This Is How I Reacted The First Time I Learnt About How Babies Are Born

When I started working on this article I wanted the title to be like – “10 Things You Go Through When You First Learn About Sex”. But then it struck me that the experience cannot be generalized, and everyone learns about it at a different time, in a different way. Although, I think you may have gone through some of the same things I went through.

And to be clear, this is about the very FIRST time I heard about sexual intercourse. I do not want to tell you how old I was because that is truly embarrassing. And no, it wasn’t yesterday.

1. “Did you know?”

My friend and I are walking to this cricket match we had on the ground a few kilometers away, and then he drops the bomb.

“Do you know how babies are born? Males put their thing into the female thing. It goes in. Like inside, and then it leaks. And then babies grow out of it”

 

2. I processed it

It took some time. A lot of time actually. And it sounded like science fiction or one of those John Carpenter movies.

 

3. “NO! But you almost got me!”

I really thought he was pulling a prank on me, like the time he said his dad had just one nipple and it had two strands of hair on it. I thought it was absurd, even beyond the realm of fiction.

 

4. Poker face

He didn’t have that face, the face he made when he pranked me.

 

5. I tried to convince him

I tried to put some sense into him as if he had started following a bad cult or I could change the rules of biology with the power of belief.

“No you stupid moron, a man and a woman sleep on the bed and kiss on the wedding night. That’s how babies are born.”

I really thought you just had to sleep on the same bed to have babies.

 

6. “You are an idiot.”

I gave him hell.

“Why can’t you make up good things man, like about ghosts and stuff, why do you even think about gross things like putting things into other things?”

“If you put in so much effort into batting and bowling, you could be a star player in the team.”

And, I think, for that second, even he doubted what he had told me.

 

7. I thought about it

I didn’t have the internet back then. We had a computer, but no internet and Google was not a household name back then, and the raunchiest thing I had seen was the time when Leo draws Kate Winslet in Titanic.

I saw the signs, but was it really possible?

 

8. Asking around

I asked my other classmates in school. I was in an all-boys school, so talks like these were not very uncommon.

The responses I got were varied –

“It automatically happens man, you don’t even have to do anything. That’s why I don’t worry about it. It’s all automatic.”

“No! Who told you that?”

“Get away from me, or I will tell Rajesh sir that you have been talking dirty things!”

No, the questioning did not turn out to be productive at all.

 

9. Confirmation

My friend, who was the reason of my trauma, had an older brother. He had called both of us to his room, where he had his own CD player and a small TV. He put in a CD and walked out of the room.

It was porn.

 

10. Rebellion

My mind rebelled, like us Indians during the Quit India movement. It wanted to just get out of the body.

My body, however, was “enjoying it”.

Mind –

Body –

 

11. Acceptance

It still felt like the stuff of fiction and after a month, we had a course on sex education. And I was in a catholic school, the name of the course was “education to love” and they taught us a surprising deal. Many were surprised and a few (who I had not interrogated before) knew a great deal about it.

To the extent that one guy even knew the meaning of the word “lesbian”. And even though the course was called “education to love”, we were told that homosexuality was completely normal (do not forget that it was a conservative catholic school too.)

After the course, there were excited discussions and for a very short period of time, the boy who knew it all became a hero.

Everyone flocked to him to clear their doubts. The last time I saw a person get this much attention was the Math teacher who had set a very difficult paper.

 

12. Assimilation

It took me a few weeks to understand the whole thing. My friend even brought to me biology books of senior classes that had chapters on reproductive systems.

Kids today have it so easy, they know everything. There is the internet, which is like the boy in our class who knew everything about sex, except the internet actually can play thousands of videos for every single doubt you have.

How was your experience of discovering sexual intercourse?

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