Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Betty Said It Best



Oh God, she said. What a dump. Did anyone tell the truth like BD? A friend of mine told me that long ago a news item on TV prompted her young daughter to ask what a prostitute was. My friend told her it was someone who liked to go to parties.




Well?


That's not wrong, is it?


My parents never said a word about sex. I had to figure it out from my friends, who told me some good ones.


I sat at the kitchen table doing homework with my friend Judy in the eighth grade. EIGHTH GRADE!!!


Enter Betty again.




GOD.




My mother left us for only a minute, disappearing down the basement stairs to get something, probably from the freezer.


"Do you know how a woman has a baby?" Judy said in a whisper.


"Yes," I said with confidence. "The sperm fertilizes the egg." I had just read this somewhere.



"No," said my friend. "That's not it."
Let's have Betty enter again, shall we?
GOD.
"It isn't?" I asked. In the time it took for the basement door to open, my friend told me the secret of life, the birds and the bees, the thing that every kid learns.
"The man puts his blah blah blah into the blah blah."
With that, my mother walked back into the kitchen. Judy and I sat there for a while. I think she nodded at me smugly. I said to my mother, "Judy's leaving now. I'm going to walk her halfway home."
I don't remember what my mother said. I'm sure her thoughts were on dinner.
My thoughts were on WHAT A TRAVESTY!! THIS CAN'T BE TRUE!!!
Judy explained it all by saying, "That's why the man gets on top of the woman."
I didn't know this.
I knew there was no Santa Claus. Hey. I found that out in sixth grade.
But this seemed really secret. It wasn't on television, there was no hint of it in family life, how could it be true? Nowadays of course, it's totally on television.
The only thing I can compare it to is the secrecy surrounding childbirth. And that is a BIG secret. Stay tuned.
Oh dear reader, I am deep into my novel now. It's giving me thoughts and making me think.
Oh god.
A bientot
love,
becky





5 Comments:

At 10:50 PM , Blogger Mark said...

Love it, b. Can we assume that the novel is covering some of this territory?

 
At 11:07 PM , Blogger sandman1 said...

I'm not familiar with "what a dump", so I went looking around the 'net hoping to find a video clip. No luck there, but I did find this audio clip and also this picture of her as a nun, which seemed relevant...

It's Bette though, isn't it? (Don't tell Betty Midler...)

If you had two people with the hots for each other that had never been told anything about sex, I would imagine they'd figure it out easily enough. Seems to me the only reason you need sex ed is to deal with the social issues: STDs, unwanted pregnancy, age of consent, etc.

"Someone who likes to to go parties" is a remarkably non-judgemental desciption of a prostitute. Shouldn't there be something at least mildly discouraging in there??

 
At 7:58 AM , Blogger Becky Willis Motew said...

Oh yes, Mark, my ex-nun will definitely discover sex.

SM, as always you are so right. I thought BD said "what a dump" somewhere. And I spelled her name wrong.

I'm losing motor control. Thanks for your help.
b

 
At 11:44 AM , Blogger sandman1 said...

You are right about "what a dump", she did say it -- it was just new to me is all. Lots of references came up to it on google. It's from a movie called Beyond the Forest, apparently, and that audio link I gave above is probably from that (have a listen and see if it sounds right).

 
At 6:42 AM , Blogger Kay Cooke said...

If this is a page from your next novel - I'm hooked already ;)

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home