Hypocrisy, the aphrodisiac

We've all been there as parents, have we not?

You finally get a window of grown up private time that coincides on a week where you remembered to shave your legs. One thing leads to another, but before you get a chance to close your eyes and picture the 2018 Iran World Cup team, there is a child knocking at the bedroom door and threatening to charge.

And just like that, you are nothing but a very naked cringing deer in the headlights of reality.

The previously foreign agility that courses through your veins as you leap across the room and Matrix throw cushions at your partner, is now accompanied with throbbing shame.  

Yes. I'm talking about sex.

It’s an odd taboo to have isn’t it?

Forced on us daily with the cultural society standards of beauty and appeal, yet hiding on the outskirts of the shadows when it comes to informed discussion.

As squeamish as I was circa 1999 when my mother would use copies of Dolly magazine to initiate conversations, having this base of free flowing dialogue allowed me to enter this world informed and eyes open, long before my legs were.

‘Just because he’s finished, doesn’t mean it’s finished,’ she once threw at me, prompting a life motto that I honestly want printed on shirts.

Handing me this conscious ownership of my mind and body was empowering. I was in charge of my decisions and in that, had an understanding of my self-worth. By the time I was a proper rational thinking adult, I was confident that I was a goddess and to be worshiped as such behind a bedroom door (or against it, I was open to interpretation). I never considered that I would be embarrassed or uncomfortable by the topic of sexy time.

But then this goddess had kids.

Song lyrics. Age inappropriate innuendo on telly. Anything on MTV. It all triggered my very open mind to clamp shut and linger in a haze of hypocritically ignorant bliss.

I knew the moment that my beautiful daughters were handed to me I would want to copy and paste the modern efforts my mother had made to empower and inform me as a young adult. I just hadn’t realised this would roll around so soon.

We’ve always had conversations about why they and they alone are in control of their bodies and personal space. We’ve discussed the joys that are the menstrual cycle and breast development. We’ve sat and watched One Born Every Minute with them and relayed their birth stories.

‘What’s it called when you get a kid but not from your vagina?’ The six year old had asked while the women on the TV crowned.

‘Adoption.’

‘Yep. I’m going to do that one,’ she had confirmed defiantly. 

But when it came to broaching the subject of what gets put where and why, I just hadn’t been able to come to terms with that door being opened. Literally.

‘We’re watching Friends if you want to join us?’ Soccer Hubby had asked.

‘That’s not age appropriate,’ said I.

Waving away oddly prudish behavior from the woman who had repeatedly asked him to dress as Han Solo, he perched the three of them on the couch and switched on just in time for Phoebe to ask the gang if they would prefer to give up food or sex.

‘What’s sex?’ came a nine year old voice from the corner.

‘A grown up thing,’ said Soccer Hubby, slowly dying internally.

‘Would you give up sex or food Dad?’ said she.

‘Hey, did you see the penalty shootout highlights yet? Do you want to watch them? Immediately?’ said he. Partially from awkwardness, partially from avoiding the harsh reality that he would happily throw my naked body from a room for a KFC tower burger.

The hypocrisy was killing me. By day, I was compelled to shield them from an overly sexualised world and hope they developed a drug to slow their decent into teenagnism. By night, I was passionately arguing the importance of teaching young adults about the concept of consent and contraception, while simultaneously asking my friends for tips on how best to organise the vibrators drawer.

(By colour and function, it was unanimously decided FYI)

Had Salt-N-Pepa taught me nothing?

The very reason I am able to function as a sexually active adult, one that is inclined to write articles such as this, is due solely to the bravery of a woman who put her excruciating self-conflicting mind on hold, and made sure any decision her daughter made was going to be an informed one.

That teen version of myself who was taken to her GP to openly discuss contraception options had been so pre-occupied in welcoming death by mortification, that she hadn’t seemed to consider that the parent sitting opposite her would rather be literally forcing the stethoscope into her brain matter than having her daughter grow up and no longer need her.

From necessity, bravery and enlightenment are born. And we live in a world where there is still so very much necessity.

When my time comes, I will do the right thing by the young women who require it, and deny the selfish pull on my heart to keep them as toddlers by my side.

But perhaps, that doesn’t have to be today.

Soccer Hubby had agreed that the only end to the ongoing argument was compromise. He would DVR the game our daughter was desperate to watch and they would watch it together at a reasonable hour. So here we found ourselves, in the midst of a soccer tournament, with no game to watch. What does one do with such time? 

Somewhere during the performance, the bedroom door was being pelted at with the fury of a very awake nine year old.

'YOU'RE WATCHING THE GAME WITH OUT ME!' she screamed with ferocity from the hallway.

'We're not watching soccer' we replied robotically beneath the covers

'I can hear Mum yelling at the TV!'

Glances exchanged.

'We're watching the soccer,' we replied robotically.