When I was between the ages of 8 and 12, I spent afternoons watching television in my parents room so my dad could nap in the den before or after work. My parents had this amazing intricately carved bedroom suite and I used to trace my fingers along the pattern and also trace their velvet baroque-style bedspread and drapes. I would also open their drawers out of curiosity and would explore under their bed. (I snagged myself one of their coil massagers out of a drawer back in the day and kept it in my toy box. I used that thing religiously when I was growing up.)
Once, my hand ran across the edge of the mattress and I felt something sticking out of it, I lifted the corner and discovered some "dirty" magazines and a penis-shaped rubber toy that was slick with lube. I could not believe what I found and perused the magazine with my heart racing, so afraid to be caught with it. There were lovely women in beautiful lingerie and posed in sexy positions and I thought they were just stunning. I had seen my sisters and mother naked when I was younger but they looked nothing like the women in the magazine.
One day, I decided to share this bevy of goodies with my friends. My best friend and I and several other girls sneaked quietly into the bedroom, giggling and shushing each other. Probably a dead giveaway that we were up to something. Like a game show hostess, "Tada," I lifted the edge of the mattress and pointed with to the magazines and toys with my other hand. They all stood there stunned for several seconds and glanced at the magazines and toy. Unfortunately, Mom was on to us and had followed us into the room. I looked up and saw her standing, stunned in the doorway. She yelled at us to get out of there and we practically flew out. I was grounded and not allowed to see my friends for weeks.
A few years later, my friend and I wanted to watch On Golden Pond, which was on video tape but we couldn't find it. We went into my parents room and looked through their stash of movies. One wasn't labeled so we put it in the VCR and OMG, there were naked people in it! At least one of them starred Seka, who was playing a stewardess in the movie. She ended up being grabbed by three men and forced into having sex with them. I was very turned on by this. My girlfriend, who was a year younger than me, did not have older sisters so she was a little less "worldly" than I. At one point in the movie, a man was rubbing his penis between Seka's breasts. Neither of us had breasts at the time. My friend asked me why they were doing it and said, "Does she have a hole there, too." I had no clue so I just said, "I don't know." We stood next to the machine for hours, watching the movies but ever vigilant to run for cover when my parents came home. My friend said her tummy was starting to feel weird, that she was hot and that she thought she may have wet her panties so she wanted to head home. Just as we were leaving my parents room, "Boom" we ran into them coming in. The VCR was rewinding so my parents knew something was up. They sent her home and I was sent to my room.
My mom later summoned me to the kitchen table to interrogate me and asked why we watched the movie. I told her I didn't know why. We were curious and it was just there. She asked me how the movie made me feel. I told her I didn't know. She asked if I enjoyed what I watched and given the tone of her voice and the expression on her face, I knew I had to tell her that "No, no, I didn't like it at all." Then I got a lecture about how I shouldn't snoop and that if I saw it was something like that, I should not have watched and how sex is supposed to be between a man and a woman after they're married and that it isn't pleasurable before then and that people who had sex before they were married went to hell. This kind of lecture, I suppose, was meant to turn me away from sex. But I just thought, "Damn, my mom's a prude." I had two older sisters and I would often read their magazines, books, diaries, love notes and BFF notes, listen to their music, try on their clothes and do everything else that a pesky younger sisters does. I learned to be sex-positive from them and I knew that my mom was wrong. Because watching it made me excited and made me feel good, not bad. I just assumed that if she was lying about this, she was lying about everything related to sex and god knows what else so I decided to explore on my own and just not let her know.