In my family, we never discussed uncomfortable subjects like sex and puberty. So obscure was my knowledge of the human body, that when I started developing breasts in fourth grade, I thought I was growing tumors. Needless to say, I grew up with a large gap between the word "sex" (which I honestly thought was a type of flower) and the act itself. It should come as no surprise, then, that my understanding of sex came from the only place a young Catholic girl could find it: in the warm, cheesy glow of pornography.

My first interaction with porn was accidental: it happened one night when I fell asleep watching a movie on HBO, only to awake to a porno featuring a threesome. I thought it was traditional Greek wrestling. My first reaction was, “If it's two women against one guy, why are the women losing?”

Years later, when I actively pursued pornography, I was shocked to discover that there were women who looked like me. Women who were overweight, who had small breasts or bad skin or braces. And all of those women were having sex! For all the talk about porn's warped portrayals of sexuality, it taught me a different lesson as an underconfident teenage girl, one that life up to that point hadn't: it truly doesn’t matter what you look like, because there will always be someone somewhere who's into that.

— Ann Marie

I’m almost forty years old, and I’ve seen a lot of porn over the years. But I could take one look at my fifth-grade class photo and tell you exactly 1) whose dad had porn, 2) what kind of porn, and 3) where it was hidden.

Mark C.? Mother lode of Penthouse in the shed. Dennis K.? Was able to sneak out a stash of Oui which he kept in a rain-soaked grocery bag in his playhouse. Coby M.? Playboy under the bed in the master bedroom, very hard to get to. Ryan S.? Fundamentalist Christian family, no porn. Tim L.? Hippie parents. No porn, but lots of “art” books in the attic. Mike M.? The first satellite dish in the neighborhood — one of the big five-foot-wide ones — and his place was where we always decided to have our sleepovers.

I’m almost forty years old. The other day I saw a big bundle of magazines, half-covered in someone's recycling bin. Instinctively, I reached for them.

— Marc

I was, at the tender age of eight, a lovely and intelligent young lady. My favorite movies were The Wizard of Oz and E.T., though I also loved watching terribly violent gang movies.

One afternoon, my mother and father were both M.I.A., and I had full control of the VCR. Thinking I was slipping in some awesomely gory gangster tale, I slipped an unmarked tape into the VCR, reasoning it wasn't labeled because my parents wanted to protect me from gangland executions.

But what appeared on the screen wasn't Robert De Niro or Joe Pesci, but Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Initially, I was excited — I'd never seen this version of Oz before. And then her trusted friends appeared! Look, it's the Scarecrow! And the Lion! And the Tin Man, too! And then it happened. Toto and I watched in amazement and terror as every one of Dorothy's band of companions took their time ravaging her, sometimes two and three at once. She kept the ruby slippers on.

— Nicole

I was a ten-year-old Catholic schoolgirl visiting Grandma’s house one summer. Books of every genre and subject lined the walls of her home. My room had an enormous bookcase headboard, and I spent the summer reading a respectable chunk of the shelf. Then I came to Fanny Hill (or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure).

Before you could say, “This isn’t Jane Eyre,” I was reading about a woman introducing young Fanny to her sexuality. This caught my attention. The book was surprisingly explicit for the mid 1700s, describing in detail everything I never realized I wanted to know about sex. I barely slept the next few nights as I devoured the novel. Twice.

As the book progresses, Fanny discovers voyeurism, followed immediately by masturbation. As she went through a crash course in sex-ed, so did I. Together we discovered everything from orgies to drag parties to gay sex. Then came bondage and sadomasochism. As a girl being educated by nuns, this left me with an interesting — albeit confusing — perspective on corporal punishment in schools.

The book ends with romantic and affectionate married sex. Which is fortunate, since my sexual tastes and proclivities have, over the years, mirrored Fanny’s. I doubt that is any coincidence.

The well-worn and dog-eared book is still tucked behind the headboard where I hid it each summer, waiting for the next generation to find it. I made sure not to hide it too well.

— Sara

Submit to our next round-up: Ever make out with a rock star? Ever demonstrate your oral skills to an MC? Ever charge the stage to dry-hump the principal first violin in the middle of Mahler 9? Give us your best stories about hooking up with a famous musician. Name names. We want the dirt.

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