Adventures in Catholic Sex Ed: Part One

Ahh, the facts of life. Disgusting. Disturbing. Devastating. At least, this is what I've gathered from my 13 years of Catholic education. Now that I'm free and attending the Gay Liberal Heathen College of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I plan to do what all Catholic schoolkids fantasize about on their graduation day: telling all of the sex ed horror stories I have to offer.

Part One: Persnicketygrumbles and the Stock Photos of Horror

My sex education began at a bizarrely early time for the conservative environment I was in. It started when I was in fifth grade because a girl in my class (not me) got her period at school and had a complete Carrie meltdown. (Luckily, she was never ridiculed about it, mostly because we all thought that blood shooting out of your vagina pretty much kills you and she wouldn't be around to make fun of in a week or so.) Well, that girl (seriously, y'all: not me) is still alive today, and leaves behind her the legacy of awkward and badly-executed 5th grade sex ed at my old school.

I suppose it is necessary to mention that my fifth grade teacher was a female Harvey Korman doppelganger who was always either drunk or hungover. It may be fifth grade, but kids still know what Bourbon smells like. I don't normally accuse people of things like this, but she once yelled at me in front of the entire class for using the stapler without permission. "How would you like it if I just walked into your house and used the stapler without asking?" I don't know, ma'am. I'd probably go hide the DVD player before you stole it to support whatever dark habit you have that made you resort to breaking and entering.

My fifth grade teacher

Maybe I'm being a little harsh on my instructor, who from henceforth I will call "Ms. Persnicketygrumbles von Staplerbitch." After all, it was the textbook that was really misleading. With a smiling, wholesome, well-sweatered family on the front cover offering a birthday cake to their baby (obviously unable to consume such a confection at that age), you never would have guessed the contents would contain such giggle-worthy words as "THRUSTING" and...well, "thrusting" was pretty fucking hilarious at the time. Just look at this stock photo family while thinking of a sex ed term and tell me you aren't snickering:

MENSTRUATION.

It just felt so...icky. The book was saturated with really creepy white people taking relaxing strolls on the beach, protecting their children against the moderate winds with their jackets. You didn't want to look at these breathing Norman Rockwell paintings, so you turned to the text only to find the words "white discharge" under the "Natural Family Planning" paragraph. The juxtaposition of the picture frame families with sexual terminology could cover the entire spectrum of uncomfortable stimuli in a single page. It was truly a miracle of unpleasantness.

The actual class was all about maintaining a balance between appearing unperturbed and yet displaying interest. Seem too interested in the subject matter, and you're considered the weird religion class pervert for the rest of you middle school career. Seem too disinterested, and you run the risk of Ms. Persnicketygrumbles von Staplerbitch thinking you weren't paying attention and going over the material during recess. The balance is relatively simple to maintain when sitting in a desk at least ten feet away from the instructor in a full classroom, but no. That just couldn't be the case, could it?

Instead, Ms. Persnicketygrumbles von Staplerbitch decided that the class would be divided so that she taught the girls and the gym coach taught the boys. (The class was made up of 21 boys and 8 girls). Were we allowed to stay in our desks? Nope. Persnicketygrumbles von Staplerbitch requested "Indian style" (she wasn't a very culturally sensitive woman) in the front of the class, sitting around her like she's reading Charlotte's Web. Instead of prefacing her lesson with helpful words, she started with "And I swear to God, if any of you laugh...", which was unfortunate, considering that giggling was my go-to reaction in situations involving discomfort or a woman I named "von Staplerbitch" in my head.

I managed to tune out the whole lesson while looking like I was listening, mastering the interest/disinterest balance. At that point, I understood that tentacools go into wigglytuffs to make babies and you don't have to pee on anyone, and that's all I really cared to know at that point. At least, that's all I cared to learn from Persnicketygrumbles. I would eventually understand the essentials from Sailor Moon fan art on the Internet.

Coming Soon
Adventures in Catholic Sex Ed - Part Two: Masturbation Rhymes with Satan...(kind of)

Vegans Should Eat the Pond Scum from Whence They Came

Now in the few seconds you have before reading that title and reading this post, allow me to explain: I don't hate vegans. Wait...no. Let me rephrase that. I don't wish vegans a specifically painful death, presumably involving rabid wolves that rip their pristine intestines out with their blood-stained fangs. There. I'm a good person and I don't want to hear any bitching about how evil I am.

