I thought back on how I learned about the birds and the bees back in the day. I vaguely remember having some sort of “health” class during the 6th grade, I think. but that’s not when I first learned about what goes on behind closed doors. We were living in Chicago at the time and my best friend Rajulio gave me the scoop around the 5th grade after he had learned about sex from his older brothers. From what I remember, I think I was a bit overwhelmed and grossed out about the whole thing. maybe it was the way he relayed the information to me. but it didn’t help matters when some older neighborhood kids hung out one day after school around our elementary school playground and passed down their dirty magazines to me and my circle of friends. the mags weren’t the glossy- playboy/penthouse kind either. the women were fugly and in poses that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. as kids who haven’t seen stuff from those *ahem* angles before, the photos made us all sick to our stomachs. but oddly, we kept on looking. and looking. … and looking. until our stomachs didn’t hurt anymore. ..it was a sacrifice we had to make so that we’d become “conditioned” to seeing women in “that way”. *wink*, *wink*