My story's like a lot of others in the thread - I didn't get an extensive talk, I just got straight answers to the questions I asked. And the explicit instruction that I was not to father a child before the age of 20. Anything I didn't feel comfortable asking about, I pretty much learned from the internet or trial & error. If I learned anything from how I was taught in this particular area, it's that straightforward answers are the best way to go when/if I ever have a kid and have to have "The Talk" with them. None of this "if you have sex your penis will turn black and fall off" bullshit some of my friends from more religious families had to go through with their parents. EDIT: I should clarify that I wasn't instructed to not have sex before the age of 20, just to make damn sure I wore a condom if I did.
My mother had no choice but to tell me since she was knocked up with my younger brother when I was 9. Cue a nice long ride home from the dentist and I finally learned how that fetus incubating in her uterus came to be. The only question I had was "will my boobies get any bigger?" She very seriously replied "don't worry about that. They'll grow and if they're small, that's fine. You're a small girl, you'll likely have a small growth." Double D's later...Mom was wrong. However, masturbation was something I came into on my own and never asked about. That would've resulted in a hell of a different discussion, mostly along the lines of "DON'T DO THAT! It's WRONG!" My mom comes from a nice long line of Catholic Italians.
By the time I was 15 (and had read up on the subject on my own), my dad simply asked me "Son, do you know what condoms are for and how they work?" "Yes sir" I duly replied. "Well, don't make a grandpa out of me before the time." I still don't know what he meant with 'before the time', but I have managed to stay childless so far.
Never had the talk from the olds, found out about masturbation all on my own then the internet and unlocked pay tv channels helped with the rest. The old man did start to mercilessly rag on me when he decided that I was old enough to understand the jokes and get embarrassed by them.
Sex ed classes was "The talk" for my generation, I do not know of one parent ever sitting down any of my friends to give the infamous talk regarding sex. [No wonder there are so many underage pregnancies in the world today]
One of my friends older brother was taken out fishing when his Dad decided to give 'the talk'. Apparently it was so awkward that he jumped overboard out of the boat and refused to get back in until his Dad agreed to never again broach the subject.
My dad was driving me home once and during a moment of silence he says "So, you have a girlfriend now. Do I have to tell you about being safe?" He was gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were white. That how awkward it was for him. I quickly replied "No, I got it." and that was that.
I grew up in a Catholic family and went to a Catholic school, but there's always that one kid who has an older brother who knows everything, and that kid happened to be my best friend in first grade. I quickly discovered that touching my own dick felt fantastic, and how could God make it such a bad thing if it felt so good? About a year or two later my friends and I discovered the TV version of Loveline on MTV (which we weren't allowed to watch, so of course we did it anyway). Which, along with the radio version that we discovered a couple years later, taught me everything. By the first time my mom discovered my porn stash (printed out secretly from the early days of the internet) and tried to convince me that Pamela Anderson isn't a standard to hold women to, the only awkward part about it was telling her that "I don't want to marry these girls."
I never had the talk, only the reverse talk. My dad asked me why I wasn't having sex. He still asks me from time to time. I think they just trusted the internet to raise me. Oh and abstinence only education.
In second grade art class, I decided to draw a picture of myself as a giant, muscular pro wrestler (like Hulk Hogan), with my dick out, pissing on a girl in my class. In my defense, the girl was (and still is) insufferable. Being that my art teacher was a nosy bitch, she saw my drawing. I could have lied my way out of it, except my mom worked in the same school. Anyway, before leaving for school the next morning, my mom made me tell my dad what I did. Luckily, he was too stoned and deep into his "I don't give a shit about my son" phase to really care. I actually started writing this post with the thought that I learned about the birds and bees at that moment, but come to think of it, he just told me not to be so stupid. "The Talk" occurred when I was probably like 12 and stumbled upon my dad's stolen cable and Action Pay Per View at 3:00 A.M. during the summer. Fair Game with Cindy Crawford was on, I saw her tits, and realized that what her and the Baldwin dude were doing was probably sex. Then I found the Spice Channel and the rest, as they say, was history.
I never really got the talk about the birds and the STDs. But does my older brother giving me shit when I was around eight count? "And that's why they are called STDs. So, how many STDs do you have?" "NONE!" "Which ones?" "NONE OF THEM!" "If you had to pick one, which one would you choose?" "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!"