Love actually
Living in an old house, as I do, the wind makes an impact even on the inside the house. In mine and Meeester’s bedroom there is a gap under the skirting board at the window through which blows Aberdeen’s chillier version of the mistral. This particular wind is designed to go straight up pajama trouser legs and nighties. Every winter we say, “Must fill that gap”, and every summer we forget to do it.
The chilling conditions make the folk from Aberdeen an anthropological mystery. It’s simply far too cold to get naked. How has the race survived in these parts? I mean, Meeester had to stop me from wearing my woolly black hat to bed last night; it was THAT cold. I’m not exactly working the whole sex appeal thing, am I?
And Meeester did have sex on the brain last night. But not for the reasons you’d expect.
For today, as a teacher, Meeester has to do his first ever Sex Education class to a group of Sixth Years (17 year olds). Rightly, he has been taking this very seriously and has been thinking carefully about what it is that he needs to say. It’s a big responsibility and I look forward hugely to hearing how he got on.
I am particularly pleased that Meeester has given this some real thought, as I am one of the millions of eighties kids who came away from sex ed. thinking we’d get AIDS or pregnant if we even thought so much as about it. I seem to remember having to decipher a video with an iceberg in it and then watching a woman giving birth in the seventies in a second production (even in a just hospital gown you could she was in the seventies).
Not one bit of rumpy-pumpy do I remember getting to see, despite a great deal of anticipation to the contrary. It’s a wonder I’m not still a virgin.
Hilariously, one less experienced teacher at Meeester’s school thought it was a good idea to kick start the lesson by simply chalking up as many words for genitalia on the board as she could. Aided by suggestions from the pupils. Now, I haven’t been a teenager for a pretty long time but the idea of a group of teenagers being encouraged to shout out “Fanny! Cock! Knob!” and the rest makes me shake my head in bewilderment. What was she thinking could be gained from such an exercise? That lesson will not go down in student folklore as being the time the students gained a springboard for sexual understanding.
No, that lesson will simply go down in lore as, “That time Mrs Smith wrote ‘Cunt’ on the blackboard.”
By comparison, Meeester thought he should make the lesson useful; maybe impart some wisdom that would let the class in on a few secrets that might otherwise elude them for some time and ask anything they want.
He decided to do some research. His subjects are those who’ve been involved in the shagging game for some considerable time: his friends and family.
I was personally thankful that he didn’t suggest the approach taken by John Cleese in Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life”. Which you can see here, if you haven’t already.
Meeester decided to ask us all three questions .
Here are the questions he asked us:
- What things would you tell an 18 year old you about sex?
- What is the greatest sex myth?
- What is sex for?
Chillingly he also phoned my parents and asked for their contributions. I did not know he would do this. Stunned, I asked if he had phoned his own parents. He simply went grey and said, “Of course not”.
He got some interesting answers, though. Not least from my folks. I particularly liked my father’s response to the first question.
It was “Chance your arm every time you can. The worst that can happen is she’ll say no”.
What advice would you give the 18 year old you?
