From 1992-1997, the Red Shoe Diaries aired on Showcase, the risqué specialty channel that introduced me to sex, sultry mood music, bad acting and B-list porn stars at the blossoming age of seven. Like any other curious little girl perving out to late-night cable, sex became the next best thing next to sleepovers, recess and cherry-flavoured pixie sticks. Uncensored and deeply enthralled by Cosmopolitan mags, R&B one-hit wonders and Larry Clark movies, I fell victim to absorbing sex-ed via pink glossy magazines, R-rated films and the Internet. Sex was really glittery and tanned back then, like Richard Gere’s dick in American Gigolo.

On TV, sex happened after long dramatic silences, intense stares and dark, shadowy rooms with steam machines. To me, sex was a full cinematic production with a melodic soundtrack, hoop earrings and a thong with the word “yummy” on it. Thanks to my growing playlist of R&B sex tunes, courtesy of Janet Jackson, I was fully prepared to throw off my OshKosh overalls for a romantic throw down that blended The Breakfast Club, You’ve Got Mail and Boogie Nights ft. Mark Wahlberg’s dick into one grandiose sexual experience. It was obvious to me by age twelve that I knew everything there was to know about sex. Nothing could surprise me; not even the ending to Larry Clark’s KIDS. I was a sex-pert; a little girl with enough knowledge to write, direct and produce a low-budget porno on the big screen. I couldn’t wait to fuck!

After my first period, I was 100% ready to get down. Blind Date aired in 1999, only to remind me that dating is a joke, women should get fake tits and men with muscles are where it’s at. I wasn’t ready to go to the gym to get a six pack, and my tits had yet to fill an A cup (I’m still waiting), but that didn’t matter – I’d get a boob job or something. A year or two later, I graduated to become a mature monthly subscriber to Cosmopolitan, and I read my love horoscope as if my soon-to-be sex life depended on it. According to Cosmo, on May 30th, I’d fall in love with a cute boy at the video store. By June 10th, I’d raise a family and move to the suburbs with a typewriter, flower couch and box of diapers. I was set, and if my stars aligned to the right planet or whatever, I’d have a loving husband with a leather jacket and we’d have sex in the back seat of his red Chevrolet Chevelle. If we broke up, well, I’d demand child support, like all the mothers did in the after-school specials. I had everything figured out from sex, childbirth to whatever followed.

After seeing the other side of sex – diseases, heart break and bad endings – I decided to chill my flames for a bit. Sex hadn’t arrived as easily or as quickly as I thought it would, and I was still waiting for Richard Gere to show up naked in my bedroom. That’s when I took to reading. Reading about sex was even better than watching it because it was more graphic in my imagination. And with the raunchy, and seemingly stupider, love horoscopes I read more frequently, I turned my attention to magazine sex tips in the grocery check-out line. At fourteen, I knew exactly how to twist, pull, tug, lick and bite. I was Cosmo sex-certified with zero experience and a lot of lip gloss. Sex was going to be such a blast.

That’s when magazines ventured into sex tips that were borderline absurd, dangerous and crazy. In one issue, I recall learning how to “throw his disco stick a party he would never forget” – no balloons included. And that oral sex should always be a surprise when a guy walks through the door – like a yawning ambush, where I’d wait like a pouncing cat for the door to open. Sex wasn’t about sucking, blowing and grabbing, it was about the other things you brought to bed with you, like edible body paint, ice cream, cake pops, syrup and fruits that made blowjobs taste like cream soda floats.

Consequently, I was going to need a suitcase of equipment to shock and pleasantly surprise the guy I would eventually have sex with. I pondered whether or not to prepare this suitcase in advance. My bi-monthly income working at a Panago Pizza surely couldn’t cover the cost for all the fresh produce and tools I would need to sustain my first healthy sexual relationship. The only way to buy lube was from Shopper’s Drug Mart and I would be sure to run into someone I knew. (Vaseline would have to do, I guess.) The more I read Cosmo, the more strange and whacky items I would add to my sexual itinerary. Things got weird, and I felt even more confused than ever. Why were people having anal sex? I thought that was an exit-only hole?

Eventually, by the forces of alcohol and freedom, sex happened. Sex On Fire by Kings of Leon softly played in the background while a semi-handsome stranger with shiny metallic underwear took my virginity in the wild heat of the Calgary Stampede. With so much acquired sex wisdom in my back pocket, I froze and relied on the easiest, most convenient sex move in the history of virginity-losing experiences – the starfish. A classic, cherry-popping sex move that involves zero movement, one loud gasp and four pumps. There I was, just killin’ it, lying there like I was cryogenically frozen in Austin Powers. I was pretty good at staying still, and I knew he was blown away by the fear in my eyes and rigor mortis libido. I was finally the porn star I had always dreamt of being, and the sex lasted a total of two minutes. Here I was (finally) having sex like they did on Showcase.

Years later, after a few less memorable one-night stands and one or two short-lived relationships consisting of smoking weed and watching movies, sex changed again. I upgraded publications and traded in my Cosmopolitan for Henry Miller because sex was better narrated on the rooftops of Paris or the tropics of Cancer. I no longer wanted to have sex listening to Jimi Hendrix or Alicia Keys. I wanted to make love listening to solo piano, Mac Demarco or Drake. I didn’t want to have lousy drunk sex in the dark. I craved sex in the morning or the early afternoon, entirely sober and in broad daylight. Eye contact one-up’d dick size and I didn’t mind being thrown around if they knew what they were doing. Sex wasn’t a cinematic production – it was a fearless performance of filthy admiration. I liked pleasing, and I was good at it.

Like you, who clicked on this article because the word “sex” caught your attention, I’m still obsessed with reading the same tips, stories and experiences I read about when I was a little pervert. Although I’ve never used a pineapple or banana for the purpose of an ambush blow job, I’m open to it and will often read Cosmo when there’s one lying around. I still LOL at the 101 Ways To Tug a Dick, or the detailed instructions to lick a shaft like a melting popsicle. Larry Clark movies are still as fucked up as they always were and porn has made me the master of the pop-up blocker. American Gigolo is still the best movie of all time, with Richard Gere’s penis still as tanned and beautiful as I still hope it is today.

The funny thing about sex is that it’s as much a figment of our imagination as it is a physical act of pleasure. We’re the sum of our sexual experiences, and the fools of our imagination. Sex isn’t a Cosmopolitan article, listicle, Rom-Com, R&B slow jam or “disco party,” it’s human nature. And whether it’s boring, horrifying, sticky, extraordinary, dirty, messy or magical, we can’t help but buy into body glue, chocolate sauce orgasms, acrobatic sex positions and lavender-scented dildos recommended to us by the glittery media forms we’ve consumed since we were young adults.

It’s sort of funny when you think about it.