It’s the summer of 1970. I’m 13 years old but will turn 14 in November during my first year of high school (grade 9).
Visualize 5′ 10″ tall (almost 6′ at 18), 150 pounds and everything in the right place. Keep in mind that I am precocious (my stepmother’s assessment; read The Bra) and it turns out that I’m ADD (was identified in my mid 50’s) which means I’m not adverse to risky behaviour.
My Dad wants to talk to me so we get settled in my bedroom and it goes something like this:
Men are going to be very attracted to you as you look like a fully developed woman. You’re not old enough to get birth control pills. If/when you need them, let me know and I’ll get them for you. My adult self thinks “YUCK”!
I’m sure there was more to the talk than that, but clearly a presumption that I knew and understood procreation. There was no reference to saving myself for marriage or how precious my virginity, or that it must be preserved, blah, blah, blah.
Fast forward to the Fall. I have an 18 year old boyfriend that attends the same high school I do and we become sexually active. I have opted to purchase spermicidal goop and my boyfriend wears condoms.
Did I ask my father for birth control pills, you wonder? I did not. Call it instinctual self-preservation, or just not something I wanted to consult my father about.
Fast forward again. The boyfriend, and I are going to his family’s cottage for the weekend. I have packed a bag and gone into the kitchen to do something, no idea what but my bag is open on the kitchen table and my younger sister is approaching. In a sudden panic I toss the spermicidal goo and applicator to the back of the silverware drawer. Nosey little sister, crisis averted.
Well, not exactly. You see, I forgot about the goo and applicator and left for the weekend. Upon return, father handed me goo and applicator and advised me not to leave it lying about. I went up to my room and deposited same somewhere safer in my room.
While I was in my room I heard my stepmother and father arguing about me being too young to be sexually active and what the heck was he thinking to pass on implicit permission thus by suggesting I get birth control.
Some would say my father was a predator. When he was 28 he married my mother just days after she turned 18 (she was with child, me). When he was 38 he remarried; my stepmother was about 2 weeks shy of 19. When my step-brothers’ wife needed to be picked up from hospital after an outpatient procedure Dad volunteered and then made a pass at her as she was lying on the couch recovering. Step-brother and wife moved out of the parental home the next day.