Sex Without Popcorn

Sex movies and lectures for children have created quite a stir where I live. These are called hygienic films, or something of the sort, to distinguish them, I believe, from French realism and Swedish symbolism.

Part of the excitement was caused not by the films but by the fact that the school board voted them down for showing to classes, except at senior high, where the students voted them down hoping to get La Dolce Vita instead.

As a matter of fact, not even everyone on the school board saw them — Miss Limber, who has been elected a member for twelve years, refused to look at a private showing because, as she said, “I know what’s going on, and I don’t want to see it!”

The controversy so stimulated the public that all the smaller children who would have refused to stay after school to see the films now begged their parents for a chance to be sexually oriented.

“They’re showing This Is Life in the basement of the United Church tomorrow night,” my wife said at dinner one night.

Tim and Sandra looked up from yesterday’s beef stew warmed over. I smiled vaguely. I hate to discuss sex with the children. I’m a prude. In my day we didn’t have sex when we were young. It was for the rich or the downfallen. We kids climbed mountains or collected birds’ eggs or took our bicycles apart. When we got old enough for sex, there it was.

“I think Tim and Sandra are too young,” I said.

“I’m not too young,” Sandra retorted.

“What’s it about?” Tim asked.

“Sex,” said Eve.

“OIh,” Tim noted. “Can I take some peanuts with me?”

“It’s been approved by hundreds of state education boards,” Eve insisted.

“There aren’t hundreds of states,” I observed.

“I want to go,” Sandra said, starting to cry as usual. “I’m nine years old and I’m ignorant. I can’t even have high heels.”

“We haven’t even seen Cleopatra,” Tim offered wistfully. “And that’s historical.”

“Never mind Lawrence of Arabia,” Sandra observed.

“Cleopatra is too sexy,” I found myself saying. Eve coughed uneasily. Sandra and Tim stared at me. I tried to recover. “I mean, there is sex and sex. There is the sex that is . . . uh . . . well, it seems interesting and all, but . . . it uh . . . ends in degradation and uh . . . stuff. Then there is the wholesome . . . well, we’ll find out all about it tomorrow night, won’t we? Ha-ha!” I looked over at Eve. She seemed satisfied.

When the children were in bed Eve told me I had confused the children about sex. I said, “Well, I’m confused myself, you know.

Sex has gotten to be one of those things that’s all right for everybody else. Or maybe it’s the other way around. It’s something that’s great for you, builds muscle tone, gives clarity of vision, and promotes the appetite, but for everyone else it’s immoral, and in many instances illegal.”

“Now you’re confusing me,” said Eve sharply.

“Did you know this was the only country in the world where sex is a problem?”

Eve sighed. “Well, this is the one we happen to live in.”

The following evening my wife got Tim and Sandra ready for the sex movie and lecture. I sat around nervously wondering how it would all end and why the school board turned it down and whether I was wise to consider my wife smarter than the school board.

Presently Tim and Sandra appeared, scrubbed and shining and resentful. “The last time I got this clean was when rich Uncle Boyd came to visit us,” Sandra said.

Tim looked up at me. “Daddy, I’ve thought it over, and I really don’t give a hang about sex. Can I stay home and watch a good documentary on seventeenth-century painting?”

“You get your hat and coat on,” I said sharply. “You’re going to like sex or I’ll know the reason why.”

Eve groaned. “Really, dear!”

“I mean, technically. I mean . . . educationally and all.”

We arrived at the church a few minutes before the scheduled time. There was a great gathering of confused parents and children.

“Don’t push,” the Reverend McKintosh said. “There’s a travelogue on Scotland as a curtain raiser.”

When we got into the Sunday school hall we were stopped by formidable Mrs. Harold BurningWatsworth. She stuck out a firm chin and barred our way. “This is sons and fathers tonight,” Mrs. B-W said with a faint twitch of her puritanical nose. “We do not have mixed audiences. Not for sex.”

I felt myself redden. “I would think that if anything — ”

“I wouldn’t be flippant if I were you,” Mrs. B-W, the mother of seven children, said coldly.

I looked at Sandra. She was smiling happily. “When,” I asked, “is the mother and daughter showing?”

“That was last month. Not again until next year.”

“Sandra,” I said, “you run home. Be careful crossing the streets. Tim and I will stay.”

“That’s not fair,” Tim insisted. I grasped his arm firmly and propelled him into the hall where a dim, badly colored film of Scotland was just ending.

The lights went on, and a gentleman with a booming voice, who introduced himself as Sherman Jackson, state coordinator of sex hygiene, began a talk on various methods of reproduction, tossing in some pretty exciting stuff about fish who fertilize thousands of eggs and never even see their wife who laid them, and arrived at a sort of inter-

esting impasse when he ended up with a fleeting reference to the difficulty of whales in coming to terms of agreement.

After that the picture started. I do not know to what to compare it. It was a fantastic mishmash that must have been cut in fifty different places by zealous guardians of the public morals. There were pistils and stamens and Mendel’s peas. There were cats and kittens and cells dividing in two. There were sponges having a merry time by their own lights, and one or two startling insects who, according to the film, die promptly the first night of their honeymoon.

The thing, because of its incoherence, began to give me a headache. Not so Tim. He was fast asleep. It ended eventually, and I awakened Tim. He looked at me blinking. “I was so bored I fell asleep.”

“That’s your tough luck,” I said, trying to get past the bottleneck of winking fathers and listless sons, most of whom looked as if they had just had doctor’s shots with a blunt needle. Jerry Walters, a kid in Tim’s class, went by with his fingers clasped to his nose — a traditional gesture used by drama critics. Sammy Berg, who played baseball with Tim, shuffled by and said, “They’re tryin’ to sell us on girls! This sure isn’t the way to do it.” John Casper, an eminent banker with a Bentley and two mistresses, strolled by with his son Barry. Casper said solemnly, “Great stuff. Gives the little monsters a good solid foundation, eh? Keeps them from falling into the traps we did, eh?” He winked and nudged me as if I owned a Bentley, too.

Tim and I finally got out onto Sumner Avenue and walked slowly along the edge of the park. After a few blocks Tim stopped and stared me in the eye. “Is that all there is to it?” he asked, disappointed.

“Well,” I began, “it’s difficult to include . . . uh . . . every angle; I mean . . . it’s like many things.”

“You ask me, sex is almost as bad as geometry, and they say that really busts you. I mean all those charts and diagrams and stuff. To tell you the truth, I was getting a little interested in school. I mean, at recess, we kind of used to think maybe there was something to it. All the grownups think it’s such a big deal. But now, you want to know the real, honest truth? I’d rather forget the whole dang thing and concentrate on playing left field for the Mets someday.”

“A worthy ambition,” I said dully. I really hadn’t the words. In the complex position of living in an era when sex is almost a national calamity, to hear most people talk, it seemed ill-advised to try and give my contented son a pitch about it.

“I wouldn’t say anything to your mother about your disappointment. She might worry.”

“You mean about me playing for the Mets?”

I smiled wanly. “About that, too.”

Nothing more was said, and when we got home, Tim ran for the refrigerator and I sat wearily down on the green divan in the living room and reached for the decanter of sherry.

In the hall I could hear Sandra on the telephone, as usual. She was saying shrilly, “Guess what? I don’t have to worry about sex for a year!”

I gulped my sherry and poured another. I don’t know, maybe with the Beatles in, sex is going out.