I first heard "the Queen Mother of all dirty words" when I was 10, in a Catholic school, from a couple of my classmates. I asked them what that word meant, and they told the teacher that I had used it and pretended to be completely innocent of everything. The teacher believed them, and expressed doubt that I had never heard the word before. She told me to ask my parents about it when I got home and I had no idea why she was so adamant about me not repeating it again in the meantime. Boy was she angry!
That evening, my Dad "fessed up". I got the whole talk. All I could think of at the end was that it was one of the grossest things I'd ever heard of, and I assured myself that I'd never do something so.... eeeeeewwww!!!
And then I turned 12. And things became very different.
Well before all of that, back when I was, say 8 or 9, there had been some discussion among my aunts about a friend of my Mom's who had been living with a man and they were not married. One of my aunts told me that what they were doing was wrong, and a sin. In my mind, this was exclusively limited to the concept of a man and a woman living in the same house and not being married. I wondered if it had something to do with the mortgage or chores. I had no idea about the carnal aspect of it. I think this was some of the most important advice I've ever been given. She didn't say why it was wrong for them to live together. But I eventually came to understand that there was such a thing as a law of chastity. When kids at school scorned such an idea and claimed that any and all unchaste behavior was in fact, not sinful, I had my doubts.
If it weren't for my aunt, I might have believed those kids at school. I think that the key thing was that she told me that a sin was sinful without telling me what that sin was. I was too young for "the talk", but I wasn't too young to be told that it's a sin for an unmarried man and woman to live together, even if they're doing it on "Three's Company".
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