When the informant was a little girl, she was standing at a bus stop waiting for the bus to arrive.  The informant struck up a conversation with another girl, and after a little while the conversation turned to a hushed discussion of sex.  The other girl whispered, “Do you know how babies are made?”  “I have no idea,” the informant replied.

The other girl says, “He puts his hotdog…in her hamburger.”  The informant grins and accepts this knowledge, realization dawning on her.  Looking back, the informant points out this is the first time she really understood sex, at least in crude terms.  The analogy is at least somewhat accurate, and the informant passed this analogy on to her friends in hushed voices at school.  The informant believes it was just a simple way for her and her friend to understand sex.

I agree with the informant’s analysis.  I also thinks this demonstrates how children relate the unknown to things they do understand.  Every child knows what a hotdog is and what a hamburger is, but sex is often a big mystery that no one wants to talk about.  This analogy brings clarity to one of the great mysteries of childhood–sex.