But I Smile Anyway…

Just taking a break from my writing frenzy… almost 8,000 words in the last three days!

I’ve been reading parts of the manuscript out loud to my kids, but not all.

You see, there is … Shhhhh!…  S.E.X. in it! And a little other hanky-panky of varying degrees of naughtiness!

As I was censoring bits and reading it out, it got me thinking…

Why do the people of the country that produced the Kama Sutra, the country with the second largest population in the world (so someone must enjoy doing it!), and predicted to have the largest by 2050, still have such a stigma about S.E.X.? 

Whenever there is a scene on the telly that involves kissing, let alone S.E.X., the ‘telly changer’ is sought, to change the channel, or everyone is suddenly busy rustling papers or having an urgent conversation in another room?

If the latest Bollywood film shows a scantily clad heroine or a couple in a clinch, why is there always going to be people muttering about how they can’t understand how this ‘filth’ can be called entertainment?

Why, are problems of a sexual nature always hidden?

Sexuality, if not the preferred norm, swept under a carpet, never to be acknowledged?

Sure, I don’t want to go into the ins and outs (pun not intended!) of S.E.X. with my kids just yet. I don’t want to glorify it. They are only 10 and 12. But they know what it is. I just don’t want them to hear my descriptions (it’s not that graphic, honestly, but still, reading about naughty stuff to your kids? Sign me up for the Bad Momma Award right now!) just yet. They aren’t afraid to ask questions about sexuality either and I hope that by being open with them, if they were ever worried about ANYTHING, they felt they could come to us? (After all, I am the cool Flossing mum!)

But when something like S.E.X. becomes taboo, isn’t that the time we end up with other issues? It’s the thing that everyone wants to try, but isn’t allowed to, until marriage. And when you put these kinds of restrictions on anything, much like drink and drugs, don’t these same restrictions push certain youngsters to go behind backs and do things anyway? Is this not where you get more teenage binge drinking, rape, and forced S.E.X.?

Sure, there were plenty of sudden coughs and needing to get a drink when the smoochy scenes were on the screen in our house when I was growing up, but we still were able to talk to our parents. My brother, being a boarding school boy, was even more open about things, and as a result, it meant we became a family who didn’t hide things.

When I went to university, I didn’t find excuses to tell my parents when I was out for the night, and when the time came, I told them about my boyfriend, who later became my Hubby Dearest.

Okay, so I’m not going to discuss my bedroom gymnastics with my Pops and Mum, but I know If the need arose, I could. And after all, as my Pops said to my brother many years ago, when he asked if they still, you know, did IT… “We are human you know!”

Yes, they are… but that’s one image I can do without in my mind!

Anyway, here ends my rambling on my thought for the day!