that I'd been missing. God, how I sewed! So much hand sewing, just so I could learn about boys and sex, drugs and night clubs. All those things I knew nothing about.
And virginity - gosh, even as a Catholic I didn't know what that word meant until I was about 12, yet the word 'virgin' was used so often and in so many prayers. And losing it, wow, swap those numbers around and it's closer to when I lost it.
It's kind of amazing to me that with my thirst for knowledge, I missed the whole sex thing as a kid. I knew about animal sex. I knew biology. I just didn't even think of the human mechanics. I was such a nerd of a kid, that I probably knew the mechanics but never thought of it beyond a coupling exercise. I remember turning away during kissing on the TV because it made me feel sick - can you believe that?
How did I get from there to here? I met someone just like James Deen, who'd had a childhood not too dissimilar to his. He made me explore sex in a way I hadn't, well, not beyond my own scribbles. He encouraged me to write, read, explore. What if I'd never had my eyes opened by the girls in needlework or this guy? I wonder if I would have stumbled across the thrill of sex, or if the mechanics of coupling would have been all I was interested in?
What were you goals re sex or career as a kid? Were you a James Deen or a Cate Ellink with your upbringing?
Aha! That's where I went wrong. I *never* sewed!
ReplyDeleteI learned most of my early stuff from Mills and Boon... and when they got too tame, I used to flick through my sister and my mum's bookcases, grabbing mostly Sydney Sheldon's, and that furthered my 'knowledge'...
Imagine if you'd had internet back then... you wouldn't have had to sew at all!
Hi Lily,
DeleteI didn't have that reading matter, so I needed to sew. I'd hate to think what I'd be like if I had the Internet as a kid!
Cate xo