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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>For anyone missing Mary Jo’s story.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> Group1 [mailto:group1-bounces@bluegrasspals.com] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Mary-Jo Lord<br><b>Sent:</b> Sunday, June 11, 2017 2:38 PM<br><b>To:</b> DeAnna (Quietwater) Noriega<br><b>Cc:</b> Critique Group 1<br><b>Subject:</b> [Critique Group 1] Mary-Jo submission for June 14<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Here is my submission for June 14. I apologize for the lateness.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Mary-Jo<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The Intercourse<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>At age nine, I believed that information regardless of how it was acquired, was worth sharing with whoever asked for it. My mother had just asked me what I knew about sex. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>"I know about the intercourse," I said proudly.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Over the summer, we visited our relatives in California. My cousin Christy had a book called "Your Body and You," or something like that. My mother asked Christy to read it to me. We went outside by the tree with the low branch for swinging and big seeds that dropped to the ground with a loud thud. I practiced my swinging technique and gathered seeds for our collection as Christy read.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The book seemed to go on and on about people, animals, and reproduction. Then it talked about mating and this thing called "intercourse." Somehow as I hung up-side-down from the tree branch, my then eight-year-old mind turned "intercourse" into "the intercourse."<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Christy laughed as she read the section about human reproduction and we giggled as we asked the question "did our parents do THAT?" EEEEEEU! We thought that that couples only did this thing if they wanted kids. Without wanting to, I thought about other couples: The Whites next door with six kids, Uncle Don and Aunt Rose with four, all of the other neighbors on the street with all of those kids. Yuck! We decided that that's why we had small families, only two kids.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Now, sitting in the family room with the television blaring something about sex education in the schools, my mother seemed to have become speechless. I could feel her stunned silence like possible trouble but I didn't know where it came from. She recovered quickly and asked me what I knew about the intercourse.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I tried to remember what Christy read. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>"If a couple wants to have a baby, they have to do this thing called the intercourse. The man has to put his penis in the woman's vajeana. They have to do this thing if the woman's doctor tells her that she can have a baby and the couple wants to have one."<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>"Who told you about this?"<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>"It was in that book that you told Christy to read to me when we were there last summer."<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>"I thought that book was about periods. Did you girls talk about this after she read it?"<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I didn't want to tell her that we talked about her and dad and Aunt Barbara and Uncle Frank having small family's so they didn't have to do the intercourse as often as people with big family's, so I told her "no."<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>She explained that it was called "sexual intercourse," not "the Intercourse." She told me that a woman has a "vagina," not a "vajeana." Then, she talked about love, commitment and responsibility. I was feeling really confused, but when she asked if I understood, I told her that I did. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>That night as I tried to go to sleep, I thought about Christy's book and what my mother had said. The book made the whole thing sound really gross, but my mother made it sound like it was a good thing for grownups. It all sounded disgusting to me, but the idea of my parents doing "that" made me giggle. Christy and I decided that our parents adopted us to avoid doing that awful thing. Then again, who would do "that thing" and have a baby just to give it to someone else? The whole thing was too confusing for my nine-year-old mind. I decided not to think about the intercourse for a long time.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>