How do you have sex mum?
How are babies made?
Then I glance at my phone
And see my son has been asking our friend Google Home
And our Google friend is no holds barred
He says the penis goes inside the vagina
And I gaze at these robotic, grown up words
And wonder if it isn’t a little bit absurd
That when I was twelve I was getting my sex education
From wanton fumblings in the toilets
At the local park
Stinky fingers behind the bikesheds
And ‘you look at mine, I’ll look at yours’ beneath the blankets on my bed
From the slutty porno Playboy centre spread
from the hormonal, spotty schoolboys I’d mislead
from the x-rated porno prose that I’d misread
from the 18 rated movies which I’d be dead
if me mam found me putting such filth in my innocent young head
And Google Home hasn’t done a bad job
If you’re thirty with a mortgage
And missed your sex education classes at your grammar school
Although google seems to think that it’s only same sex relationships that are cool
And lesbians, gays, and every queer in the nation
Are taking a sexual copulation vacation
And who knows, one day there will be negative ramifications
if Google stays straight
I pride myself on being a progressive mum
I have been letting my son be himself since the very first days I wiped the poop from his bum.
And I’m eager to see him become a young man
There’s been no puritan technology ban
No degrading Wonder Woman in favour of a testosterone fueled Batman
No forcing him to be less Autistic yet no forcing him to be in the disabled clan
I’ve always taught to hold up his little Autistic head and scream ‘I can’.
So I ask him
Son, how are babies made?
“The penis goes into the vagina and the man ejects sperm”
And I have to smile at the ejects bit
As though the word ejaculation isn’t a big hit
And I wonder if the sperm would miss their target
If they would be all redundant in the baby making market
And maybe this way it could be a new contraceptive
Maybe the men could be a little bit deceptive
And maybe the women could remind them
About condoms and STD’s
Hey Google, maybe you could just
Add a little bit about popping a little condom cap
On artful todger’s tinkling tete
To prevent the global baby threat
And keep the nasty diseases
To be the property of the dirtbag whose teaser pleases.
My son got the nuts and bolts main bits right
And I praised him for his knowledgeable prowess
At twelve he would have wiped the sex ed floor with this progressive lioness
He can bandy around the word penis like a consultant gynaecologist
But still pisses all over the toilet floor
and I wonder if that’s a kid thing
or will I still be mopping up the pee when he’s twenty-six or more?
I know what comes next
And I hear him talking in whispers to his friends in the next room
Oh son, you’re only 12 but you’re growing up way too bloody soon
I don’t mind you asking Google as long as you always ask me
I will tell you the important little things that Google doesn’t choose to see
Like how girls might fancy girls and boys might fancy boys
And some might fancy both and some might just want relationships with sex toys
And the world is a spectrum and we don’t fit in relationship shaped boxes
And diversity is the wonderful thing that makes the sexual world spin on its unpredictable axis.
So, son
Come to me
I will tell you the story of the birds and the bees
I will tell you what you should know, what is real, not nonsense whispers polluting the summer breeze
I’m not embarrassed
Don’t you bleedin’ well be.
©2019 Sarah Drury
Sarah Drury 