1. I genuinely 100% thought that some men had hollow penises and that that’s how gay sex worked.

2. I thought two people laid on their sides facing each other while covered with blankets. That was it, that was sex.

3. Blow job = blow (literally) on the guy’s pee pee.

4. I thought the penis went straight down between a man’s legs and was shocked when I saw the truth for the first time.

5. Always thought the vaginal opening was roughly where the penis would be on a guy… kinda surprised at how far back I had to go when I first found out.

6. All of my friends and I thought that you could never get a girl pregnant if the condom was black. We thought the sperm would get lost or would be too confused to find an egg in the dark.

7. I thought if you thrust your hips really, really fast, you’d be like a human vibrator that women couldn’t resist.

8. I remember at the tail end of high school a group of us we were sitting under a tree talking about sex when one guy suddenly declares his hatred for doggy style, ranting about the smell and the poo on his dick and how it didn’t feel good for him and his girlfriend but everyone seems to love it. Everything just went silent and we all started looking at each other, then this one guy pipes up and says;

“You… you know you can put it in her vagina from behind right?”

I’ll never forget the sudden look of realization that appeared on his face when he heard that and then proceeded to pretend like he was just testing us.

9. Not me, but a buddy from high school. The group of us all thought we had about the same understanding about the mechanics of sex… Apparently that was not the case.

This buddy of ours gets himself into a relationship and he and his girl are about to take it to the next step. The first time they have sex, he apparently stopped mid-way through with a strange look. When his girlfriend asked him, “What’s wrong?” he told her he wasn’t sure how he was going to get his balls in there, too.

I’d pay money to see the look on her face after that.

10. My mum is a doctor so she brought me and my siblings up to be comfortable talking about body parts so that we would understand what was and wasn’t ok for people to do. When she first told us how babies were made, I asked how people were supposed to have sex without seeing each other since it’s not ok to look at other people’s private parts. 10 year old me then went on to literally describe what I now know to be a glory hole to my parents.

11. I used to think masturbation could get you pregnant as a child.

12. I always thought that prior to actual sex, people would bang their upper bodies together and that was called ‘banging’ and involved only the breast-area.

13. A vagina will get loose from sex. I know now that is not true.

14. Straight woman here. I thought boob stuff was strictly for the man’s benefit. Like, men like boobs and want to touch them so one day when I’ve been married for six months and my husband’s been extra well-behaved, I’ll graciously let him do some over the shirt stuff for a few seconds purely for his benefit.

15. I used to think oral sex was the same thing as phone sex.

16. I thought during the act, the man stuffs his soft penis inside the woman and they lie still, the man on top of the woman, awaiting ejaculation like a data transfer before disconnecting from each other. All very still and silent.

17. That men and women have synchronized orgasms.

18. I genuinely thought that to cum, you had to tickle yourself until you felt like you were gonna explode.

19. I thought the penis just rested between the lips, sort of like a hotdog in a bun. I was little, I didn’t know I had a hole so that’s the only thing that made sense to me!

20. I thought “shagging” meant rubbing your bums together.

21. I thought humans always did it doggy style. I just assumed all creatures did it this way.

22. I didn’t know men got erections. I just assumed the only sex you could have is missionary, because otherwise how could the penis go into the vagina? I had a vague notion of the man on top, dangling his penis and penetrating the woman with a gravity-assist.

23. Up until age 19 or so, I legitimately thought women were physically incapable of enjoying sex.

24. I thought that the penis was simply placed in the vagina (no thrusting) and after a while fertilization just occurred kinda magically.

25. My mom made an attempt to explain to me what porn was when I was around 10. Sadly, I then proceeded to think that every sex scene in a movie was called porn and that they actually did have sex.

26. I thought during sex the guy would pee into the girl’s vagina (which was where I thought women peed from) and the pee that entered the girl would be peed back into the guys dick and that cycle would continue until both of us fell asleep.

27. A buddy thought you had to rub your penis on the clit until it was time to cum. Didn’t understand how condoms work.

28. That I would immediately cum once a girls tongue touched my dick.

29. I started sexual education around age 8 and at the end of every session we were given paper to write down questions we wanted answered. I remember asking this question as my first ever question, it was brushed off by the teacher who gave an answer that left me even more confused, and went unanswered for me until I was much older.

I asked, in much less eloquent words, “When a woman has ejaculate inside of her, there is a lot of sperm that aren’t successful, what happens to that?”

I had seen the anatomy. I knew the cervix had to be breached. We were shown silhouette style graphics of knob to cervix transfer of semen… so I figured lots made it through. I didn’t think you would keep every load you received between periods up there… but… what happened to it?

Turns out sex is really messy. Took very little searching online to scar the immediate loss of my naive innocence into my memory forever.

30. That it’s intrinsically something immoral and shameful. Sex is a fundamental part of life, and being ashamed of even wanting it is no way to live. Be respectful, be safe, exercise consent, and you’re fine.