Sex Education

One of the weird things about porn being your job is that sooner or later your parents will ask you work-related questions. Being a convent girl from a good Catholic family, I did not receive any formal sex education. Instead I remember being taken to the library by my older sister who thrust a book into my hands which showed an anatomical line drawing of a couple during intercourse. The guy was on top with his hands by his side about 2 inches above the women. As a result for years I believed that the cock muscle was so strong it could support a guy's entire body weight so he could sort of levitate during the act of lovemaking. I spent many years thinking about this and wondered if the cock muscle could always perform the levitation trick or was it just in female company that it gained it's super-power!

Thankfully, 30 years on and my knowledge of all things sexual is much more extensive. Despite the fact that I spend a lot of my working day talking about sex, I still find it a little tricky when my parents grill me for information. I know most people don't want to think about their folks having a sex life (I'm cringing now as I write this) but count yourself lucky that you do not need to explain the finer points of sex play to your mum and dad!

When I started the business my mother wanted to watch one of our movies as she had never seen a “pornographic picture” before. I told her that I would happily give her a VHS (it was 8 years ago) but she couldn't watch it in front of me. She sharply told me to stop being so prudish and proceeded to watch the movie in my office. Her deadpan expression remained unchanged as she sat through blow jobs, threesomes and a bit of girl girl action. When it finished she proclaimed “there's an awful lot of penis licking.” She was right, porn does involve an awful lot of penis licking.

A few years later our printers produced a calendar with a glossy, double-entendre picture for each month. Two iced buns looking like tits, that sort of thing. My Dad loves a good calendar. He uses it to mark down the cricket and rugby dates, so I gave him one. Everything was fine until he called asking about November. This is how the conversation went:

Dad: Great calendar, thanks darling.
Me: You're welcome.
Dad: There's one thing, I don't understand November, it's a picture of a necklace.
Me: Yes, a pearl necklace.
Dad: So what is the double-entendre?
Me: Dads, it's a PEARL NECKLACE.
Dad: But what does that represent? I asked the lads down the pub and they didn't know.
Me: [sighing and cringing at the same time] OK, um, ah... well what does a guy do when he has sex?
Dad: Inserts his willy into a woman.
Me: [more blushes] Yes, and what, um, er... happens when a bloke plays with his willy? [why on earth am I referring to it as a willy???]
Dad: He ejaculates.
Me: [cringing so badly I'm doubled over at the other end of the phone] Yes and where does he ejaculate?
Dad: Inside a woman.
Me: Yes, but um... where else can he ejaculate?
Dad: [confused] On the floor?
Me: [at the end of my tether and talking really quickly] A pearl necklace is when a guy falls short of cumming on a girl's face, hence pearl necklace. [Ah, relief!]
Dad: [amazed] Really, that's a pearl necklace? Well I'll get brownie points from the lads for knowing that, thanks darling.
Me: [still sighing and cringing] My pleasure Dads!!!

The pearl necklace conversation was just the start. Since then my Dad has asked me if double anal is “two willies in the bumhole”? Answer: Yes. “How do you shoot a double anal scene?” Answer: With great difficulty. And finally after watching Brokeback Mountain, he quizzed me about gay sex. A key moment in the film is the sex scene between two macho cowboys, shot in such a way that you only see their silhouettes projected onto the side of the tent. Dads was under the impression that all gay men did was wank together and was quite surprised when I told him that they do have anal sex.

We all know our parents have sex, how else would we be here? I have 3 sisters, so mine have obviously have done 'it' more than once. Despite this, discussing sex with my parents is an odd role reversal that still makes me a little uncomfortable. I thought I had rid myself of all the Catholic convent girl repressions, but being open and frank to your folks about the ins and outs of sex is one hang-up I think I'll hold on to.