Good Sex Illustrated (5 page)
THIS IS WHERE HE WILL LEARN THE ROLE OF THE FATHER…
It seemed to us that the best way to help you respond to the child was to tell a “story,” a story identical to yours…
This is where he will learn the role of the father, and especially, the existence of sexual relations, a special kind of relations that, to avoid being always an act of reproduction, quite often imply the love of a little future being.
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THE FIRST VOLUME OF the Hachette Encyclopedia is analogous to a lot of other works written for young children, and I wouldn’t be interested in it if it hadn’t marked the start of a gradual series of several additional books—a phenomenon that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
Handbooks for “young people under 18”—socially asexual, at least in France—are the only form of sexual discourse to which they have official access: taken together, they represent all the sex that the child, the young teenager, has the right to openly possess.
The works for ages 7–9 and those for ages 10–13 are completely interdependent. They are composed of a rather brief pseudonarrative and a very large set of illustrations that reduplicate it and accentuate certain sentences; they are the very opposite of decorative imagery and in many respects their psychological role is infinitely more important than the informative role of the text.
In this chapter, I will offer a few excerpts and descriptions of the age 7–9 volume, but I’m reserving the main part of my comments for the discussion of the age 10–13 volume. The period of existence covered by these two volumes is continuous, and it makes no sense to cut it into sections.
First, in the form of reasonably abridged excerpts (but with subheadings added by me), I present the essential passages of the little story that is told in the first volume—
a story just like yours…
I’ve only quoted physiological information if it was related to our sexual prohibitions; thus, these are the most daring of the disclosures in this first volume.
I. THE PLAIN AND SIMPLE STORY OF THE AVERAGE FRENCH PERSON
ONE FINE SUNDAY
This Sunday afternoon certainly is a promising one for Sophie and Thierry, seven-year-old twins: the whole family is going to tea at Aunt Nicole’s
[she’s popping-out pregnant].
She is letting them marvel at her pretty cradle in white and blue. Mom chats with Aunt Nicole. Dad and Uncle Jacques watch a soccer game on television.
AFTER TV
“You said that Aunt Nicole’s baby is in her stomach. How can that be? I don’t get it.”
Dad comes over and sits the twins down in front of him. He must be getting ready to tell them a lot of things.
FOUNDING OF AN ENTERPRISE
Aunt Nicole and Uncle Jacques were both students, and some nights they went to the movies, to the theater or to concerts together. After their final exams, they went on vacation. Since they liked each other a lot, they often wanted to kiss. So much so that when September came they decided to live together and never leave each other. They moved into their lovely house, and Aunt Nicole was very happy. She’d tell herself that she could make a child happy. Uncle Jacques agreed. But how do you make a baby? I’m going to tell you.
PRODUCTION PLAN...
Babies are made, yes, made by the daddy and the mommy. To do this, they use certain parts of their bodies that are called the sex organs… the functioning of these organs cant be seen.
…AND EQUIPMENT
When a man is naked, you can see that he has hair at the bottom of his belly. Thierry, who is a little boy, doesn’t have hair yet; but like men, like your dad, he already has a sack of skin that contains two balls called testicles, and a sort of tube, his penis, which he uses to pee. Pee is the only liquid that flows from a little boy’s penis. From a man’s penis, another liquid sometimes comes out, which never gets mixed with the pee.
The woman you see in the picture has her arms crossed over her breasts, it looks like she wants to hide them. At the base of her belly, she has hair, like the man, but no penis or testicles. In order to see her sex organs, we’d have to look inside her belly.
The opening of the vagina is found between the women’s thighs, behind the hole she uses to pee.
STARTING MANUFACTURING
When one of these tiny sperms meets one of these tiny ova, they unite to form a baby.
The dad and mom have created a future little boy, or maybe a very pretty little girl! Kept nice and warm in this big pouch, the egg is going to develop.
DELIVERY OF THE PRODUCT
Aunt Nicole had understood that for the birth, she needed to be in shape. So she practiced. The mom must be calm, the delivery lasts a long time. Since she has done exercises to learn how to breathe quietly, she wont get out of breath. Look, the baby has come out! It’s over, Mom will sleep now, with her baby close by.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE
A baby is incapable of coping on its own; he’s cold; he’s hungry. Since he soils himself, his parents will have to clean him and change his diapers. What a job, but also, what a pleasure! Thanks to this baby, the parents feel even closer to each other and love each other more.
POTTY CULTURE
Baby feels loved and protected. Soon, he’ll realize that he has two hands. He loves being totally naked, wriggling and playing with his feet! A little later. Mom will ask him to go to the potty. He won’t be very happy about it at first; but, to please Mom, he’ll end up obeying her.
Soon, he realizes that he can stand like Dad and Mom. One day he walks all by himself His parents praise him. But he’s still small, he needs hugs. He’s only happy when he’s with Dad and Mom.
REINVESTMENT
His parents decide to take him to nursery school. He learns quickly how to live with other children. There are brunettes, blonds; some are very quiet, others uncontrollable. In general, the little boys are a bit stronger than the little girls.
A SINLESS PARADISE
Here are two happy children
(image of a beach with no pollution and no crowds).
Last summer, you, too, liked being able to be on thebeach without any clothes on. Between two ballgames, the children ask questions, because some things seem difficult for them to understand. So they speak to their parents, who explain to them how babies come into the world.
ONE DAY, I’LL HAVE A “REAL” BODY
(Images: boy/girl after the onset of puberty).
