I have a lot of sex toys. Rubber ones, steel ones, vibratey, pokey, hard, soft. They’re scattered around a 15 foot radius of my bedroom. The room is fairly small, but the collection isn’t, so they’re packed in my nightstand. In a vintage suitcase at the foot of my bed. In the wardrobe in my dressing room. In a bag on a shelf.

Because they’re everywhere, access isn’t always quick and easy. Having to step out of my bed to grab that specific toy when I want it in my… um… hand RIGHT NOW sometimes breaks the momentum. But this is what I have to accept if I don’t want my 9 year-old son, Evil Genius, to discover them when he comes to hang out with me and my husband in our room. I think enviably of some of my single, childless friends who display their own collections proudly in their rooms like trophies, within reach when needed.

Evil G is growing up in a relatively liberal home. My husband and I are both in creative industries, and my own business includes managing an art community that draws and photographs nude models on a regular basis. He’ll be the kid whose house all his friends want to visit because there’s art with boobs on the wall. He’s getting a healthy dose of sex positivity, more so than most other kids his age; maybe even more than adults my age.  We do not cater to sexual stigma in our house. But that doesn’t mean I want to leave my chains and floggers out for all the world to see.

My son is a curious little dude who asks a million questions and parses logic as well as he builds LEGO, sometimes to our chagrin. We’re the type of parents who want to always answer questions honestly, but it gets a bit exhausting to answer 500 per day, in detail. {When I was a kid, I vowed I would never say to my own offspring “because I said so.” I despised that response, but now I’m figuring out just why it was so popular}. Having so many sexual curiosities around puts a damper on this mandate, as some replies just aren’t simple enough or age-appropriate.

I’m also an extremely bad liar; the kind you see in crappy sitcoms, sputtering out “uh… yeah… well…”, only I’m not lying to Mr. Roper, and my son can see right through me.

All this means I’m often caught up giving an honest, detailed explanation at any moment of the day. Could be anything. A drive downtown might spawn a question about condoms and how cool it would be if we had to dodge Minecraft Creepers on the street. Making dinner might wind up including a conversation about erections and masturbation (“Do you do it, Mama?”), followed up with just how much a Furbie would technically have to eat to fall through the floor. Not missing a beat between questions helps to not foster that aforementioned stigma, but I need to be prepared.

Balancing truth and age-appropriate answers gets a bit tricky, so I try to not to leave myself open to questions that will make me anxious and sweaty. This is a task proving to be more difficult as Evil G ages.

As a younger kid, the stack of books in the sitting room was just something he walked by to get from the TV to the fridge. But very soon, his curiosity will be piqued enough to want to stop and peer into some of those books with the interesting words on the spines. While I don’t care if he opens the ones with images similar to those of Playboy, I’m pretty sure I don’t want him flipping through the Japanese hentai or the books on BDSM. The last few months I’ve been wondering if and where I should move them.

This same curiosity will lead him to investigate other aspects of the house that previously never grabbed his attention. When I was around his age, I would root through my parents’ room as soon as they left the house, looking for any kind of trinket or treasure. From the commemorative King Tut Exhibit chocolate in a fancy gold box (which tasted mighty fine), to my mum’s various wigs and sparkly jewelry, to the Penthouse collection in my dad’s desk drawer, I would inevitably find something that would keep me coming back, just in case another marvelous thing took its place. But I never found anything too lewd. I don’t know if it’s because there wasn’t anything to find or that the Very Very Secret Stash was hidden away in crevices that could never be discovered. All the floorboards in my parents’ house seemed pretty secure.

With the apple not falling far from the tree, I now need to decide just how I’m going to hide the leather cuffs, pony bit, Hitachi, cane, flogger, dildos, strapons, rope and all the various other accoutrements of my personal sex play and business inventory. While I have no problem answering questions like “if gay guys don’t have a vagina, how do they have sex?”, I’m a bit uncomfortable answering “What is THIS thing, and why do YOU have it?” My “things” aren’t lacy ribbons and feathers, which can be answered with “those just feel good on the skin, kinda like tickling”. My things involve steel, rubber, and locks. And some create reactions that are certainly not like laughing.

So while we continue to raise Evil G in a sex-positive environment, not refusing to answer potentially awkward questions, I’ll try not to supply all the reasons for asking them. I will continue to jump out of my cozy bed to get to the larger toys hidden in the back of the wardrobe, hoping he never dreams of Narnia. I will do this while fantasizing about carving out a few boards of wainscoting next to my bed and lining it with satin and hooks, and I will try not to forget to unplug the Hitachi or put away the dildo after it’s washed and drip dried, both things I have done and have – luckily enough – gone unnoticed. Or maybe they haven’t and Evil G is a better liar than I am.

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Sonya JF Barnett, also known as “The Madame,” is the founder of an erotic arts community called The Keyhole Sessions and the co-founder of SlutWalk Toronto. Follow her on Twitter @KeyholeSessions. 

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