I hate to blame everything on Miss Serendipity. I really do, and I'm sorry I'm posting again so soon. I'm a lousy blogger.
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| coloring-pages-and-more.com/dot-to-dot.html |
But she's done it again. I don't know how to explain these .... dot-to-dots that I notice running through my life. I know other people don't see them so often, but they are real, the dots and the connections. If I wrote about all of them, I'd need several blogs and more hours in the day. I must share this one though because it has to do with masturbation and I don't think I've ever written about that. Or maybe I have, but I want to again.
Last week I read a post on Jane Pratt's blog, xojane.com, about how her 9-year-old daughter took to class an editor's note Pratt had written for Jane magazine that included a reference to masturbation. The assignment was simply to bring a piece of writing from an adult in her household that didn't have any thing "age-inappropriate" in it. Pratt claims she has talked with her daughter a lot about masturbation and doesn't consider it inappropriate for 8- and 9-year-olds to discuss. And then she wondered if she's the worst mom in the world for letting her daughter take it.
Before I go on, I have to share what went through my head when I read her short post. I have both been a 9-year-old girl and I have raised a 9-year-old girl. Neither of us were thinking so much about masturbation at that age. I was open with my kids about all things sexual when they wanted to talk. In fact my daughter once thanked me for being a sex-positive parent .... awwww. But Jane Pratt says she has "talked to [her] daughter about it plenty." Plenty? How do those conversations go?
Jane: (from the kitchen where she's fixing dinner) Sweetie, please don't play with Mommy's vibrator. You'll run down the batteries and then it won't work when Mommy needs to masturbate.
9-year-old daughter: But, Mom, Barbie and Ken just had sex and he had his orgasm before her. Now he's asleep in the Barbie fun house and she needs to get her cookie masturbate too.
Jane: OK, of course she does Just remember to put it back in the dildo basket by my bed so I can find it when I need it.
9-year-old daughter: I will, Mommy. Thank you. Barbie says thank you too. (Buuuuzzzzzz.....)
Pratt got a variety of responses from hellz yeah, she should take mommy's masturbation writing into class; fuck 'em if they don't like it to more sensible responses like the one I posted:
Talking to your kids about masturbation is admirable. I talked to mine about it too. And when I did, I told them it was something they should do in private. With boys in particular it’s necessary to have that talk at the "I need to hold on to my wiener 24 hours a day" stage. It's the private part that's important. Both in practice and in speech, masturbation is a culturally sensitive topic. So I also expected they knew better than to get up in front of the class and talk about it, which would include not talking about Mommy talking about it. And I walk the masturbation walk myself. I don't stand up in front of my college English class and talk to them about masturbation. I could, and probably in a way that would entertain and scandalize them way more than thesis statements and annotated bibliographies. But it’s not a dildo I intend to fall on just to prove a point that masturbation is natural and feels good and lots of people and monkeys do it. I don’t think a suggestion to your daughter that she choose a more appropriate piece of writing would have taught her the wrong lesson.
Yes, the red text is important. I didn't teach a class after I posted that comment until today. I held individual conferences for two days last week instead of meeting with my classes. In fact, by the time I crawled into my class from my death bed today, I'd forgotten entirely about my assertion that I would never talk about masturbation in class. I was suffering (terribly) from a scratchy throat and a congested head, so we watched several short videos to support our discussion of argument fallacies. One of the videos was a Monty Python clip, which I've posted below. I didn't even notice one of the characters used the word "wanker" in it.
But one of my students, L, did. "He called the guy a 'wanker.' What does 'wanker' mean?" Now earlier in the quarter this guy also said he didn't understand why Michelle Bachman shouldn't eat a corndog in public.
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| Michelle Bachman giving head to a corndog. |
I'm not sure if he's serious or if he's fucking with me, but my syllabus says no questions are stupid. So. "What does 'wanker' mean?"
I stared at him. Several students snickered, but nobody helped me out. They just looked at me with those Lord of the Flies eyes they get sometimes.
"Really, I don't know. Is it somebody who wanks? What does wank mean?" He seemed sincere, damn it.
I sighed. "It means to masturbate. A wanker is a masturbator and to wank is to masturbate. It's a British term." How do you like me now? Giving the etymology and everything.
Another student, E, corrected me. He said, "It's more than just a masturbator. It's a gay guy who masturbates another guy."
"What?" I said. "I've never heard of that."
"It's true," E said. "Look it up. Look it up now."*
"No, I'm not looking it up," I said. "I never wanted to talk about masturbation with you guys in the first place...."
"Why not?" L said. "I do it all the time." I glance over at the interpreter for my deaf student to see if she's getting all this. Yes, I know sign language.
"Well, there's nothing wrong with that, L, but I've just made a fool of myself by talking about it. I just posted a comment on someone's blog last week, after our Monday class, and said I would never talk about masturbation in one of my classes. And now I've said it 37 times, you wanker. I just can't believe the timing." I told them about the post and what I said. I did not show them, and they did beg.
"What's wrong talking with masturbation?" L said. He gets this really sincere look that probably works for him with the girls.
"Nothing is wrong with masturbation." They all laugh. I wait for them to get control. "It's just that we're here to talk about argument fallacies, not wanking."
"Give us an argument fallacy about wanking," someone shouted out.
"No, I'm not talking any more about masturbation. I'm not saying that word again in this class."
See what I mean? Things like this happen to me every day. Can this be coincidence? Or is Miss Serendipity a god, a clock-maker? The woman behind the curtain in the Oz of the Universe? What do you think? Are these dot-to-dots all coincidence, the product of the over-active imagination of someone who needs to toss out her foot-long, 50's style "massager" and buy a bullet or a rabbit?
And the other question is, would you let your 9-year-old daughter take your piece of writing that mentions masturbation to school? Am I really a prude in disguise?
* I did, when I got home. It's a popular word in the Urban Dictionary, which is where I get my cool. Look for yourself, ya wanker.
