Bitchypoo reminded me of a comment I posted on Dooce.com in response Heather’s writings about obsessions and compulsions. I’d forgotten about it.

At 9, I developed an insane sex phobia. It was provoked by watching Three’s Company and suddenly “getting it,” realizing that every single thing that happened on the show related to sex. I was horrified. Then, suddenly, everything EVERWHERE was all about sex. I was reduced to tears. My father had to have a talk with me about how “making love is a beautiful thing,” which only made me cry harder. For two years, I was totally and completely obsessed and terrified of anything remotely sexual.

…Oh, how times have changed.

I’m sure my father still remembers those conversations. Can you imagine trying to talk to an inconsolable 9 year old about sex? During that two year paranoid period (probably just terror brought on by an awareness of my own impending puberty) I was also sent over the edge by finding two anatomically-correct turtle salt-and-pepper shakers in a family friend’s basement wet bar. Again, my father sat with me as I sobbed and wailed.

My poor dad: he must have thought I’d be a total sexual basketcase as an adult. Little did he know what an amazing dynamo I’d become! Zing! Bang! Pow!

The biography my father could write of me: “From Paranoid To Perverse: How My Daughter Followed In My Footsteps To Become A Dynamo.”