January 24, 2008

• I think the missus has a good grasp of the situation. We had two of Peter Mayle's books in our house, Where Did I Come From? and What's Happening To Me?, and they served their purpose very well. Good, simple, but fairly comprehensive explanations, cartoons-drawings mixed in with more serious stuff. An initial introduction by the parent, and then left as an open resource to be referred to every so often as needs arise. Then, after that, when little Pettle comes across that stash of pr0n in the woods, there's no bewilderment, just pure, unabashed pleasure. And isn't Playgirl meant not for women but closet-cases?
• In my immediate family we were pretty open about nudity from when we were little and there wasn't really any "nudity = sex" ideas until we were much older. Bodies were just bodies. So I've never really found the whole nudity thing to be such a big deal because it wasn't a mystery at all. Of course much later on I learned the whole nudity thing got a lot more exciting if it was someone you were attracted to.
• My parents were pretty firm on the "nudity requires privacy" thing. But, like gomi, it wasn't made into a sexual thing. It was more like, private parts are private and belong under clothing when you're around other people because tthat's just what people do. But they also had "The Joy of Sex" or some such book out in the open on the bookshelf. I don't know if it was left there on purpose for us kids to read or if it just got lost in the shuffle of secondhand books, but it was at about the age of 8 that I started to read it. It answered any questions I might possibly have, and there was no awkward talking-about-sex-with-the-parents moment.
• I forgot to add - the book did have pictures, but they were all tasteful and unglamorous.
• And as for the introduction coming from the parent being 'warping', I disagree. My Mom went through those Mayle books with me and my sis as a bit of a change in bedtime story material, and handled any questions like a pro. Without treating everything with embarrassment or stigma, it was all no big deal -- the key to the whole process, I believe. There was, of course, the moment when you make the logical deduction of 'I was a baby, I was made through this process by my parents', but that's inevitable. And being taught about it so matter of factly, I gained some playground cred as being an authority on the subject, although some preferred other more fantastic explanations. Thus began the process of knowing a lot about sex and sexuality, but not getting many opportunities to put that knowledge to good, fun use.
• One more thing, before I do well enough to shut up -- when Mom made that first, terrible discovery my stash of purloined-pr0n, her talk consisted of "you know real women aren't like that, right?" Yes, Mom. That's the whole point.
• It's an interesting idea. I don't think it will do any harm to have an illustrated discussion of the Female Nude in Art, but I doubt it will either warpify or dewarpify the Pettlet. He's still going to want to look at porn. I see a slight risk that some unhelpfully misinterpretable account might reach schoolfriends, neigbours, Granny.
• I take it your family don't wander around naked or leave the bathroom door open during baths. My brother and I bathed together when we were little, and my mom generally left the door open when showering, etc - maybe it was because she was a single mother and wanted to keep an eye on us, or it could have just been that she was slowly becoming a nudist (like her mother). I suspect I will go the same way. I think your wife's idea is a good one, though I wouldn't use just art. Art is good, but usually obscures the most important bits, and erases hair, etc (men have might pubic hair in art, but women often don't). I would also use biology books, and talk about bodies and reproduction. It could be like science and sex ed all in one - and even if biology textbooks are too hard to read, the diagrams will make sense and you can explain them to him at his level. Also, you can talk about the differences between boys and girls, and men and women - that's probably best done with puberty books. Maybe not everyone agrees, but I've always preferred the information overload on sex education. If they can get all of the information they want/need from you, their curiosity will be satisfied. And at his age, I imagine he would be more grossed out by the mechanics of sex than titilated. I know that people are more worried today about what happens when their kids go to someone else's house and pipe up with "Daddy made me look at pictures of naked people!" Frankly, I think we have all gotten so paranoid we are setting up our children to be either ignorant or repressed. We need to talk about this stuff, and (if we aren't nudists) our kids need to see pictures of naked people. They are either going to see those pictures through porn, which frankly doesn't really explain why things are the way they are, or biology. And I'd rather my kids knew what mammary glands were before they knew what rimming was.