I actually do have some really close friends of mine who are vegan (or vegetarian or macrobiologists, whatever the hell that is.) They're really good people and I normally like their company. Normally, but not always. Why? Because all day, every day, these otherwise good people tell me that my PopTart is going to give me cancer, that dairy is the venom that caused world hunger, and that I can get off my antidepressants and allergy medication if I just substituted my ham sandwich with a healthy serving of kale.

"But that's not so bad, right? They're just trying to help." I can buy into that at first. But after a while, they just become self-righteous, invasive, and rude.

First of all, talking to a vegan can be more boring and unpleasant than watching 60 Minutes in the gynecologist's waiting room. All they talk about is food, whether it's about why what you're eating makes meth look like sprinkles, or why what they're eating is better than the holy water of Lourdes. They find it absolutely fascinating and refuse to shut the fuck up about it. And if you don't realize how annoying and abnormal this is, have you ever encountered a "meat-eater" who talked about nothing but the healing properties of bacon? No, because that's fucking stupid. But do you know what's even more fucking stupid? Talking about the healing properties of vegetables, something that's already boring and uninteresting. If you don't believe me, read about chard. Read about it for a good hour and a half. Pretty boring, isn't it? Imagine having all that information read to you by a nagging hippie. It's not my idea of fun.

And you know what? I have the lurking suspicion that people who talk about nothing but how delicious food is disgusting and disgusting food is delicious used to be those self-righteous pricks who bored you with the details of what they do instead of watching TV. But people became sick of hearing a lecture every time they wanted to turn on Cupcake Wars, so those self-righteous pricks began to attack the next best thing: the cupcakes. The self-righteous pricks have nothing original to talk about and all the insecurity in the world to share, so they bitch about what everyone else is doing to build a pedestal above the troubled masses who weren't really troubled to begin with.

Here's my second beef with vegans: they can be really rude. I love PopTarts. They're, quite possibly, my favorite snack. They make me happy, goddammit. But sometimes I don't want the second one in the package, so I offer it to my friends (because, as you can tell by the rest of this piece, I'm a humanitarian.) Instead of the standard, "No, thanks" or even the more elaborate, "I'm not hungry, but thank you," I get "God no. I don't even know what kind of preservatives are in that thing." And I have gotten this response from more than 3 different people. People that I like.

First of all, how dare they call my beloved PopTarts a "thing"? PopTarts are toaster pastries. God smiled upon his creation with the invention of PopTarts. I am not sorry for loving them. Second, I don't have the kind of time, money, or energy it takes to get food that might taste vaguely like good food. That's what I've decided works in my life. They decided that overanalyzing everything that goes into their body works for their life (which, mind you, will probably only be 2 years longer than mine), and I don't judge them for it (well, not until now). Third, I don't give a shit if I was offering them a cyanide pill; they better damn well learn their manners. When they offer me something to eat, I politely say, "No, thank you" and not "Hell no. There's no bacon on it and just looking at it makes me want to go on a killing spree." Because if I did that, they would tell me to "be more open-minded" and "accepting." Just because they're eating healthier than me doesn't mean that they can't do the same.

The third thing I really can't stand about vegans is (as I mentioned earlier) how self-righteous they can be. If you've chosen this as your lifestyle, cool on that. That doesn't hurt anybody and you don't need to justify it to anyone. But when vegans try to justify their diet with the idea that they're going to end world hunger and live the happiest lives of anyone in the entire universe, it's just as annoying and bizarre as listening to a door-to-door Jehovah's Witness.

I mean, yes, there is research that backs up the vegan diet as being healthy, but there is also a lot of research that says it's unhealthy. Each person should be allowed to decide for themselves what's best for their body. Or not. It's their life. People romanticize the suicides of writers like Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway. As far as I'm concerned, my PopTarts and I are just committing suicide in the slowest, yet most fun and convenient way. Just why can't people admire that? So, vegans, I'm not interested in why not eating honey has made you morally superior. Your lack of meat-eating isn't going to save the world any more than praying the rosary will. If you legitimately think that, then you're certainly one of the more passive heroes of this world.

This is a warning to anyone who wishes to separate me from my beloved junk food: for every speech I get about my sugar intake, I will kill a small, adorable animal and turn it into flip-flops.

Now Just How Do I Introduce Myself?

Yes, dear reader, I could give you superficial information about my name, age, and geographic location, but what would that really say about what you will be reading here?

My hobbies, perhaps? Oh, gentle reader. I have none.

The only thing that could possibly occupy my time is entertaining you.

Let's get started, shall we?