Sex education and other family matters.
There comes a time in every father’s life when he needs to have the reproduction conversation with his son. And, what about his daughter? A father knows the attention they’ll endure from spotty faced, rampant predators that exist in the wild. Having been one himself, a father is especially protective of his little girl. An Attenborough voice over on adolescent Chimps would perfectly fit the young human male at that time in his life when little else occupies his mind. And, for him, that preoccupation will not improve much with age.
Rohan was twelve, and I’d been mulling over that inevitable discussion for some time. Tayrne was a little older, but I had no idea how to handle that dialogue, I thought it probably best to leave it to her mother.
One day, Rohan’s friend Mariano was staying for lunch. Mariano went to school in Cas Concos, Rohan in Felanitx. Our houses were only 600 metres apart, separated by low stone walls and fields in the dispersed farming village of Son Barcelo. They had become close friends. Mariano’s father, Carlos, was Spanish. His mother, Rosalind (Dody) Farr was the daughter of Tommy Farr. Tommy was the famous, Welsh, British and Empire heavyweight champion boxer who went fifteen rounds with Joe Louis in New York in 1937, but lost on a controversial points decision. Dody’s mother was Muriel Montgomery Germon, a fashion model and a descendant of the 1st Earl of Montgomery through his daughter Elizabeth.
That summers afternoon, the five of us sat down to eat on the front terrace of Cana Cavea.
Sandy and I were talking about the time I worked in America, where I’d stayed in a condominium. I used the colloquial term condo. The boys misinterpreted what I’d said, nudged each other and whispered ‘condoms’.
“So what do you two know about condoms?”
Surprised I’d overheard what they’d said, the two of them looked back at me vacantly.
“Well,” I challenged them” — Nothing.
I wasn’t thinking about giving a sex education lesson, but as the opportunity had arisen, I took it.
I got up, went off and returned with a pack of condoms and a cucumber.
“Right, now you two listen” I looked over at Tayrne “You too Tayrne, girls need to know about this as well”.
I continued “I apologise for including you in this Mariano, but you’re like family, and your mum is a broad-minded woman, she won’t mind”.
I went through the preamble of love, respect emotion, sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy which nicely introduced condoms.
I place a condom in its sealed sachet on the table.
“In here is a condom”.
I showed them how to open the packet and took out the rolled-up, lubricated, ring.
“This is the condom” I handed it to Rohan “Now, pass it around.”
When it came back to me, I used the cucumber as a prop to show them how to put it on.
After that, I slid it off the cucumber, tied a knot in it to demonstrate how not to create a mess after its use, and passed it back so they could take a closer look.
Talking directly to Rohan, I said.
“And if you ever get a girl pregnant for want of using one of these, then she’ll be in, and you’ll be out. Do you understand?”
“Any questions?” Mariano and Tayrne shook their heads. Rohan, fascinated, was pulling the condom to see how far he could stretch it.
“ROHAN. Any questions?”.
“This will never fit me dad” exclaimed Rohan.
“Believe me, son, when the time comes it will”.
So ended the lesson.
Today, all the above is taught in school. During Franco’s rule, sex education was not allowed, and in 1991 Spain’s fledgeling democracy was still too conservative to change that situation.
Paradoxically. If I’d lived during the Second Spanish Republic from 1931 until 1939, I could have given the kids the book ‘Educación Sexual’, and let them get on with it. The book was written by a seventeen-year-old girl, the Spanish feminist Hildegart Rodríguez Carballeira.
On one occasion, I had to go to the National Police Headquarters on the Passeig de Mallorca in Palma, to get my new Spanish residence card.
I picked up my documents from the second-floor office and went downstairs. While queuing for my card, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to face a smartly dressed young uniformed police officer with a neatly trimmed goatee beard and moustache. In a stern voice, with authority in accented English, he said: “Don’t leave this building until you have spoken to me”.
Without another word, he turned and disappeared down a corridor. After getting my card, I hung around the desk, waiting for the policeman to return. After fifteen minutes I was agitated, after half an hour I was angry. Who was this young upstart, and what right did he have to order me around without an explanation? I made my way down the corridor further into the police station. I found him in a windowed office, feet up on a desk, drinking a coffee while chatting to a policewoman. He looked up, saw me and then returned to his conversation. Being totally ignored, I began to boil. I burst into the office, cut into the conversation and raised my open palms.
“What the bloody hell’s going on. I’ve got enough to do without hanging around here all day, What do you want?”.
He looked at me blankly for some time.
“WELL!” I barked.
I glared at him. Then, to my consternation, he burst out laughing.
I was dumbfounded and stared at him. Then, slowly, behind the uniform and the goatee, I recognised the mischievous smile.
“MARIANO” I exclaimed “You little bugger” It had been years since I had seen him, and now here he was all grown up in the police force.
When Mariano got married, we were invited. The wedding was in the ‘Iglesia San Pedro Claver’, on Carrer de ses Rafaletes in Palma. At one time, the little church must have stood solitary on the headland. Now it nestled on a small plaza surrounded by the new Porto Pi Shopping Centre and apartment blocks. When Sandy and I arrived, we took a seat at the back of the church behind ceremonially dressed police officers.
Mariano, sitting at the front waiting for his bride, occasionally turned to look nervously towards the back door. At one point he saw us and stood up. In his smart, braided dress uniform wearing white gloves with a peaked cap tucked under his arm, he strode down the aisle and stood over us.
“What are you doing?” he said, “You shouldn’t be here”.
We didn’t quite know what to say, so we just looked at him.
“You should be with the rest of the family”, and he sent us up to sit at the front of the church.
At the reception, our place names were on the family table where we sat with his brothers and sister by the top table.
The years pass so fast. Boys become men, girls become brides and the next thing you know you’re surrounded by grandchildren.