Fran, your comments about your little girl being "flirtatious" really rang my bells. That sort of behavior and playfulness was completely missing from my childhood. Wow. You've brought it into focus for me with just a couple of paragraphs. I've copied them into my journal.
I'm an only child, air force brat, moved all over-- NO male presence in my life except my father, a very troubled, depressed man, and my very strange depressed mother. I basically raised myself with the help of books. I've often said that books were my parents.
Unlike you and heather, I didn't go the promiscuous route. I went just the opposite way. I became a total intellectually superior snobby nerd. I had ONE date all through high school, and it was with a boy who saw my name in the paper as a National Merit Finalist and wanted to meet me. (I did go to an all-girls' school in high school, but that didn't stop other girls from dating.)
I had NO dates in college, except the last semester of my senior year, a slightly older teacher picked me out of a crowd and that was my first real boyfriend. I did not have sex with him because I was way too afraid of getting pregnant (pre-pill days), and basically he dumped me after three months. However, he completely upset my intellectual apple cart, introduced me to the Human Potential Movement of the 1960's and for that I will be forever grateful to him.
Instead of running TO sex, I ran FROM it. Wow... my brain is working a mile a minute on this stuff. Thank you so much for those comments... I feel a chain reaction happening inside me... I like it!
I'm going to copy your paragraphs over on Mojo's thread, in case she doesn't see this. It's very relevant to the discussion over there.
