Hartley Neita
LEARNING ABOUT sex in my youth was a slow process of trial and error, of listening and reading, and learning to my surprise that I was not brought into the world by a stork. The trouble was that I never saw a stork, but imagined it was like a white duck. No rhyming intended!
We did not have the Internet then. And it was a boy named McFarlane who first told a group of us about his adventure with girls. He told a good story, and we believed him. In fact, envied him. Except that after a time we noticed we never saw him talking to any of the girls in our village.
GIRL IN A BATHING SUIT
In my early teens I was given a ballpoint pen, which had a photograph of a girl in a bathing suit. And by the way, it was not a bikini. It was a one-piece; the bikini had not yet been designed. The fascination of this pen was that when you pulled off the cap and started writing, the bathing suit flowed down the girl until she was nude. Wow! A naked woman!
At college, we junior boys discovered a book on sex in the library. We could see the title through the glass door which was locked. Books in that cupboard were for sixth-formers. Trust ingenuity, however. A six-inch nail with the point beaten flat enabled the lock to be picked. One of us - I do not remember who it was - hid the book under his shirt. We went to the far corner of the school grounds, and in the shade of a divi-divi tree, took turns at reading the juicy passages. That was the start of my clinical education.
Up to age seventeen I did not know the joy of sexual encounter. At that time, I was boarding with a family who would have chased me from the home if I had sneaked a girl into my room. And the girls I knew either lived with their parents, or like me, boarded with a family. I did not own a car, so the pleasure of antics on the back seat were never mine. I subsequently learned from a friend that he picked the door lock of his girl's father's car and made use of that back seat.
Over the years, my education expanded. I discovered you were not a man unless you had a condom - or 'French letters' as they were then called - in your wallet. Buying a condom was, of course, a trip. They were then sold only in drugstores (pharmacies to those of you under 40 years of age). You visited the drugstore and hung around until the 'doctor' was alone at the counter, then went to him and stammered your request.
CROWN, PRINCE OR LION?
He was a wicked man. "Do you want a Crown? Or a Prince? Or a Lion?" he asked. Poor me. What was the difference? A French Letter was a French Letter was a French Letter. Not a Crown, nor a Prince, nor a Lion.
Around that time, a Dr. Kinsey began to carry out surveys on the sexual habits of American men and published the results. These were bestsellers, even though they never told you how to do it. Just what was done.
It was a man named Hugh Hefner who opened our eyes with his Playboy magazine. That magazine told you what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. The centrefold had a photograph of the Playmate of the Month in all her birthday glory. In addition, however, there were articles on cuisine, travel and clothing, all directed at guiding young men to become sophisticated gentlemen. It also had short stories by many of America's great authors.
Buying a Playboy magazine was, like the condom, done in secret. After a time, however, the owner of the bookshop knew what you wanted and he would reach under the counter and pull out a copy in an envelope.
Despite my sophistication, a girl who worked in the bookshop that sold the magazine, asked me to walk her home in Allman Town one afternoon. We were passing the Bamboo Club on Duke Street. When she suggested we stop for a drink. I ordered two beers. The waiter brought them, and on top of the bill was a key with a number on the tag.
"No thanks," I said. "I do not need to use the washroom."
The waiter laughed. So, too, did the girl. I later discovered the key was to a room with a bed and a wash basin.
