In which I fail at sex ed

My son is 12 and a half. I feel the half is important. When I was 12 and a half, one of my classmates turned up pregnant for the first time. I was reading Dean Koontz and Stephen King books. An old man at a bus stop politely asked me what my university major was. I had read Our Bodies, Ourselves. I had a job (ok, a paper route). I was being catcalled by assholes every time I walked to swim practice. Adult subjects weren't a mystery to me by 12, I am saying. 12 year olds are pretty savvy. And as a parent, I talk pretty frankly about subjects like internet harassment, sexism in media, violence, racism, slavery, and whatever else is on the news or in the books we are currently reading - the idea being, of course, that if you rain information on kids, they'll absorb it and grow. Like nega-bigots.

So last week, I brought home a big stack of new and cool-looking graphic novels. The boys immediately riffled through the pile and spent the weekend reading. Leif went for Nimona, and Gavin went for the Rat Queens. Cool, whatever, I've already explained my stance on books; read whatever blows your kilt up.

A few days later, Gavin is poking around on my phone and asked about the podcasts I sometimes listen to. "Oh, they're a bunch of comedians doing a live Dungeons and Dragons show. They blew up a sloth, and there was drunk ghost bear - you'd probably really like it, but it's got kind of a lot of swearing and dick jokes." "Mom, if I can handle Rat Queens, I can handle that."

Uh oh.

At home, I finally picked up the comic books and flipped through the Rat Queens.

"Well, damn. I fail at parenting. I guess we can go ahead and listen to the podcast." Because he's 12, right? And a half. Practically 13. Almost-13-year-olds can handle a few dick jokes. And maybe I'm actually doing pretty good, if my kid can casually read a comic about someone getting their eyeballs gouged out by a halfling high on hallucinogenic drugs and still go hang up kitten posters in his room. He's sitting there wearing a kitten t-shirt, with a rainbow kitten pin, holding a notebook full of plans to plant an herb garden based on the glossary of medicinal cat herbs in the Warriors. He seems to be psychologically undamaged, as per my reading hypothesis.

So we listened to the podcast, and someone made an erection joke, and he laughed and then turned to me and said, "What's an erection?"

I launched into a tender and tactful explanation about nature and sexuality.

Actually, I yelled, "BONER. STIFFIE. HARD-ON. I bought you a book on this! You are almost 13! I HAVE FAILED YOU."

"OHHH! Ok. Yeah, I forgot. That book was long."

So of course now I am bringing home a big stack of books on boners.

Coming up: my preteen ignores a stack of sex books, and I am reduced to drawing diagrams at the dinner table.