The girl is admiring herself in front of the mirror. She has become tall and slender, her breasts have developed and she finds them very pretty. She’s beginning to look more and more like Mom.
The boy has body hair, too. Now he speaks with a low voice, almost like Dad. He’s very proud of his shoulders, which are getting wider and wider, and his hips are narrow. He wants to look athletic.
…
BUT I WON’T MISUSE IT.
Around 18 or 20, the teenagers have reached their adult height. Some of them are already beginning to work for a living. Others, if their parents can help, are getting their degrees. Boys and girls like to get together. They go out walking, to the movies, loan each other books and records.
THE ETERNAL RETURN
And then, like Aunt Nicole and Uncle Jacques, a boy and a girl realize that they like being alone together. When they’re together, they talk, but they also get a lot of pleasure out of kissing. They will want to live together and will try to be even closer to each other; they’ll be happy feeling and caressing each other’s body.
WHERE THERE’S SMOKE THERE’S FIRE
One day they’ll want to get married, they’ll get even closer, the young man will put his penis in the vagina of the young woman, and they’ll experience a new pleasure. Such pleasure is known as sexual pleasure. That’s how you can—if you want to—have a baby.
II. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The book, which has 44 pages, includes 96 illustrations, 1 photo and 95 color drawings. The photo is on the cover; it shows a decent-looking naked little boy and little girl who are seated in an armchair and who are tanned and “good-looking”; the boy is holding the little girl by the neck and pretending to kiss her cheek. This pseudoflirting reminds us that children “are” asexual because they can only reproduce the parental stereotype as parody.
Here, arranged under simple headings, is the list of illustrations {
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Depictions of Naked Bodies
Children: little boy-girl couple, 1.
Adolescents: boy, 1; girl, 1.
Adults: man, 2; woman, 2.
These drawings of nudes (which, aside from the child couple, are anthropometric in intention) are small in scale, simple and whole-some-looking. The genitals are invisible (women) or nominal (men).
Depictions of Sex Organs
Images devoted to the “external genital organs”: none.
Erotic Activity
Depictions of any pleasure practice: none.
Reproduction
Human biology: 3. Animal: 11. Plant : 4.
“Internal genital organs”: 7.
Parental Couple: 8.
Intercourse for the purpose of procreation: 2 (Censored drawing, 1. Cutaway, 1.)
Pregnant woman: 20 (with internal views, 9).
Labor: 7.
Babies: 13.
Social Life of the Child
School: 1.
Family: 9.
Other situation: none.
For each, of course, I am referring to the main and explicit subject of the illustration.
It becomes apparent that, to an excessive degree, the accent is on procreation, with bizarre senses of propriety, unnecessarily daring touches (details of delivery, cesareans, etc.) and some peculiar omissions. I will get back to this. The eroticism of the child, like that of the adults, is absent from the illustration as it is from the text. By itself, the material on
pregnant women/birth/babies
represents 42% of the illustrations.
These illustrations are drawings because they are clearer and also less realistic than photos; their simple lines, their pastel colors tone down the subject being presented. My cataloguing of them doesn’t give an account of an important piece of information: the relative size of the drawings. In fact, trivial, “emotional” kinds of illustration occupy the most space; by their themes, they seem intended to dupe girls rather than boys. I will come back to this point in the next chapter. Here, I’ll content myself with describingthe fourteen images that occupy either an entire page or at least two thirds of it.
1.
Family
smiling, in the street, in three couples: dad-mom, big brother-big sister, little brother-little sister. Dad in a suit, tie and pocket handkerchief; mom in a suit and scarf that hides her neck. “High-rise” style buildings on the left, car on the right, a little dog in front of it. The scene depicts a family unit on their Sunday outing: they are going to a relatives.
2.
Family,
at the home of the pregnant relative. She has a small dog to complement the one shown before (different sex, same breed).
3.
Couple
: love story in two images. On the left, a man and woman in proper-looking bathing suits, playing volleyball on a sunny beach. On the right, the same couple, but dressed, standing in the shade of a tree, smiling and looking as if they’re about to kiss.
4.
Couple
with baby. In the first image, a young and happy mother, holding her baby against her body. On the right, an approving dog. In back, the husband smiling at them while painting a partition on wheels because he’s furnishing their home: on the table, there’s already a television, a model with a spherical design.
5.
Internal genital organs
of a man, seen in cutaway.
6.
Internal genital organs
of a woman, seen in cutaway.
7.
Ditto,
showing an egg.
8.
Couple
, two-page spread. Mom pregnant and lying on a bed in a private hospital. On the left, the dog and a designer suitcase. On the right, the husband leaning affectionately toward his young wife. In the foreground, her hand holding a sheet of paper and a pencil; on the sheet of paper you can read her ideas for a first name, in two columns: Antoine/Jean/Eric, Anne/Sophie/Isabelle. At the bottom of the image, two identical illustrationsdepicting a baby in the uterus and reiterating the issue: girl on the left, boy on the right.
9.
Couple,
entering the maternity clinic. Taxi, trees, flowers, slender receptionist, pregnant woman. The man is holding her by the arm while clutching her hand; tall, healthy-and athletic-looking, he is carrying the designer suitcase.
10.
Labor:
finished. Mom on the bed looking happy, a young doctor to her left. On the right, a nurse dressed like a flight attendant is holding out the promised gift, I mean, the baby: of course, it’s a boy.