From these sessions, I learned that kissing was part of some larger strategy called foreplay, and women could be on top during sex. What sex was, I wasn’t sure, but eventually an older girl explained the technicalities. It was the final piece of the puzzle, but that’s all it was — a piece. Novels added layers of complexity, rendering the plain facts almost irrelevant. Lush descriptions filled the gaps in our imagination where our knowledge of mechanics fell short.

I was starting to become a writer then. I had a folder of stories, mostly continuations of television episodes (there was a lot of “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” fan fiction in my early career). While doing my homework one evening, I had an idea: If romance stories were in such high demand, then I should write my own to distribute to my friends! Inspired by scenes from an omnibus published by that favorite of bosom-heavers, Mills and Boon, I found a fresh piece of paper and began.

My tales of couples “tussling between the sheets” enjoyed an enthusiastic following, which lasted about a week, until the stories landed in the hands of the class tattletale. I noticed her whispering to the teacher and nodding in my direction as we lined up to go outside for P.E.

“Leave your bags here today, girls,” the teacher called out. Her gaze flashed briefly in my direction. Throughout a course of jumping jacks and situps, the knot in my stomach tightened. When we returned to class, I made a beeline for my bag. The folder was gone.

In my travels as an adult, I’ve come across clumsier forms of censorship. On some Turkish channels, an animated flower replaces cigars. (Let me confirm here that Don Corleone cuts a much less intimidating figure when addressing his men with a cartoon daisy between his fingers.) I watched an episode of “The Simpsons” in Thailand in which Homer got drunk on a can of pixels, previously a Duff beer. Perhaps the most labor-intensive censorship was in Saudi Arabia, where I came across print ads of women whose every inch of bare skin was covered up by scrawled black marker.