15 people reveal their wildest misconceptions about sex

The internet has changed how kids learn about sex, but sex ed in the classroom still sucks. In Sex Ed 2.0, Mashable explores the state of sex ed and imagines a future where digital innovations are used to teach consent, sex positivity, respect, and responsibility.

Sex education, especially in the United States, isn't known for being particularly accurate, frank, or comprehensive.

Even after completing their school's curriculum, many students retain wide, bizarre knowledge gaps about sexuality and the human body. And those elementary school years before sex ed begins? Those are just a misinformation free-for-all.

We asked Mashable staffers and readers to share the weirdest, most memorable misconceptions about sex they remember from their early years. The results were — how can we put this lightly? — absolutely off the rails.

Don't worry; no one still thinks testicles are eggs from the grocery store.

1. "I believed that my dad gave my mum an apple seed to eat, which then produced a baby."

2. "I thought the penis/vagina arrangement for sex was more like a hot dog, hot dog bun configuration. Like it just nestled beside it."

3. "The quote teachers tossed around in my school was 'if you rev the engine, you're gonna want to go' as a way to promote total abstinence. So I was pretty sure you had to be in a car to have sex."

4. "I thought my palms would get hairy if I masturbated."

5. "My parents told me that every time two parents kissed, there was a chance a baby would appear in the mother's stomach. For a few years I kept wondering why I never had another brother or sister despite the number of times I witnessed them kiss. Every time I saw someone kiss in public, or in movies, I would always think, 'Ooh, she might get pregnant.'"

6. "When I heard about C-sections for the first time, I envisioned an Alien-type situation."

7. "Due to a horrible video the entire grade had to watch in the auditorium one night (yes, they made us come to school at night with our parents for this assembly), I definitely thought erections made a 'boing' sound. The next time I went to the movies and a sexy scene came on the screen, I listened for boings."

8. "Based purely on the movie Titanic, I thought sex was just two naked people kissing, and I thought that in order to get pregnant, you just had to stand up naked and align your arms and stomach with your partner's and like stand there until ... something happened? Magic? I also thought that perhaps pregnancy happened if you just said out loud, 'I would like to be pregnant.'"

9. "Girl in my 6th-grade sex-ed class thought testicles were eggs. Like ones from the grocery store. You shouldn't kick them cause they'd break, and then the boy wouldn't be able to put the egg in the girl. It was very sweet and very incorrect."

10. "My friend used to think that sex was two adults clinking Champagne flutes in bed."

11. "On the playground in elementary school a bunch of girls were talking about how one girl had been giving guys bullfrogs in the bathroom and how it was so crazy how she was already giving bullfrogs and no one else was ready or willing to give a bullfrog. It was the talk of the playground for a week. I knew it was something sexual but had no idea what it was until someone clarified that the phrase was blow job, not bullfrog."

12. "Our health teachers often had horror stories from their summer sex ed teaching experiences. This one story was how they had to deal with a kid convinced that 'a plastic bag and a rubber band' was [effective birth control]."

13. "As a kid, I always thought sex was just dry humping, with or without clothes on, because that’s what they did (or seemed to do) in the movies and on TV. I didn’t realize what sex ~actually~ was until years later, when I was walking around by myself at a Barnes & Noble and randomly opened up a 'pop-up' illustrated Kama Sutra book that was featured on a table. Those things were very graphic, by the way."

14. "My parent told me that 'Daddy planted a seed in Mommy's tummy,' so you can imagine the literal images I had of that scenario when I was, like, four."

15. "My mom told me Viagra was for men's headaches."

Some answers have been edited and/or condensed for clarity.