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

When I was around 10 my mother walked in on me mastrubating and let out a loud gasp. She ran out of the room and I, not sure what had upset her, went after her because I was worried. She proceeded to give me a long lecuture about the fact that "mastrubation" was perfectly natural, saying that she was glad I was mastrubating because it meant I was normal...I kept wondering why she was talking to me about this.
it wasn't until 20 minuites into the discussion that I figured out the "mastrubation" was the word for what I had been doing.
Before then I thought mastrubation was called "riding" and that it was called that because you were boucing up and down like you were riding a horse. Natuarally, I thought that's why people liked horses so much, and why women were always dreaming about riding off on a white horse with their knight in shining armor.

rebecca

When I was younger, I overheard my older sister and a friend call a girl a lesbian. Being a curious seven year old, I naturely asked what a lesbian was. My sister's friend told me straight-faced that a lesbian was a short person.
The next week at soccer practice, I got into a little spat with a boy on my team. He was much shorter than me, so I called him lesbian. He looked at me very surprised, then ran to our coach yelling that I had said a curse word! My mother had to explain the real meaning to me after that.

Kim

My friend was more precocious than I was in his interest in sex (though not much better informed), and he told me that when men and women had sex, they used a rubber. He wasn't sure exactly what it was, but I assumed it was some kind of appliance without which sex could not be done, since I couldn't imagine how any body parts that we boys had could have any physical correspondence with what girls had. Obviously, then, the rubber was the thing that would accomplish the hookup required to make a baby.

So one day I was downstairs in my grandma's old farmhouse, and I saw a box of what I now know to be milking machine parts, the long black rubber things you slip over the cow's teats for milking. They looked uncomfortably stiff, but since they had an opening about the proportion of a penis, I figured that was the rubber my friend had told me about! I was always really curious about the things, but carefully avoided looking at them when grandma was around, and certainly didn't ask any questions about them. (I also wondered why grandpa and grandma needed a set of four of them.)

Wycliff

when i was about 6, i announced to my entire extended family at christmas that my 'girlfriend' wanted to hump me. i was delighted that she would want to do that, although at the time i certainly didnt believe that humping was something that would cause such shock amongst my family.

Anon

I used to believe that the way you had sex was to take off your shirt and show your chest muscles - this would make the woman excited and she would want to press herself against you (fully clothed) and kiss you, thereby getting pregnant. You did not make her pregnant if you were wearing your shirt.
I attribute this belief to way too many Hercules and Sinbad movies as a child.

daveydude

When I was about 8 my older sister told me that they had caught a boy in their class "playing with himself" (I had NO clue what this meant and assumed the kid and no friends). The she tells me that from then on they called him "Masterbater". Still clueless,I heard this as Master Bater and assumed he was a rich kid with no friends. For years had this image of a Master Bater who was very dapper, well-dressed with a top hat, cane, and shiny black shoes, and could't understand why anyone wouldn't want to play with him too!

Anon

I used to believe that erections were something that happened entirely randomly, and so if you wanted to have sex you had to just wait around for one to happen.

John

My mom was always very open about sex. She told me that when two people were in love, they got together, had sex, and that's where babies came from. When I was in preschool I had this strange picture of what sex was. I pictured two people laying out on banana chairs next to a pool. The woman was wearing a bathing suit, some sunglasses, and a large sun hat. The man was in some swim trunks. They were just enjoying themselves and getting a tan. To this day I still don't understand why I thought that, but I enjoy a good laugh over it on occasion.

Becca

When I was young I asked how people got pregnant, and was told that a man and woman would need to lay with each other in bed. I took this very literaly and while playing the childhood game of "house" was scared that even laying down next to a girl on the floor as a pretend bed would get a girl pregnant.

One day for fear of having to explaining what I knew to my friends, and because I liked the girl I was playing house with, I layed next to a neighbor girl as pretend parents while playing "house". None of the other kids seemed to have a problem with this. That night I could hardly sleep, and confronted my mom the next day that I had gotten the neighbor girl pregnant.

That turned out to be an interesting day.

Doug

when I first found out through the playground that people could be gay, I was extremely puzzled and couldnt figure out exactly what they did. I was about 6 at the time and I came up with the idea that men had sex by having 'sword fights' with their penis' !!!!!!

Anon

Thanks to the lyrics to many hyperbolic love- and sex-related songs, I used to think that the usual or average length of time it took to have sexual intercourse was "all night."

Anon

Before the age of 11, I used to believe that girls had the same sexual organs as boys. One day when I was 11 years old one of my friends FALSELY affirmed my beliefs by telling me that girls like to have their penises played with when having sex. Shortly after that I got into a "you show me yours, and I'll show you mine" game with my very first girlfriend. When she pulled down her panties I SCREAMED and CRIED and asked her "Where's your penis!" She cracked up laughing, as did her mother who ran into the room trying to find out why I screamed so loud! I was sent home and my mother promptly told me the differences between boys and girls, as well as how babies are made. Before this I had thought that sex was the boy and the girl taking turns sticking their penis up the other persons butt!

Sheltered Preteen

When I was a kid, (around age seven) I thought that when animals “mated” that meant they got married.
So one day, my 8-year-old guy friend and I were playing Lion King in his yard as his father did yard work. I was the girl lion and he was the boy lion as usual. Then, going up to his father, we announced very proudly that we were going to mate that night and we were going to have a really good time.
To make a long story longer, the look on his father's face was priceless, and the memory still embarrasses me.....

~Confused Kid

Well, until I was about 10, I had this notion that Lesbians were from a country called "Lesbia", & only women could live there.

Nixie

A friend of mine told me this story.
She learned from a sex-ed book for kids, when she was about 9 or 10, the details of the female genitalia. She asked her mom what the clitoris was for. Her mom told her she'd figure it out on her own when she gets older.

Couple months later they were having people over for dinner, and my friend burst in the room and just yelled in front of everyone : "Mom, I know what the clitoris is for !".

Could there be a worst timing for discovering masturbation ?

charlotte's friend

When I was in elementary school my mother told me that sex is when you stick your pinkys up eachothers nostrils and hum the same song.

Ashley

On those little forms for YMCA sports, it always said "sex" and I put "0" everytime. I always wondered how people remembered how many times....

Anon

I used to believe that babies were concieved by will power. You know the phrase 'deciding to have a baby'? I just assumed that people decided to have a baby and then later they did

Az