Parental Advisory: Exquisitely Explicit
At a funeral for my second mother’s grandfather “Papa”, my young brother, with his gargantuan head filled with naps, food, and imagination, rode his Hot Wheels up and down the unappealing hump above my dad’s lap. Wally, one of those pasty white Hispanic 11-year old boys, who was related to my second mother, a nephew of sorts, made a slightly immature comment to my father, which Wally was slightly entitled to, being so young, that my brother was “driving through a mountain top with alot of hairs.” My father, ever so a respectful man, sternly and reproachfully, stated, in rhetorical question formatting, “That is a very inappropriate comment to make, don't you think?” Of course, Wally, ashamed, shied away and I started to be engulfed in “bochorno ajeno (foreign embarrassment)”
Being a youth myself at the time I could have snidely smiled, appreciating the moment of another kid being scolded by an adult. Normal kids live for the feeling of not being the one reproached and I was very much that normal kid often, but I did not find Wally’s comment so offensive.
I watched porn at a very, very, young age. I was just only learning about the sexual interactions needed to reproduce and had already dived into the world of sexual pleasure. I touched myself a lot during those times, but I’m sure many kids do, some at younger ages. However, I was also dabbling in porn surfing and that solidified my want for masturbation. I remember tilting the desktop slightly towards the wall so that I could watch sex scenes while my grandmother sat across from me watching her church masses on her favorite catholic channel. I remember illegally downloading R-rated movies on my grandpa’s laptop to take to the room at night to solely watch the sex scenes and touch myself. I even remember masturbating next to relatives while they watched tv, me under the covers making myself feel good, and succeeding, right under their noses. I have even done it next to a man sitting on a flight. The easy access to pornography and sex scenes shredded apart all the taboos that society usually tries to install at an early age. Even though I was in a semi-catholic private school, with all the speeches of sin and hell, I was unfazed about the unholiness of my actions.
When the school’s priest came to our classroom door, and pulled us out individually to have our first confessions before our first communion, I lied. Imagine what would have happened if I had told him about my private pleasure sessions? This was in fifth grade, I was very young. Perhaps, he would have told my parents, because I was just a kid, so my sins weren’t private in their eyes, and I would have had to deal with very harsh, tear-inducing talks and very restrict access to technology. The experience might have helped cut the obsession in the bud. Or, I might have been even more determined to lay my eyes on the porn. Either or, but neither happened, because I lied.
Sex is very overt in Europe. My trip to Spain with my family was a maze of sex; in every corner I turned there it was. It was on display in video shops and bookstores and, as I surfed the foreign channels, it was found broadcasted on local tv. The adults eventually came out of their napping caves to restore supervision and I, ever surprised about the open exhibition of sex on tv, flipped back to the channel to show my dad and Liza. For me it was finding an exquisite piece of clothing in a thrift store, but for them it was parental panic.
As my girlfriend and I watched the documentary on the political Russian band Pussy Riot, there flashed on the screen a bizarre form of protest from one of the members which resembled a Greek orgy; the protest had to do something with reproduction. My girlfriend, knowing all my secrets and obsessions, covered my eyes and told me not to look. As a child, adults covered my face with hands, cushions, and blankets whenever a sex scene would pop up on a film. I remember how annoying it would be, but I would always indulge myself later on tracking down the sex scenes I missed out on. I didn’t do my time properly as a kid; I didn’t patiently await my time for when I could watch an R-rated movie unblindfolded. So now I’m still doing time and my girlfriend is my makeshift parental control.
Surrounded by a dozen of mourners, and with a lifeless body depleted of soul as a centerpiece, it was not the time or place for Wally’s comment. There’s common decency and the sexual subject is always a taboo one, but I have long ago been desensitized to all that. Instead of agreeing with my father or feeling pity for the poor boy with a foul mouth, my thought lingered on the thought of a phallus and how the poor man lying cold in the casket will never get to ever feel pleasure again.