I ended up having a surreal conversation with my Mum today…. it was ‘the safe sex’ talk. Only I was the one giving the advice. I’m a bit tired and don’t think I can relate the incident with any particular accuracy so I think I’ll try and write it in the morning instead.
"It it’s not on,,, it’s not on" continued…
My Mum is going on a holiday – to be specific a seven week ocean going voyage that will take her to lots of cool places starting with "M"… Malaysia, Mauritus, Maldives, Madagascar and Mumbai as well as a whole lot of other cool places that don’t start with "M" too – like Seychelles, Thailand, South Africa and the Reunion Islands amongst others…
Anyway I’ve been helping her get her stuff together and we’ve been out to the shops finding things she needs to take with her and we were in the pharmacy buying shampoo and I jokingly said to her ‘Have you packed some condoms?" 🙂 She looked at me in shock, gave me a resounding "No!" and a half arsed school girlish slap to the upper arm… but about six hours later she’s sewing the hem on some pants she’s just taken up and she says to me in an unsuccessful attempt at nonchalance, "Do you think I should take condoms?" and from there we ended up having The Sex Talk and in particular The Safe Sex Talk.
My Mum is a product of the 60s but she’s one of that other half of the 60s generation… the half that remembers the whole decade because they grew up sheltered and didn’t know anything about the sex and drugs and all things British. She met my Dad when she was 16, married when she was 19 or 20 and had three kids, a house, a mortgage and a dog by the time she was 25. She’s never been intimate with anyone but my Dad and the idea of her wanting to be with someone else wasn’t really something she seriously entertained.
She is quite an attractive and petite woman with a wonderful sense of adventure and a matching sense of humour… and she’s about to go off on cruise holiday with a boat load of people she doesn’t know – which is the retired equivalent of backpacking and hostelling your way around Europe in your 20s. In both of these situations it’s not exactly unheard of for people to drop their inhibitions somewhat given the "I’m never going to see you again" factor.
So I end up having this talk with Mum where I’m basically telling her that moonlight strolls with devillishly handsome, silver haired, silver tongued gents and a canoodle on the Lido deck does not necessarily have to lead to sex. And that I think she’s best served by at least having thought about what she might want or what she might do in that situation rather than being all at sea (pun intended) should it occur.
Her side of the conversation waivered radically between "Oh God no! I couldn’t!!!" whereupon I replied "Forewarned is forearmed etc" to "I’m sharing my cabin with Shirely" and "What would you do?" at which point I demurred saying that my attitudes to sexual intimacy aren’t exactly conventonal and given that fact I might not be the best person to ask… ( which strangely she didn’t ask me to explain).
Finally yesterday afternoon I went to say my goodbyes and as a parting gift gave her a little six pack box of condoms (knowing full well she could NEVER bring herself to go buy some) which she immediately put into her luggage. I gave her a big hug and sent her off with this final piece of advice
"Whatever you do… don’t fall arse over tit in love just because you find someone sexually attractive and if you are going to shag somebody and he turns out to have done half the boat…. don’t come home with an STD!"
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