When you're a child, most parents avoid talking about anything rude
in front of you. No adult wants to have to answer the "what does that
mean?" questions if they accidentally mention something sexual and
therefore pique the curiosity of an under-10. Also, when you reach
the legal age of consent - or probably before - most parents want to
put right out of their mind the fact that their offspring might be
actually having sex, so they totally avoid the subject.
However, what happens when you finally grow up? When you've moved
out of home and have a long-term partner, that's when it really starts
to get weird. That's when your parents, and your partner's parents,
think it's OK to talk about sex. Far more often than you are
comfortable with too, no doubt. There will be all sorts of jokes
cropping up in conversation that are designed to make them feel your
age again, but simply serve to leave you battling to banish a mental
image of them naked and doing it.
Do they realise how uncomfortable this is for us? I don't know
whether it's worse if they don't, or if they do and that's
exactly why they're doing it. I don't want to be thinking about you
having sex, and that is exactly what happens every time you order a
cocktail called an orgasm or joke that you don't know what a condom
is. Seriously, you are no longer my age and are at least a couple of
decades my senior so should really be acting a bit more grown up than
me. Well, that's what I reckon anyway.
Perhaps I'm just being too sensitive about all this. Perhaps I
should reply to comments with a retort that makes them think
about my own sex life? Well, quite frankly, no. Because, while I'm
not interested in their sex life, they might be interested in mine and
I really don't want them knowing all the little details. When
people get past the age of 50 and they're still fucking, they want
people to know that so talking about it is like showing off. I have,
thankfully, no desire to show off to my parents in that way.
So I guess we're stuck with it then. Well, right up to the point
where we're all chatting over drinks and totally lose our patience. I
might go with, "we really don't want to know that you're still at it
and our sex life is considerably more interesting than yours so
STFU!", and see what happens. Just as well I'm not planning on having
any kids of my own so I'll never end up torturing them the same way,
eh?
Image via x-ray delta one's Flickr