• As I remember the pictures in The Joy of Sex featured a couple with all of their pubic hair intact. I have heard from a couple of boys who'd only seen porn and were horrified by the presence of hair when the finally saw a "real girl" naked. My mom told me everything I wanted to know, as often as I wanted to know. (Then she added that if I got pregnant before I graduated college the baby'd be an orphan, because she'd kill me, kill the father, then raise the baby as her own.) We also had cable from an early age, so I saw lots of naked people there. I'm taking muscle relaxants for a spasm in my face (I know! How weird.), so take that for what it's worth.
• Throw a classic 1978-80 playboy his way (recommended: the Bo Derek issue) and leave him to his own devices. You can still find them around in bookstores that deal in old stuff. Don't stare over his shoulder. Pretend like you don't know what's going thru his head, and that it's all his own discovery. Neither encourage nor discourage. Don't be associated in his mind with this, because that will weird him out later. He'll find out the nitty gritty of the sex act later on his own, like within a couple of years. For starters, some non-exploitative softcore classic nudie pix will do.
• I should perhaps clarify that lil' Pettle knows the schematic differences--he's got a little sister, can remember enough about nursing to know about breasts and nipples and such, and while we're not familial nudists, he's seen enough to have some idea of grown women vs. small girls. And we have a copy of It's Not the Stork, which he has read a bit and thus knows the basics of all that. But he specifically wanted to see naked grown women, hence my search for suggestions for a non-scarring way to address that curiosity.
• i think the mrs.' ideas are better suited to a young girl than young boy. i think your rite of passage idea is not outdated...
• That is really a very important issue these days. Right now, several acquaintances and friends are just in that stage with their kids, and I've heard a couple hair-raising anecdotes. It might sound very much 'get-offa-my-lawn, why-back-in-my-time..' but yes, past generations just weren't as likely to have truly bizarre, violent porn as their first contact with the misteries of the flesh. Just as airbrushed playmates might have warped our expectations, one wonders just what effect today's shock sites will cause on today's young. And we know that, just as we managed to sneak some old magazine, they will get to see whatever's on the net, filters, restrictions and supervision notwithstanding. In my case, parents were at the same time traditional but not restrictive, an the fact art books with all those old paintings of hot nude cortesans as well as science reference collections helped a great deal with making the taboo less traumatic. In fact, first exposure to proper porn was, I think, older brother's stashed nudist magazine. Real people, hair and gravity effects intact, playing cheerfully at nature. That was nice.
• Well, the reason I brought up my experience is that it WAS my introduction to what grown-up of the opposite sex looked like. It just happened to be accompanied by the text of the basics of all that. The thing about it that I appreciate is that the pictures were realistic.
• "i think the mrs.' ideas are better suited to a young girl than young boy." Unless the art book includes Courbet's Origin of the World, of course. Otherwise, vintage Mayfairs. Plenty lame softcore.
• Yeah, I've been going back and forth on this all day, but if he knows where babies come from/what sex is and is familiar with what *real* grown up nekkid women look like, I'm going to lean toward letting the kid stash porn under his mattress as he finds it and look the other way. The danger in that is of course that you'd like him to look at the healthier stuff, and you can't control that if you're letting him discover porn on his own, but then again I think it would have been pretty damn weird if my dad had handed me a stack of Playboys and said "here you go, son, spank to your heart's content. Be sure to check out the knockers on Miss July 1996, if you can get the pages unstuck!" Not to mention that he'll find that Dark Night of the Soul pr0n on his own anyway. Also be sure that you give him the full picture. (Possibly NSFW)
• In all fairness, MCT, I don't think he's at a spanking stage yet. I mean, I certainly wasn't at that age. If he follows my pattern, we've still got a few years of "innocent curiosity" before it turns into "raging spankmonkey would-you-give-someone-else-a-chance-at-the-bathroom-for-god's-sake" time.
