OH god- thats one of the most horrifying experiences of my lifetime- my mom buying "What's Happening to My Body", telling me to read it and that we'd talk about it after. It still makes me cringe.

Wow, Hecubus...I thought my mom was progressive. Not *that* progressive. (still hoping to release book "Everything I know About Sex That I Learned From Buffistas...4 volume series)

My parents gave me Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex, and The Sensuous Man and The Sensuous Woman when I started asking questions at age 9. I learned about penis piercing and oral sex at the same time.

See, if you read the second statement without the first it sounds like you've got a hell of a party trick going.

My guess -- totally out of the blue -- is that Harlequins, along with all the rest of that list of categories, fall out of date or out of print quickly and have no collector value.

It depends. Harlequins go out of print very fast indeed (within six months), but, because of this, Harlequins by authors who later break out into single-title are moderately valuable. Old Jennifer Crusies and Suzanne Brockmanns, to name two, can go for $20.00 and up. Mira is reprinting some of these; when that happens, the market for that title becomes collectors only, rather than collectors and desperate readers.

Jennifer Crusie's The Cinderella Deal, published by the short-lived Silhouette Loveswept line, can cost upwards of $30.00.

But most Harlequins? Printed today, forgotten tomorrow.

My mother took us aside when I was about 7. Which means my sister was 3 or 4. Gave us a clinical discussion, which cleared up some things for me (I knew about babies and wombs and stuff. Just never realised you needed sperm). Never spoke of it again.

"Where Did I come From" when I was 4. The naked drawing s scared me and I threw the book at my mother sobbing and ran away. We didn't talk about anything until I was 13. And even then I hated it. I cried at the tiniest mention of anything sexually related. I cried for days when I started my period, cried for hours when my pedatrician asked me if I was "growing hair", got violently angry at my mother for bringing up anything about my changing body, and once even kicked a boy in his shin for saying I had no underarm hair. Not exactly sure why I had the hangups, but boy did I until I was about 22.

I think I just refused to acknowledge any discussion of the subject. I was sure sex wasn't even going to a part of my life.

I got over that.

My guess -- totally out of the blue -- is that Harlequins, along with all the rest of that list of categories, fall out of date or out of print quickly and have no collector value.

There's also the issue that there are so freaking many of them. No one drops off one Harlequin - more like seventy. A used book store I used to frequent didn't take them because they would take over the whole store in short order if they did.

I had much older siblings, which took care of the sex conversations for me by the time I was about six. I knew all about it. Mind you, I didn't believe a word of it, until I was able to put together the behaviour of the ranch animals with what my older sister and cousins had said, but I knew it.

I am assured--though I don't remember this--that I came up to my mother one day out of the blue when I was six or so and asked "so what's with this human mating thing?"

I believe it. Sounds just like me, actually. (Supposedly my reaction to a bare-bones explanation was "oh. That doesn't sound so scary, then." And then I wandered off.)