“How big is a penis? What does sex feel like? Can you get pregnant on your period?”

I was 13 and home from my first sex education class. Sex ed turned out to be something of a disappointment. Not that I had expected hands-on, how-to, step-by-step instructions, but I’d thought it would be somewhat more practical. Instead, it was an anatomy lesson — ovaries, not orgasms.
Granted, this is turning out to be useful information as I grow older. However, as a curious teenager learning the proper names for my lady bits and understanding the female reproductive system was of less pressing concern than how to be good at kissing.
My friend tried to persuade me to ask the teacher these questions. I didn’t think a virgin bride of Christ would be the best source of information. As far as nuns went, Sister Peter was pretty intercourse positive, proclaiming sex to be a wonderful gift from God, as long you were married of course. Still, I wanted answers from someone who had been down in the trenches as it were, so I decided to ask my mother.
My mother answered these questions without blinking an eye. For one thing, since I was a flat chested adolescent who had never kissed a boy or had a period, she knew I wasn’t asking because I was about to get it on with some spotty-faced teenage Lothario. And also because she believed that sex was just a part of life. Besides which, we’d already had the dreaded talk about sexuality, adolescence and the physical changes I was going through — albeit much slower than I’d hoped.
The next day I returned to school brimming with answers. My mother supplied me with books, and if there was anything they didn’t answer or I wanted to discuss, she was happy to fill in the gaps. I was the nerdy, bookish girl, who still didn’t need a bra. Nonetheless, I became the go-to person for all things sexual, which vastly improved my social standing and is probably one of the reasons I ended writing a column about sex.
I have been thinking a lot about my mother lately as she recently passed away. In many ways I am my mother’s daughter — we shared a love of reading and of writing, an interest in human nature, in art, in the theatre, a love of animals, of drinking endless cups of tea, of using silly voices and we share the same name, Anne Marie, although I prefer Anne, and she was known as Marie. My politics, attitudes, sense of humour, and even my handwriting are similar to hers. She gifted me with her nose, which annoyed me for years as both my sisters have tiny button noses courtesy of my father. However, since this is a sex column, I am going to talk about how her attitude to sex influenced mine, because I am grateful to have had a mother who was open-minded, generous, and liberal in her views.
When I first started writing this column many, many people asked me how my mother felt about it — strangely, nobody was concerned about my poor dad’s feelings — and the attitude seemed to be that my mother would be shocked or embarrassed about her daughter discussing a subject as nasty as sex in a national magazine. I knew my mother wouldn’t mind because she raised me to be my own person — I was her child, not an extension of her — and because, in the intervening years, we’d had many discussions about sex.
After I lost my virginity, the second person I told was my mother — the first being my sister. My mother was not upset or horrified. Instead she wanted to know how I felt. Was I happy? Was it something I had wanted to do? And she wanted to make sure I’d used protection, which I had.
During that discussion, my mother stressed the importance of personal choice. I could do whatever I wanted, with whomever I wanted, as long as it was indeed what I, and my partner, wanted. She warned me that sex was sex, and love was love, and while they sometimes occur at the same time or with the same person, they are not the same thing, that one cannot be exchanged for the other and that I should never let anyone coerce me into any sexual behaviour I didn’t want for myself.
This is the most useful advice anyone has ever given me about sex and in the years since then I’ve used it as my yardstick for determining my sexual choices — if I’m not into it, it’s not happening; if I’m not sure whether or not I’m interested, I’ll take my own sweet time to decide. If that angers, annoys or frustrates the person asking, that’s too damn bad. My body, my choice.
This advice from my mother has meant that my sex life has been overwhelmingly sunny and delightful. Almost all of my friends, both male and female, have had sex with people they wished they hadn’t or have had sexual experiences that they didn’t enjoy, but my sex life has been free of that. There is only one instance I regret — having “almost sex” when I was drunk and upset, but I changed my mind and he backed off.
It has also meant that my feelings towards my former partners are positive too, and I am very good friends with more than a few of them. While my father warned me about the perfidy of men, my mother was far more complimentary about the hairier sex. She’d had a number of lovely boyfriends (and a not so lovely one as well) before she decided that my father was the man for her. I expected that my romantic life would be much the same, and it has been, largely because my mother taught me not to put up with controlling behaviour or unreasonable demands. Find the people who respect you and make you happy, she said, and that’s good advice for choosing both friends and lovers.
My mother gave me lots of advice over the years, on boyfriends, break-ups, courtship and contraception, but her advice on personal choice has been indispensable — and I hope if you are reading this, and you don’t already do this, you’ll take it to heart.
The last conversation I had with my mother was a few days before she died. As she said good-bye, she told me she loved me, and I said the same back to her. I wish I had another chance to thank her, and to let her know how important her advice has been to me and how happy my sex life has been as a direct result of it.
Your sexual happiness is important — whether you are gay or straight, a man or a woman, cisgendered or trans, have a high libido or a lower one, are kinky or vanilla, you deserve to have your sexual choices respected. You don’t have to take my word for it — Mammy Sexton was a wiser, kinder, more loving and a better person than I will ever be and she taught me that. Don’t let anyone ever tell you different.