Why it's hard for compulsive people to talk to their kids about sex.

Or anything else for that matter.

See, the Ex and I are completely open with our kids about sex. Even when, because of my pretty mainstream upbringing (Q: "What's a hooker?" A: "A woman who tries to get men to buy her drinks."), I have to cringe inside while doing it. But the actual discussion goes like this:

"Daddy, why did they fire Lois for teaching about condoms?"

(This, incidentally, is a reference to an episode of The Family Guy, to which the girls are devoted.)

Okay. First start to explain that some people don't want their kids to learn about contraception. Then sop; she doesn't know what contraception is. Explain about pregnancy and STD as (respectively) being possibly and almost certainly undesired consequences of sex. Then that some people fear children learning about contraception will run out and use it.

"How do animals know how to have sex? How do they think, 'Oh, I'd like to try this?'"

Well, dear, animals mostly know by instinct. Pause. Backtrack; discussion of instinctive behavior. Hard to come up with human example... which leads to discussion of how humans have lost most obvious instincts... which leads to discussion of intelligent vs. instinctive behavior... Feel need to clarify it is not black/white, and therefore to enter brief further discussion of the many degrees along spectrum.of instinctive/intelligent behaviors.

What were we saying? Oh, yeah. So most animals know how to have sex instinctively. But, oh,wait, remember reading article yesterday on captive pandas' birth rate increasing due to showing them videos of pandas having sex. Therefore must backtrack again, qualify that some animals do somewhat learn sexual behavior, but it's still basically instinctive.

Yeah. So, like that.

Read bedtime story. Kiss goodnight.

And Daddy is left to wonder if she's really that curious about life sciences, or has simply found yet another way to get him to let her stay up hours past bedtime.

So he blogs about it. 'Cause he's too tired to think about it.

The end.