• or the full Python...(def. NSFW)
• Well, this is true. In that case, maybe a coffee table book of artistic nude photography would be the thing to go for, to let him leaf through and ask questions if he likes. That way he can look, satisfy his curiosity, and it's not THE BIG THING THAT WE DON'T LOOK AT NO SIR KEEP YOUR DIRTY ERECTION TO YOURSELF. Might have the bonus effect of pr0n not being such a big deal later on when he does approach the Era of Friction-Based Entertainment. But I still lean toward letting him explore the book and ask questions, rather than you giving him the guided tour. Treating it as not a big thing, just people's bodies. And of course I'd try to find a book that has women with real bodies -- I'm sure they're out there. Maybe check the photography/art sections at B&N? You'll need to be careful to stash that book when the parents come by for a visit, an idea I find charmingly nostalgic.
• Diane Arbus did a lovely series at a nudist camp... but it's Diane Arbus.
• Monkeyfilter: the Era of Friction-Based Entertainment.
• What about National Geographic - any good these days?
• *takes notes for use circa 2015*
• "Mrs. Pettle says she was "horrified" by her first Playgirl peeks. I wonder if this is common." Some of the 7th grade girls I teach are a bit horrified at what's going on with their own bodies, I would imagine that a peek at the opposite sex would give them serious creeps. Ladies, what did you think of your first foray into the sight of mature twigs and berries?
• Wait...doesn't everyone get a stripper on their 9th birthday?? He can wait, for pete's sake...
• doesn't everyone get a stripper on their 9th birthday?? Mh. And on the other side of the spectrum... I recall some acquiantances of my sister mentioning how in a branch of their family, it was customary for the 'man of the house' to take their kids, days after their 12th birthday, to get schooled by a professional in the ways of love. 'Make him a man'. But more than a didactic experience, the subtext was to teach him the role women 'should play', how they must ply to men's desires and will. Just the thing for perpetuating misogyny and machismo.
• I recall being an 11 year-old and being horrified at the sight of my friend's mother running into their living room, turning the television on to HBO, and screaming, "look at her breasts!! Do you see them!! Look!!" I believe it was Bo Derek running across the beach in 10. My friend grimaced in delight, his eyes suddenly transfixed upon the bouncing wonders. His mother was nearly foaming at the mouth, so excited to expose her son to the nude female body... And from that day onward, I always remember him looking at women as mere playful objects. Ten years later (and no longer my friend), he went to a party and slipped a date-rape drug in some girls drink. He proceeded to have his way with her while she was unconscious. Of course, this is not meant to say that what his mother did was wrong - just bringing up the memory for the hell of it. I say let it happen naturally, because it will happen sooner or later. If that entails a well-placed "tasteful" book of images, so be it.
• I was horrified at my first glimpse of Playgirl, but Pauly Shore was in it. *shrug*
• Get him Gray's Anatomy. Bodies AND guts. He'll love it.
• ...but Pauly Shore was in it. OK, now we know it isn't targeted at women!
• we don't want him either, yo.
• Don't do it, because someone will eventually try to accuse you of molestation or something worse. People are paranoid.
• My mother had a one of her nursing books that she left out. Between that, and various critters--bodies, sex, birth--all us kids were like, Whatever. We leafed through that thing from the time we were able to hold a book. The sexuality stuff was ok, but the great part was the plastic overlays of the muscle, organs, and nervous system. Now THAT was coooool! From what my brothers have have told me, they knew all the particulars about women and sex, but that didn't dim the joy of discovering *WOMEN* and *SEX* in Playboy and smut books. What made our experience different from other kids is that we knew when we encountered stupidity: No, you can't get preggers off a terlit seat, you dip! Or bullshit: No, you're not going to put it in "just a little" and pull out in time. I vote for getting a used college book on human anatomy and sexuality. Get a couple handouts about contraceptives and STDs and use them for bookmarkers in the anatomy book. Then get a tasteful art photography book of nudes FEMALE AND MALE. Let him appreciate the variations across the spectrum of both sexes. Put the books on the shelf. Reference works for the whole family! The thing about an advanced book with good illustrations is that it continues to pique the kid's curiosity. I remember glossing over certain things in Mom's book and then encountering them again at different ages and they made sense, or were more relevant. Sometimes I had questions and it made for good dialogue with mom, and sometimes I would encounter some advanced idea at school, and could go back for reference and be sure the info was right without having to ask mom an embarrassing question. As far as being old enough for wanking, don't discount it. There are five yo that will touch themselves at night in bed just because it feels good. Doesn't mean they're really "rubbing one out" (disgusting term!) but hey, we have lots of nerve endings down there, and it feels nice. Also don't discount the shit that goes around in school. I've heard some of the most filthy sexual references and suggestions from third and fourth graders. One of the stupidest things that's going around now in jr and sr high is the idea that oral sex isn't really sex, so it doesn't count and you can't get STDs. Duh! It does count, dammit, and I think that a lot of girls who are getting talked into fellatio are humiliated by the act. I'd almost rather hear that they actually had sex, because that's at least reciprocal. The smart girls are realizing that with fellatio, the guy gets all the fun, and the girl gets nuthin' or the reputation of a slut. Ooooooh, baby, if you love me....BULLSHIT! Whoops, off topic. Seriously, the more you obsess about his interest in nekked ladies, the more he'll think it's a big deal. Just make good information available. He'll learn about *WOMEN* and *SEX* on his own.
