I think kids have a certain uneasiness in viewing their parents as sexual beings. When we're interacting with our kids or are focused on our children as parents, sex doesn't come into play in that relationship. But when the kid sees or imagines the parents as natural, lustful adults with one another, that makes the kid uneasy because it's a new and unfamiliar was of looking at parents. Our son doesn't like to be reminded that his father and I are passionate about each other, and he once learned the hard way that he shouldn't barge into our room early in the morning without knocking. He still refers occasionally to the costly in-depth therapy he'll need to recover from that incident.

Parents aren't always at ease thinking of their children as sexual beings, either. I'm not entirely comfortable thinking of my son having sex with one of his several lady friends, but I know it happens. I just hope he's been listening to all our "safe sex" preaching over the years and won't surprise us with an unexpected grandbaby before he's grown and married and has a steady, good job. As we get older and more able to regard one another as adults and break further out of the parent-child pattern, I think we increasingly develop comfort with the idea of the other party(ies) being sexual. Like now that I'm grown and I look back on my own growing-up years, I think it was kind of sweet that my parents were hot for each other. I hope my son will someday feel the same way and be glad it's the same way for his dad and me.