GROWING UP IN THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION

For writer Judy Broadbent, 65, being a teen in the 1970s wasn't easy...

- JUDY BROADBENT

In the 60s, sex was a taboo subject in my home. I knew nothing of the birds and bees and had to rely on my sister Cal, three years older, to confirm that  I had started my period in 1971. I told my mum, Margaret, then 37, that Cal had given me a sanitary towel and belt (yes, remember those?) to wear. I can recall Mum’s words well. ‘Right young lady, you had better steer clear of boys as we don’t want any unwanted babies in this house. Are you listening, young lady? If you kiss a boy you’ll end up pregnant!’ she declared.

And that was that. I was terrified. I was so naive I didn’t dare question Mum on anything to do with sex. In fact, ‘sex’ was almost a swear word – never really said out loud!

Mum’s generation, particularly women, considered sex to serve just a single purpose - to conceive a child, and it was an act reserved for marriage only. And those were the views Mum pushed onto me.

As I developed physically, I attracted male attention. At school, aged 15, I can remember telling one admirer that I couldn’t kiss him as I’d get pregnant. I watched as he fell about laughing and my friend had to explain the truth about what it took to conceive a child. A short time later, behind the bike sheds after a school disco, I got my first kiss. But then his hands moved below my waist and I pushed him off. I still had all of Mum’s warnings in my head, plus didn’t he know that sex was reserved for marriage?

Then, in 1974, when I was 17, Mum took me to the GP as I had horrible disabling period pains, called dysmenorrhoea. The doctor put me on the pill, which was fairly new back then, and stopped the excruciating pain. Mum warned that taking it was not so that I could have sex.