• BlueHorse - you reminded me of something I heard from a university researcher who conducted health surveys. That the amount of fear mongering out there about sex (just once = teh pregnant*many exclamation points*) that if they DID have sex once and DIDN'T get pregnant they concluded that they were infertile. Which makes perfect sense......but still.....
• I've still never seen a Playgirl, but in second grade, I found some Hustlers in the woods behind the school. Pretty disconcerting now to think of why there might be porn stashed by an elementary school, but at the time I wasn't phased. My friends and I were reading them in the school library and a teacher saw us, got the principal involved, and all our parents had to come get us. I don't know that the experience warped my psyche, but I sure got the message that sex is probably bad and definitely something you keep to yourself.
• When I was about eight, one of my fellow-pupils got hold of a 'mucky book' - just black and white nudes. Mr Dobbinson, the teacher, found it and immediately went into the facetiously pompous manner he used when his duty required him to be serious but his sense of humour was activated. "Worthy pupils," he said (he really did say things like that in his pompous mode), "This production of moral turpitude must be consigned to the belly of Moloch. Moloch, as you will remember, was the Carthaginian deity whose idol had an immense furnace in its stomach, into which infants were cast." He formed us all up into a crocodile and led us across the quad towards the back of the kitchens, Half-way across, we met the Headmaster. "Out for a walk?" he asked, suspiciously. "Indeed," replied Mr Dobbinson, "Such a fine morning: an oppotunity to point out the development of the catkins, I thought." And then, sotto voce, as the Headmaster receded into the distance "That was a close one!" He took us to a big brick affair where they burned kitchen rubbish, and threw the magazine in. "This is known as Moloch," he said, "Let me never see you, worthy pupils, soiling your innocent eyes with printed material of this vile kind again, or the consequences will be dire. Step forward, worthy Plegmund, and gaze into the belly of Moloch. What do you see there?" And as I came up to him he discreetly hissed in my ear "The answer is 'human remains'." "Er, human remains, sir." I said, not very convincingly. I don't actually think this was a model way of dealing with the issue, but at the time I thought it was marvellous.
• Holy crap I want to go to school in England.
• My parents gave me Boys Growing Up and I brought it to show my friends and we all had a good laugh. I also had access to several Desmond Morris books (Naked Ape, Manwatching, Intimate Behaviour, etc.) that had non-prurient nude photographs of real people. Some time later, one of my friends found some magazines in his house, either belonging to an older brother or to his dad. Unfortunately, one of the magazines was German Scheiße pr0n, and featured things that even my 8-year-old self knew were simply wrong. This did help make South Park all the funnier for me.
• Pleg, that is officiallt the best school story I have ever heard. TELL me he was wearing a black gown over his suit. EVEN if he WASN'T!
• BTW, my first impression of pictures of people in official pr0n settings was that the nice ladies and gentlemen looked very uncomfortable.
• I don't have time to read the whole discussion, I'm sorrrrry, guys... but The Body: Photographs of the Human Form is an "adult but not porn" book with tons of nude photos. Some are fine art photos and some aren't (but the ones that aren't are of historical interest). The problem is that some are explicit (leaning towards disturbing... read the editorial reviews near the top of the Amazon page), but others are probably reasonably harmless. A few might have started out as porn but aren't presented in that context.
