The 5 Most Horrifying Attempts to Teach Sex Ed to Children
If you're a regular reader of my column, you have a time machine and that is wicked. The rest of you should know that I am all about keepin' it real. For instance, I will now give you a troubling look at a conversation taking place somewhere right now between two youths: Timmy: This enchanted hay ride has been fun! Want to engage in carnal relations before I take you home by 9 PM? Suzy: Yes, Timmy, that sounds like a fine idea. (After several minutes of eager coitus on a bail of hay) Timmy: Wow, that was spot on! Suzy: Sure was, Timmy. Say, there's something you should know. Timmy: What's that, Suzy? Was I your first? Suzy: Oh, that's cute. No. I am contaminated with crotch pox and you may have it now as well. Timmy: Crotch pox? Oh boy! I wish I'd practiced safe sex, or even knew what that phrase meant. END SCENE
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"Argh! Foiled again!" – Crotch Pox
Statistics show that the Internet is all abustle with reckless thrusting penii, flying about all holus bolus and penii isn't even a word. How can you protect yourself? Science would tell you to get a panic room and wear a few pairs of slacks all the time. Failing that, here are some approaches others have taken that I feel might tickle your fancy. But remember, only have your fancy tickled after taking the proper precautions.Taste the Rainbow
You remember school, right? With all the geography and pi and recess and stuff. It was pretty fly. It's no surprise then, that schools are at the forefront of making teenagers taste condoms. A teacher in Santa Fe, New Mexico decided to forgo the tastefully made Cold War-era film reel warning that pubic hair is a-coming, and instead bought a 30-pack of guava condoms and made the kids taste test them. His lesson plan managed to get into the news after a 15-year-old female student took issue with putting a dick sock in her mouth in front of the rest of her class. The teacher's reply? "Come on, sweetie, have a little fun."I'm learning and freshening my breath!
A more honest reply would have been, "It doesn't affect my parole if you don't taste this condom, but I'd still like a photo of it on my cell phone" but we can't change history, we can only learn from it. The state heath department looked into the situation after the mother of the girl complained and determined the mother and the girl were just being uptight. Turns out the government in New Mexico is totally on board with this methodology, claiming the method helps destigmatize condoms for the students. You know that stigma condoms have about maybe not tasting like pina colada? Yeah, totally removes that. DIY Version: If your undercarriage-related urges are becoming too strong for you to resist and you don't have access to a state employee who will feed you prophylactics, try filling a party balloon with jam and chewing on it for a while. You'll get that lust in check and be one step closer to a GED.Don't be Shame, Be Game
Getting kids to listen is tough, ask any teacher at a school for the deaf. You really need to get in there and talk to them in terms they can understand. Often, adults take this as a license to say insincere and awkward things like "fo shizzle" or "I swear your father told me to pick you up." Nowhere is the difficulty in appealing to children more apparent than in Australia where 90 percent of the adult population has to constantly be on the lookout for the 1,000 different animals that can kill you no matter where you are. The other 10 percent are working on projects like Condoman. Condoman is targeted directly at the condom fearing youth in the aboriginal community. Unwilling to force the kids to eat them just yet, the Department of Community Services and Health sat down and thought, "Shit, is anyone in this room sober?" The answer was a resounding no. The result was Condoman.Soon to be a feature film starring Wesley Snipes.
Standing proud like a Down Under, Gay Pride Flash, a vaguely disinterested sneer on his face, one hand clenched into a fist and a far away look in his eyes that seems to say, "the Great Lakes Avengers would be a better gig than this," Condoman wants you to not be ashamed of taking a box of condoms from a spandex-clad man on a beach. That shit's perfectly normal. Condoman was so beloved back in 1991, they had to resurrect him in 2009 with this updated campaign in which he hurls condoms like ninja stars at his unsuspecting victims, daring you to feel shame lest he pummel you with another latex barrage.I kick ass at ring toss.
DIY Version: If you can't get to Australia and you're feeling more shame than game, bolster your confidence and sense of manliness by eating chicken wings, drinking beer and shooting chainsaws at Nazis while wearing a condom or two. That used to be the final test for becoming a Marine back in the day.In Your Face
Sometimes the best approach to a topic is a blunt one. If you're not good with bluntness you can take a lateral step into horrifying and see how that works out, it's what the National Health Service in Leicester did. Concerned about youth pregnancy and the potential for producing more kids who grow up playing music that sounds like Oasis, the NHS wanted to shock kids, so they figured a video shot to look like footage caught on a cell phone of a girl giving birthGather ‘round everyone, it's the miracle of life!
The video was on YouTube for less than a day before they realized that the online audience doesn't want to see shaky cam footage of a head crowning from the vagina of a teenage girl.What people want to see on YouTube is far more disturbing.
The approach is like Scared Straight programs from the 80s, extended to the genital region: Scared Flaccid. DIY Version: This one's pretty easy, you just need a boy hamster, a girl hamster and some patience. Maybe a bit of therapy, too.Pregnancy Dolls
The concept of a knocked up doll isn't a new one, they've been out there for curiously mature and mildly sociopathic children for ages. Some kids want to play with Teenage Mutant Ninja TurtleThe ice is going to break!
Yes, this is the one doll that seeks to educate your child about the mystery of birth through the use of some kind of woven pubic hair halo and what appears to be the voodoo doll head of Christopher Walken circa the Dead Zone era bursting from knit loins. Complete with metal interlocking mouth/nipple combinations, these dolls are sure to teach a curious child everything they need to know about birthing and anatomy, providing they were raised in a Japanese cyberpunk horror movie. If only there were some way to fit in knit rectum tentacles, they would have really captured some sort of zeitgeist there. Because the dolls are helping create well-rounded kids, there's also a daddy doll with junk that looks kind of like a tiny ET with a Conan O'Brien wig on, which is equal parts awesome and terrifying in its own right.Everything here makes me uncomfortable
DIY Version: Buy a pack of cheap tube socks at Wal-Mart, some googly eyes and a good quantity of pube-shade yarn and you're halfway there.The Sex Squad
Sex ed can often get a little boring and predictable; you can only see so many images of genital warts before it all blurs into one traumatic childhood memory. How do you spice things up, especially if you're crippled with no sense of irony or an appreciation for anything that has ever caused another human being to utter "what the fuck?" Did you guess a supervillain with dicks for hands and a superhero named Wonder Vag? The Middlesex London Health Unit in London, Ontario sure did. After racking their brains, probably for several hours and/or bottles of low-grade vodka, the came up with the Sex Squad.Whatever you do, don't give him an Indian burn.
I like to think if sex ed had always involved a Mexican wrestler with dicks for arms, the world would have been a different place. Like say you're out on a date, and you just watched something like Dear JohnThis was lifted wholesale from the original story behind Pitfall.
DIY Version: Your best bet for recreating this at home requires the use of an old Halloween superhero costume, some sex ed trivia cue cards and, you know, a Mexican wrestler who's willing to masturbate in the same room with you. Get familiar with Ian's extensive archive of Cracked feature articles.