Dirty Pillows

I wouldn’t say I was afraid of sex growing up, exactly. Maybe terrified is a more accurate word.

In the 80s, sex education was far from a universal experience in the US. Some kids had “the talk” with their parents toward the end of elementary school, while others learned first hand, far too early.

Second-hand (and third-hand) stories were all too common, and often exaggerated wildly for effect. It was tough to know what was real.

My own education took place in a variety of settings. We had a special sex ed class in fifth grade, where all of the kids learned the best way to hide an erection (just carry a book in front of your crotch, silly tween!). The video we watched was probably made during the late 70s, so it seemed old even by fifth grade kid standards.

I’m pretty sure this video was a small part of our health or science class for that year, and we might have spent a week total on reproduction, but reproduction is but a tiny sliver of what sex really is. TV and movies provided glimpses of what went on in the bedroom long before Netflix, but it was by reading books that I learned a fair amount of interesting terminology.

Stephen King was one author whose voice spoke directly to me. He would take me to another world with his descriptions, but he also seemed to know an awful lot about this world, and I was very curious about this world.

One day, probably in the library at middle school, I was reading Carrie. The original movie with Sissy Spacek had already been out for over a decade, but I hadn’t seen it yet—I wasn’t allowed to watch R-rated movies, so I read horror novels instead.

One phrase really jumped out at me, and it had everything to do with Margaret, Carrie’s mother in the novel. Margaret is frantic to suppress any ideas about sex her young daughter might have, viewing any of those aforementioned emotions as pure evil, not some natural effect of puberty.

This phrase refers to Carrie’s breasts, which Margaret insists must be completely hidden from the world. She calls them dirty pillows.

Dirty pillows!

I love it. Stephen King combines the perfect two words here. First, pillows invokes a soft feeling, and reminds us of the bedroom—but pillows are usually harmless, so he has Margaret add the dirty descriptive term. Suddenly, these routine objects have become more like evil talismans.

Talismans aren’t to be lusted after or carried with pride. They are to be feared.

Puberty is an island world unto itself.

You sort of rip through your childhood, where things are (mostly) innocent, and before you know it, it’s time for the next phase of life. Here, you start learning what it’s going to be like to be an adult, but you’re overwhelmed with the things you have to learn. You’re bombarded with new and powerful emotions.

I was overwhelmed myself, and I knew that gathering information was the ideal way to feel less overwhelmed. Carrie let me see things through the lens of a teenage girl, even though it was written by an adult man. Still, these were things I hadn’t really considered much up until this point.

The book opens with a powerful scene that lets you know exactly what the book is gong to be about. It’s Carrie’s first period, and she has no idea what’s happening to her in the girls’ gym shower. The blood going down the drain is vivid, and it gets the reader ready for a much later, even more iconic scene involving blood.

I can’t say middle school was the exact start of puberty for me, but it was close. Carrie’s menstruation is one way to mark the stark beginnings of this gradual, intensely confusing sexual awakening we all go through. It was the perfect novel for me to read at the time.

Carrie was a horror novel, and so was puberty.