• Sadly, I don't actually remember, TUM, but it's quite likely. He sometimes wore a gown, as did the majority of the masters - and I think his sense of occasion would have impelled him to put it on for added solemnity on that particular day. The headmaster was definitely wearing one, as he invariably did.
• Holy crap I want to go to school in England. Obviously you've never listened to Meat is Murder. Still, awesome story Pleg!
• I found some Hustlers in the woods behind the school. Pretty disconcerting now to think of why there might be porn stashed by an elementary school, but at the time I wasn't phased. I think you're reading too much into it. Porn in the Woods (hereinafter "PITW") is a universal phenomenon rarely directly involving adults. There was likely no old guy enjoying himself out behind the school. PITW is usually created when a boy steals a couple mags from his dad's or older brother's collection, and has to go to the woods to stash/enjoy them, as he has no safe hiding place in the house. For PITW to be found near a school is not at all unusual -- it's terrain that the boy knows and can often frequent. Invariably, the PITW stash is found by other children. For girls, PITW may cause confusion or disgust, but for boys, it's a holy miracle. With the decline of print pr0n, PITW may be on a corresponding downslide. Besides -- men want to keep their pr0n nice. They wouldn't keep it outdoors.
• And thanks for the story, Pleg!
• Captain, you know a little too much about the PITW concept.
• maybe, but he's not alone...
• There was an exhaustive thread on the subject back on the mother ship a while ago. When it first happens to a boy, it's such a strange, marvellous mystery. Over the years, you discover that quite a few others had the same experience, all over the world, and wonder how such a thing is possible.
• I wonder if there's some pornographic equivalent of Johnny Appleseed, merrily wandering the woods of North America leaving naughty magazines for good little boys to find, like chocolate egss on Easter.
• Dammit, I can't even make a stupid Johnny Appleseed joke without a typo making it through the preview.
• And so the legend of Percy Pornomag was born.
• What BlueHorse said. As always, she is wise and offers sage advice. I never had to ask my parents about the birds and bees because I grew up in the country. There were birds and bees gettin' it ON all around, so I picked it up pretty early. I lived around hippies, so nudity happened. Not often, but enough to get the point. "You know real women aren't like that, right?" Yes, Mom. That's the whole point. Exactly. Real women aren't half as exciting as airbrushed sex queens. By the time I got my hands on pr0n, I knew all the anatomy. I just didn't know it could be that *good!* They were my dad's 70's Playboys, so they were nice and tasteful. When I was about 10ish, I was terrbly sick and home from school. Dad came in with a rented movie for me (which never happened). It was Revenge of the Nerds. Great movie, plenty of titties, and very encouraging to a burgeoning geek. Wasn't until later (about 14) that I got the Intertubes and I discovered everything else. We live in the era of 2Girls1Cup, and he's going to find it eventually. Best that he have a sliding scale of experience, so he knows that what he sees is not normal. Otherwise he may have a skewed perception of sex.
• Not only did I see my first adult male penis in a PITY (that's porn-in-the-yard -- buried in some ground-cover ivy beside my friend's house) Playgirl, but the theme of the issue was "Young, Gay and Unashamed," so it was full of pictures of what I took to be very happy men doing things to each other that, as an 8-year-old from a family that never, ever, ever talked about sex or nekkid bodies, let alone the existence of homosexuality, really just freaked me the hell out.
• All the women I've been intimate with HAVE been like those 70s sex queens. You people just don't hook up with the right types. Ah, the porny mags in the woods! God, what is it with that phenomenon? I don't think looking at skin mags gives a skewed perception of sex. I think you need to understand kids are not stupid. Even the Great Masters romanticised the female form. Nature will take over when necessary, like Luke using the Force in the Death Star attack, to get that torpedo into the right hole.
• Is that why cosmetic surgery on the hoo-ha is the new boom market, and girls are getting double-D salines for their sweet sixteens, because men don't expect real women to look like the pornos?
