rude bits

I used to believe that the umbilical cord was attached to the babies groinal area and where it was cut, determined the size of the penis.

Pete

Until I was 16 and I had my first PROPER girlfriend, I always assumed the vaginal opening would be on the front of the pelvis, because that's where the penis is.

Imagine my confusion when I found it's actually tucked underneath.

Also, when I started masturbation, I knew it was frowned open, so instead I used to have sex with the bed in what I called "sex practice."

Practice makes perfect ^_^

i used to believe that you could breath through the the hole in the end of your penis when you were swimming.

Anon

My baby brother had just been weaned so I asked my mum if she was keeping her breasts in case she had another baby.

Shantavira

When I was faced with the prospect of talking about my "bits" when I was little, I'd always call them "Jenny Tails", Jenny being my name. It took me until I was probably about 8 and said something about "Janet Tails" (my sister) that I was informed that I'd misheard my mother when she taught me about my *genitals*.

Jen

I am the only girl in my entire extended family and the youngest to boot. My brother saw my grandmother changing my diaper one day and was freaked out by the fact that I lacked a penis--it was the first he'd seen of me being at all different, so he snached me up off the changing table and ran with me to my mother to stop her from cutting off anything else. He was acute one--when he was told my mother was having a baby he asked if she would have me under the kitchen table like our dog Pepper. Fortunately for me the answer was no.

Jenni

My folks tell me that when I was a youngster of two or three, I came into a room full of guests and announced that my vagina itched. I am (and was) a male.

Anon

I used to believe that girls must have something similar to a "hard on". I thought that the outside of their vagina would get hard like a rock. I called it a "rocky".

Anon

I used to believe that when a guy was circumsised that the whole head of a guys penis was cut off, so I thought I was uncut until I was about 19 and saw what it really meant.

Ouch that would hurt!

When me andmy sister were little we used to call farts blow offs. So obviously when everyone at school started talking about giving somebody a blow job i thought it was really disgusting because i thought they wanted to fart in the guys face!

Anon

When my brother was 4 years old he asked my Mother if penises have bones in them. My Mother said, "I don't think so Honey." And my brother said, "I think they do Mom, and I think when they do it's called satisfaction!"

sc

Guess I was in about third or fourth grade when I heard some boys in my class talking about a "dick." I didn't know what that was, so I asked them, and they told me it was something a dentist puts in your mouth. Along the line I got some conflicting information and really wasn't happy about the idea of going to the dentist for a long time after that.

Laura W.

I am probably the last virgin bride in the history of my family. And I grew up in a very protected and rigid Catholic family, so I really didn't know very much about sex in general, and the opposite sex in particular.

When I was a sophomore in college, one night after "lights out" we all gathered in one girl's room to talk about sex. One of the girls said she'd actually seen a naked man, and described his parts in great detail.

THe first time I ever saw an adult naked male was on my wedding night. And I was astounded. I asked my husband why his penis didn't have "concentring rings of hair." He looked at me and laughed and laughed and wanted to know where in the world I picked up that strange notion. I told him about the night in the dorm and said "Mary Francis (not her real name) said that's what men looked like." For several years I thought that there was something wrong with my husband because he didn't look like the dorm-room conversation had led me to expect.

naive Washingtonian

When I was little, I thought If I wore my mother's bra to bed, I would wake up with big breasts. Much to my surprise, when I woke up the next morning, there was no change. I was puzzled.

Karen Spicer

I used to think that "outie" belly buttons were really tiny little penises, and "innie" belly buttons were miniature vaginas. I thought that the real equipment was only used for the bathroom and it was really the belly buttons that were involved in sex. So, since I have an innie, I was always afraid to hug my friends with outie belly buttons, even if they were girls, 'cause I didn't want to get pregnant.

kms

I asked my older sister what a thong was and she said
"undies that go up your butt"
SO I imagined that it was underware with a pole on it that you would stick up your asshole.
Believed this one until high school when thongs got popular: why the heck would people WANT to stick poles up their butt?

lisa

One day in the elementary school playground some other boys and I were drawing in the dirt. With a certain amount of pride, I drew a penis -- I don't recall what term I used at that age -- and drew it like my own, uncircumcised.

The boy I was playing with scoffed and told me I'd drawn it wrong, and drew a penis presumably more like his own -- circumcised.

I was shamed and believed I was deformed.

Scix

One morning upon waking up in my parent's bed (I was about 2), I gleefully pulled my pants down and showed my mother my penis.

"That's my penis! Show me yours!"

I was nearly catatonic when my mother explained to me she didn't have one.

Ryan Whitney

The nursery term for the penis in my family was the Greek word for dimple (or seal, as on a letter or document), which is "voulla." This was not an ideal choice. For one thing, there is a Greek girl's name (unrelated, I think) that sounds just like it, and I always wondered what kind of nuts would name their daughter "penis." For another thing, a friend of my grandmother's came up to me one day and said, in Greek, "oh what a cute kid you are, and you have two dimples." I vehemently protested that I had only one, much to her initial bewilderment and subsequent convulsion. (I was told about the incident many years later and have no memory of it, but I would like to think that she then said, "sure you have two. One here and one here.")

Many years later, long after learning the proper (and improper) terms in English and Greek, I was on a trip to Greece and was quite amused when our taxi passed the "Voula Beach Hotel."

C.C.

Having never seen male reproductive organs as a child, and being confused by the variety of terminology (penis, dick, balls), I decided it must be like a line of fleshy balls strung together, like pearls. For years I was horribly embarassed by pearl necklaces, but for quite a unique reason!

Dee