Asians as a culture aren't exactly the most communicative bunch, especially when it comes to personal matters. Incidentally, if my recollection serves me right, I believe I was the only Asian kid in the class as well. Every kid in the class came back with a parent's signature except one: me. Spect's 5th grade class, a permission slip went out to all of the parents for consent to allow their kid to sit through a two-hour sex ed discussion. My other grandmother, a devout Christian, had persistent, dire warnings for me: "never commit the sex sin." Grannie proceeded to tell me that all of her interactions with her husband, my grandfather, happened in the dark. Inevitably though, when asking about specifics, I become that little girl, who at 8 years old was told by my grandmother, "never let a man see you naked - even your husband." Throughout the years, I've profiled swingers, people who practice polyamory, those into kink and countless sex workers. I've even stared down a member of the Taliban in Afghanistan when he told my escort that I was out of line for speaking too loudly in public.īut for some reason, whenever I've had to talk to someone about matters pertaining to sex, my heart begins to pulsate wildly and I start to giggle involuntarily.
I've interrogated a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia about drug trafficking.
As a journalist, I have confronted a Pakistani government official about nuclear proliferation.