• Nobody's doin' that around where I live. What happens in the crazy US of A does not = world. Anyway, women I have been close with have all told me that they don't doll themselves up for men anyway, in fact the idea is scoffed at; they do it for self-esteem and due to peer pressure from other women. That's just what I've been told, but it makes more sense to me than what you're implying, because frankly most men would be happy if any chick hooked up with them, largely irrespective of appearance, unless they looked like Bigfoot, but even then... I don't go out with women based on appearance. It is a bonus, but personality is the main attractor. There are always going to be a minority of morons who think altering their appearance drastically is going to make them zoom up the popularity charts, but this has always been true, in our age, & all thru history. It doesn't represent the majority.
• And anyway, a lot of women need to do something about their wellyboot.
• Monkeyfilter: get that torpedo into the righ... whoa Hank! ...and girls are getting double-D salines for their sweet sixteens... Exactly. Funny how one reaches a stage when the same fears of our elders resurface. Just what can we expect from current young boys & girls that get their first exposure to sexuality from shaved, medically-modified fetishist models engaged in hyperspecialized practices that sometimes border on the legal? This is not judgemental, but a real question I ponder.
• wellyboot?
• "...shaved, medically-modified fetishist models..." That's why I recommend 1970s skin mags. You won't find none of that in there. Although a bit of airbrushing around certain areas.
• Wellyboot aka welly top. You know, wizard's sleeve.
• k ... thanks
• Monkeyfilter: a minority of morons who think altering their appearance drastically is going to make them zoom up the popularity charts
• It's a half century old, now (which makes it that much safer) but "the Family of Man" makes a point of birth, nudity, sex, childbirth, work, and death being a universal experience. I bought a copy for my niece and nephew.
• Is that why cosmetic surgery on the hoo-ha is the new boom market, and girls are getting double-D salines for their sweet sixteens, because men don't expect real women to look like the pornos? To be fair, TUM, just because some folks get this done does not necessarily mean that 16-year-olds all over the country are. Most people don't get plastic surgery, I believe, and those that do are often rich and vain and a bit stupid (though not always, to be sure). To say that because a portion of the population tries to make themselves look like fantasy blow up dolls therefore proves that "men expect women to look like pornos" does not follow. I tend to agree with the Captain--most (non-stupid) guys realize that real women DON'T look like porn stars, just like real men don't look like comic book superheroes. That's kind of the point--it's the fantasy world, not the reality. Most people (though again, not all) can, I think, keep the two separated. Even men.
• Even if it's not the men themselves driving the trend, it's thw women's perception that this is what men expect them to look like. They see that men enjoy porn, the women in porn look like X, therefore they need to look like X for them men to enjoy them. I found a lot of articles on the subject; here are two. 1 2 Either way, it highlihts the importance of both boys AND girls learning from a young age that this isn't what real people look like. There are probably just asmany boys out there feeling bad about there own bodies as a result of the same phenomenon.
• Why not take the lad to a nude beach? A little fresh air would do him good.
• TUM--exactly Mrs. Pettle's point. Ralph--a fine idea, except that a) there aren't any nude beaches in Arkansas, and b) even if there were, they'd be full of Arkansawyers. b.1)--Eeeeew.
• Firstly: wizard's sleeve n. Clown's pocket. A particularly capacious sausage wallet. As in, 'I can't feel a bloody thing. You must have a fanny like a wizard's sleeve." Yow-how-how. Woo. Mmm. Them's good wordin'. Secondly: PITW! It's like the Star Wars Christmas Special - you think it's all some kind of a dream until you read about it on teh Internets. Thirdly, but tertiarilly: Art Art , and also Art. I mean, that's what it's for. Heh. Boobies.
• Or, just take a trip.
• You could invest in a couple of these.
• 
• The Family of Man is one of the most amazing, stunning, just wonderful book. The juxtaposition of the photographs and the quotes from literature send shivers down my spine every time I read it.
• See - I was just enraptured thinking about it, I couldn't even form a proper sentence. Anyways - I don't remember how many naked people were in Family of Man, but I think every library and home should have a copy. It's all about the diversity and universality of the human condition.