mom found out that i read porn stories

[Tiay]

That's so messed up, Teranee. The worst thing is, that kind of thing creeps into your subconscious, even when you *know* that it is natural and healthy.

Though, I gotta say, I didn't get any kind of message at all. Besides the "btw, you're gonna bleed from your crotch!", it wasn't addressed at all. And my parents are sort of semi-hippies. We have a well for our water, we process all the sewage from our house. At the peak of our farm here we milked our own cows, made cheese, butter and buttermilk, baked bread, slaughtered our own meat, sheared sheep and knit clothing, didn't have a car, etc. It has scaled itself back by now, because that kind of thing is hard to maintain when you're in you're 50s. And I got allergies from all the damn sheep wool

But I derailed myself... What I wanted to say that in my childhood, I ran around the place nekkid, regularly saw my parents nekkid, we went skinny dipping together, etc. No negative vibe whatsoever. But nevertheless once I hit puberty I became ULTRA private, felt such things were dirty, couldn't imagine ever showing another person my naked body, etc. But now i'm coming out the other end of puberty, I find myself going swimming without gear again, and letting my bf see every inch of me without feeling bad about my thighs or worrying about my stomach 'cos I just ate dinner or whatever. Happy times.

[vashti]

Perhaps the lesson parents should be giving their children isn't that SEX is wrong/dirty/sinful, but that CASUAL sex is. (Of course, that belief reflects my own personal point of view.)

Taranee - feeling awkward about being naked in front of people is normal when you haven't experienced it very often. Everything new always feels awkward. I don't think your parents damaged you for life - they just didn't want you grow up giving it away to everyone who wants a piece of you.