I remember the day Dad came home with a new stereogram. It was the size of a lounge cabinet — which he turned it into, eventually — with a pale timber finish and built-in fabric-covered speakers. The top lifted to reveal the record player, the control panel and bins for LPs. Mum and Dad pretty much filled those bins over time. My favourites were the movie sound tracks to Oklahoma and, later, My Fair Lady. Mum loved musicals. I contributed an EP by Ray Charles and another of the Hallelujah Chorus, which we’d just sung at our end-of year-assembly. Yep, the entire school sang all the vocal parts, with Mrs Lyons accompanying on piano and Ernie Moss conducting. It was thrilling.

Mum and Dad have both passed on but I’ve kept the Oklahoma LP — as an artefact only since we don’t have a turntable. Rodgers and Hammerstein were it in the 1950s, and I, child of the times, could sing every word — and a few words misheard — of the Oklahoma soundtrack.

I never saw the movie, and still haven’t, barring a few YouTube clips. Never saw the Surrey with the Fringe on Top, although Mum explained what it was. Never saw the dance scenes in the half-built barn, or the matriarch firing her six-gun to silence the scrapping farmers and cowboys.

But picture me, pre-teen, putting on that record in the lounge and singing along at the top of my voice to my favourite song, I Cain’t Say No, sung by that naughty girl, Ado Annie.

I’m jist a girl who cain’t say no,
I’m in a turrible fix.
I always say “come on, le’s go”
Jist when I orta say nix.

When a person tries to kiss a girl,
I know she orta give his face a smack.
But as soon as someone kisses me,
I somehow, sorta, wanta kiss him back!

I’m jist a fool when lights are low
I cain’t be prissy and quaint
I ain’t the type that can faint
How c’n I be whut I ain’t?
I cain’t say no!

I loved that song — I can still sing along to it — but I had no idea what it was about. Or it never occurred to me to wonder.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know anything about sex. Watching the bull in the yard with the cows at milking time was certainly educational. Man, that guy and his flashing manhood knew how to spread the DNA. And when the cows were in heat they were really pleased to see him — but only then. Which was a good thing, as it would’ve been pretty tiring if the whole herd had wanted a go. Instead the cows would ride each other for a bit of inter-oestral fun.

So there you go. Pretty much every farm boy knows the slot you put your penny in to make the music play.

Even so there was this wall between us and the girls, which my favourite song summed up nicely.

It ain’t so much a question of not knowing what to do.
I knowed whut’s right and wrong since I been ten.

It ain’t so much a question of not knowing what to do — Yes, I know what to do, sort of.

I knowed whut’s right and wrong since I been ten — Yup, girls are sacrosanct. Mum told me. Sex comes after marriage. And that wasn’t some random rule like keeping left on the road or not smoking as a kid, it was a fundamental part of our beliefs, Christian and social.

I was a serious lad who knew to defer to his elders and betters. I took the no smoking rule seriously, let alone the one about girls. So to me that wall was pretty high. Kissing and petting were OK within certain limits, although those limits weren’t defined, thank goodness — think of the awkward conversations.

It was putting your penny in to make the music play that was verboten.

§

Having escaped my teens now, and left behind my years at stud, I can claim to know a few things about the male psyche.

The most important is one for which that bull provides a clue. Imagine the young bridegroom who’s kept himself pure for marriage and who promises to be faithful thereafter. How can he prove his sexual mastery? He doesn’t want to spread his DNA so much as be sure he’d be good at it. if he wanted.

He’d like to feel confident that that woman, whom he desires, desires him. And yes, he entertains the idea of sleeping with her.

She needs to know that if she asks him to admire her brains and bosom simultaneously his attention will at least be divided. That he changes his underwear daily not because his Mum said he might be embarrassed if he needs to go to Hospital, but because today might be the day.

She needs to know that the biggest turn-on isn’t beauty so much as self-confidence and mutual attraction. And if she happens to be his wife she should try to forgive him if he strays.

She, of course, is still a mystery to me beyond a few generalisations, the most important one being that girls like boys — well, most of them do. I just mean that the feeling’s mutual, between boys in general and girls in general.

He needs to know that she probably feels even less secure than him — that she may come to believe in her personal beauty only when she thinks it’s fading. He needs to know that, if attraction doesn’t start with the eyes and the voice, it soon goes there, that the biggest turn-on is hungry, mutual attraction.

And if he happens to be her husband he should try to forgive her if she strays.

I don’t mean forgive each other for longstanding, self-serving deception or hypocrisy. I just mean that boys will be boys, and girls will be girls, and if they’ve expressed that in someone else’s bed it’s not the end of the world, or necessarily our relationship. We love each other, we don’t own each other.

Don’t let them take you for granted though. Nor you them.