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Looking back, I think my parents loved each other, and I believe they were happy—sometimes. I also know that they disagreed a lot, and that pretty early on, I sensed he was staying in the marriage for my sister’s and my sake. He left my mother for a short while when I was twelve, and then came back when my mother was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy

    and stayed for eighteen more years. But things were the same, possibly even worse. I don’t blame either of them for how their relationship played out. As far as I can tell, it was simply a marriage that didn’t work.
    My parents weren’t physically affectionate with each other, although they were with Rachel and me. I distinctly remember the first time I saw my best friend’s parents kissing: They looked at each other in a way I’d never seen my own parents act. I was embarrassed at first, wondering, Is this the way parents are supposed to be? Once, I saw the dad swat his wife on the butt with a dish towel. She giggled like a little girl and hugged him, the way the couples did on The Love Boat. I wanted that; I knew that much. We probably learn more about what we desire from seeing what we don’t want than from seeing what we do . The lack of affection in my parents’ marriage made me yearn to have a relationship in which I’d be hugged and kissed and looked at in “that way.” I knew I didn’t want any yelling. I knew I wanted to be happy. But the greatest lesson I took away from observing my parents was that I knew I wanted to have a marriage in which I could express my wants and needs.
    I would argue that I had a better than average childhood with better than average parents. And despite their not seeming to support each other emotionally with complete success, they did support us—not perfectly, not entirely, but respectably. My parents were, like so many others are, I imagine, trying their best to do what they thought was right

    for their kids, sometimes hitting the mark and sometimes not. I grew up feeling confident, smart, happy, healthy, and loved, from my alphabet blocks to my college applications, just as my liberal, freethinking, ex-hippie parents had hoped I would. I also grew up thinking for myself, believing in my ideals, and questioning everything that was presented to me, regardless of the source or the subject—including sex, though I don’t ever remember any real discussion of the topic. It was the late ’70s and early ’80s, and no one I knew had parents who talked to them much about sex. We were exposed to it everywhere, but somehow no one seemed to know a damn thing about it.
    I grew up Jewish, and my father was a rabbi. I don’t remember my dad or the synagogue ever telling me where Judaism stood on sexuality issues. I do, however, remember being part of a national youth group that organized several retreats each year. Various families from the hosting congregations would put us up in their homes, and I was always amazed that they would allow boys and girls to sleep in the same room together. Although plenty of making out went on, the group dynamic seemed to keep things fairly innocent. There weren’t any orgies or drinking fests, nothing like the parties students from my high school held when their parents were out of town, which often resulted in the neighbors’ calling the police. Interesting what happens when you give people—yes, even teenagers—freedom, instead of attempting to control their every move.

    So I didn’t get much in the way of sex ed. The Joy of Sex was on the shelf in our family room, and I remember leafing through its pages when I was ten or eleven and being perplexed by how the mechanics worked, and why anyone would do such things. The line drawings seemed so foreign and exotic. But the book’s frank descriptions, and its placement next to other titles like Captain in a Day: How to Sail Your Own Boat or Macramé the Easy Way: Ten Steps to Creating Perfect Plant Hangers, made me believe that sex was just