LIFTING THE CURTAIN

Hanns F. Skoutajan

A kiss is but a kiss ..... or is it?

As a child I often attended performances in our beautiful baroque opera house.  I  occasionally observed two actors exchange a kiss on stage. I was surprised and curious. I asked my mother whether this kiss was for real and she reassured me that it was pretend, that their lips really didn’t touch. Indeed I noticed that the act was somewhat hidden inasmuch as they had their backs to the audience or were otherwise obscured. I was relieved.

How times have changed! Today every dramatic performance on stage or screen has its requisite number of kisses and much, much more or so it seems. Sex scenes over the years have become more explicit, realistic, even real. What once was denounced as porn is now safe from the censors clippers.

All this has come to my mind over the controversy raging about sex education in the class rooms of our public schools. Rob Ford, former mayor of Toronto, is against it.

My own sex education began, where else, but on the pioneer farm that we inhabited when we first came to Canada. One day our one and only sow and therefore a prize possession began to act strangely. Our neighbour assured us that this was normal and nothing to worry about. Our pig was in heat. He suggested that we load her in our wagon and take her to a certain farm not far away where there was a boar that serviced animals such as ours.

The boar didn’t seem very interested. Was she not his type although our sow showed clear signs that she was attracted, indeed she seemed to dance circles around him.  

Our host suggested we leave them alone and come for a coffee . In about an hour or so we returned her to the wagon and proceeded home hoping that something would come of this outing.  Indeed our sow now seemed less energetic and in a few weeks time manifested signs of pregnancy. We were elated. Mother took this opportunity to explain to me the facts of life particularly procreation. 

I soon discovered that this wasn’t privileged information but all farm children were very much on board in the matter of sex at first hand, true and false, I guess. Indeed it was a subject much discussed by  boys in their private enclaves. Did girls talk about it also?

One day the girl across the aisle from me in my grade nine class had a manuscript that she was secretly passing around confiscated by the teacher. I managed to get a glimpse of the title : What Happened Up In Mable’s Room by the author of A Night With Nancy, obviously a popular writer. Inasmuch as it did not self immolate the teacher did it for her. But I had my answer.

Sex education was left to a film which was circulated in the communities. Boys and girls were of course divided for the viewing of Fathers and Sons and Mothers and Daughters. Attendance was not compulsory but it was a full house. There was no question period or discussion following and no teacher would touch the subject with a ten foot pole. 

While this was a  commendable attempt to bring light on a dark matter I later discovered that the film was full of inaccuracies and current biases eg masturbation was unequivocally denounced as downright unhealthy, “dirty” was the word. Of course homosexuality was never mentioned.

The purchase of contraceptives seemed like a clandestine operation. Books on sexual health were not on the public library shelf but under the counter guarded over by a suspicious spinster librarian - at least in the library that I frequented. 

Only in the early part of the 20th century did writers such as D H Lawrence venture to publish such scorchers as  Sons and Lovers and the much celebrated and denounced Lady Chatterly’s Lover which contained some never before descriptions of explicit love scenes. My high school teacher denounced both and challenged me to find a better place for reading material than the garbage dump. 

Film, particularly television, proved to be an ideal media to deal with sexuality,  love and violence which sometimes seems indistinguishable. 

Our young folk some as early as 8 years of age are well acquainted with sex and often by personal experience. It is therefore very important that it be dealt with in the class room in an open and truly educational format. There are, of course, groups of parents who for religious, moral or personal reasons are against such courses in the school to the point of threatening to do home schooling. 

Procreation is one of the most powerful forces in the human psyche and thus needs to be brought out of the darkness of myth and misunderstanding. Where better than in an institution dedicated to education of the whole person.

Spirit Quest, May 23, 2015