Here, for no particular reason, is a post I first wrote about 15 months ago. I've changed it around a bit:
Aged 14, I knew all about boy-on-boy crushes and mutual masturbation, but I was pretty clueless about what was meant to happen between me and members of the opposite sex. (remember we are talking about c1957 here)
My dad - with my mother's acqiescence - had sent me to an English public school in Dorset. Twice or so a term, he would take me out for the weekend (nights not allowed away; he would stay in a local hotel) - and we would drive around, go for long walks, do a lot of talking on a bewildering variety of subjects.
One of the subjects was women. Recently divorced for a second time, other adults appeared to considerhim a man of the world.
One Saturday we went for a walk in the woods above Yeovil, a town near my boarding school, but in Somerset. Dad was holding forth on some aspect of Liberal Philosophy when there was a rustle in the trees - and the site of something, two things, very white. Two huddled up bodies, fucking. I think they apaologised and ran further into the bushes.
I remember them as looking like elves, or even frogs. Alien, frightened. Unnaturally white Is this what happened when a boy and a girl had sex? It looked a lot more frightening than I had imagined. It seemed to change what people looked like.
"How disgusting," said my father, no longer sounding like a man of the world. "If they have to do that, can't they find somewhere to do it indoors?"
