my boyfriend said that when he was little he used to think that sex was two people's bums kissing. (when i asked him what was supposed to come after that, he said he never figured it out past that part!)

jen

When I was growing up I learned about masturbation from a magazine I found under my fathers bed.. my parents are for some odd reason against masturbation so they told me that if I ever did it again, even while they weren't home, our dog or cat would tell them when they got back and I would be severely punished. I live alone now but still to this day can't masturbate with a pet in the room. I even close my door to make sure they can't come in.

Buddy Lee

When I was a nipper on Sunday mornings, in time honoured fashion, I would burst into my parents room and annoy the hell out of them.

One day, I noticed these rubber tubes lying by my old man's bedside table and asked him what they were.

"special elasoplasts for Daddies who have hurt their fingers at work..." He replied with a straight face...

For many long years, every time I cut a finger, I begged for one of these special elastoplasts ...alas they were only for Daddies.

Graham

As little kids, we suffered under the delusion that foreplay included the man pulling out the woman's pubic hair, one by one, and that this action made her very excited.

veronica

I masturbated for the first time with a stuffed dog. I believed I was going to have puppies.

Not pregnant with puppies

It was the general concensus at our school that, if a girl closed her legs when you were having sex with her, the bones in her pelvis woul chop your penis off....

Ronnie

When I was a child and asked my parents the big sex question, it was explained go me that, "The man puts something in the woman's vagina." I had heard of birth control pills, so I figured somehow there were little capsules you put in there that could turn into a baby, and a different kind to put up there if you changed your mind and decided you no longer wanted to have a baby. (the control pills) I think I probably could've used a more thorough explanation.

C. Ray

I learned to masturbate around the age of four, and did it all the time because it felt so good. One day I was watching a cartoon sex education video that my Mom rented and when the masturbation scene came up, the little girl hiding under the covers moaning a bit while the blanket moved up and down, my Mom says to me "Some people get sick from doing that too much". That day I thought ....."OH MY GOD, I AM GOING TO DIE"

Erika

One time I found my Dad's Playboy magazine. My young mind couldn't comprehend that a woman would want to have her photo taken when naked! My Dad told me that they weren't really naked... all the parts (the breasts and such) were fake and were strapped on to the body. They were actually wearing a bathing suit underneath!

Marg

I believed that married people had sex once (obviously) and the number of, er, thrusts, determined the number of children. The woman then had a certain number of conceived eggs inside her just waiting to be born.

Also, the first time I heard the word "rape", I misheard it as "rake". I understood it was something very unpleasant, but being attacked with a rake just seemed a bit obscure.

Adam

Alright, I've been reading these and thinking I had *THE* most distorted notion of sex. Here goes:

When I was a tot, my parents were loud. Not average loud or exceptionally loud, but jet plane loud. Every word, breath, moan, grunt and bed squeak would echo through the house. Sometimes they'd get so entheusiastic they'd forget to close thier door, making it that much louder. So I'd wake up to a terrible racket and lay there, listening.

For some reason (and I have NO idea why) I was convinced that Dad was laying next to Mom, both naked, and he was somehow forcing her to make a dark, watery fluid come out of her "privates". (I didn't know exactly what a woman had "down there" at the time.) It was clearly painful and exhausting for her to make the fluid, which explained her screams and breathing.

His groans and noises were caused by him restraining her and forcing the fluid out.

I thought he collected this fluid in a shallow container and ran his hands through it, in the dark bedroom, feeling for something. Why? What exactly? Who knows?

Anyway, I'm perfectly normal now. Really. No psychological scars. Maybe the occasional uncontrollable twitching, but nothing you'd not expect.

Anyway...top that!

Smatter

When I was around 10 or 11 a letter in Ann Landers column used the word homosexual. The only other word I could think of was homocide, which to me meant killing someone on purpose. For a long time I thought a homosexual was someone who acted sexy on purpose.

Anon

I used to believe that sex had something to do with the long chrome handles on public urinals, and that they would go into your butt, and make your butt cheeks blow up like balloons - not round balloons, but long carnival balloons. Picture people with 4 foot long buttocks sticking straight out the back of them. Don't ask me how this really related to sex, but I was sure this was it for a long time.

A very confused 4 year old

I used to think that sex was accomplished with both partners standing up. The couple would face each other, press their privates together, arch their backs so that they are both bending backwards, and raise their hands into the air. And while they are doing this, they would say "Quaaaaah! Quaaaaah!"

Where did I get this bizarre idea? Thinking back, I realize that it came from a poster I saw once in the London Underground, possibly advertising a movie or a dance production, and a friend who was with me told me it was a picture of two people having sex. The "Quaaaah!" was simply a corruption of the British slang "Cor!" which means something like "Oh god!"

Kdees

i thought that everytime you masturbated santa could read the dirty thoughts in your mind = P and the only way to stop him finding out was to put a blanket over your head (even when it was hot!)I believed in santa till i was 11. That was an aweful lot of hot summer nights.

Penny Lane

When I was 8 or so, an older friend told me that masturbation meant "playing with yourself". I took her literally. This resulted in two things:

One day at day camp, I heard the word "masturbation" on television, and proudly proclaimed to the teacher in charge "I know what that word means!"

Shortly afterwards, my mother gave me a book about "the facts of life" and it said that masturbation usually resulted in an orgasm (which I somehow got into my head was a bad thing) and was terrified that when I played alone in my room I was going to give myself an orgasm.

Diana

My neice and her little friends thought the word lesbian meant that you were sexy. They walked around for days hollering "hey lesbian, you're looking really lesbian today" Finally the found out the truth after telling a teacher that she was "very lesbian".

Anon

when i was 10 i knew that boys were excited when their penis got erect but when i asked my mom, "how do you know when i girl is excited" she told me that "we pee on ourselves" after that i swore i'd never get excited

Anon

I think I was around 10. My curiosity was just beginning to awaken. And then it came to me. In a flash of insight I saw how sex was performed. A man takes his finger and places it into a womans belly button. Knowledge is power!

Gary Morrison

When I was about 8, my older brother had an adult magizine. At the time he was 16. I asked him what the people in it were doing, he said "They're having sex" I didn't know what that was, so I asked him. He told me to ask Mum and Dad. I asked Dad what sex was and he said "Ask your Mum" So I did. I said "Mum what's sex?" She told me it's when a little man gets into your underwear. So later that day my little brother, who was 4, stuck his Lego man in my shirt. It went into my pants, I went up to my Mum and said "Mum, Johnny made me have sex!" Of course my Mum said "WHAT?!" and I told her he dropped a Lego man in my pants and she sat me down and explained to me what sex really was.

LEGO