Cum Has 2,000 Calories!?: Sex According to Right-Wing Moralist Crusaders

Photo Credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

For many who grew up in America public Sex Education did a lot more harm than good. When you’re taught that sex is not a recreational activity—unless you’re a disease-ridden whore—and condoms don’t work (if you have sex, you WILL get pregnant). Let’s just say, it’s a lot to overcome.

A few years ago, a grad school friend and I—both educators—were swapping some personal stories. He regaled me with a memory dating back to Catholic elementary school, of an assembly to warn the kids against committing the evil sin of abortion.

When I think of all the sins a prepubescent Catholic-school-educated 9-year-old is capable of committing a few things come to mind: pilfering communion wafers, putting a frog in the holy water, hiding in the confessional, perhaps. Abortion? Not so much.

But, in any event, a panel sat on a stage before the impressionable children: half abortion rights activists, half anti-abortion nun crusaders. Tension among the panel members ran high, tempers flared and, according to my friend, at some point the conversation came to blows, as scores of horrified children looked on.

I may be taking some liberties when I imagine a sister whipping out a pair of nunchucks from her habit as a member of her posse reveals her rosary—a Chinese throwing star where the crucifix should be. Sister St. Bruce Lee takes aim at the pro-choice Jezebel, who is presently beating Mother Superior silly with her own well-seasoned ruler. And all of this in the name of sex education.

As for me, I’d long ago deduced that sex education of the suburban health class variety pretty much destroyed my formative years. In a curriculum that could have only been designed by middle-aged, rightwing moralist crusaders (and, ironically, taught by folks old enough to have been part of the free love movement in the ’60s), we students were ultimately provided with the following messages: Sex is not a recreational activity unless you are a disease-ridden whore. Condoms don’t work: If you have sex, you WILL get pregnant. End of story.

Diseases? Pregnancy?

My parents beat the crap out of me when I spilled milk on the floor! I could not begin to imagine what punishment might ensue should milk spill from my sorry excuse for tits (nunchucks and Chinese throwing star rosaries, perhaps?). To be on the safe side, I decided to stick to blowjobs. Since our Sex Ed program was always preaching against intercourse, but said little in the way of oral sex, I figured it was an easy compromise.

I’d settled into a comfortable routine (save the days I had lockjaw), until my health teacher held one of his infamous meant-to-be-educational Q& A sessions during class. “You can ask me anything,” he’d boast—when it was clear that this sixty-something, overweight, balding health teacher knew even less about sex than we did.

“Is it true that come has 2,000 calories?” someone blurted out.

Everyone nearly bust a gut whooping and laughing as our teacher attempted, in vain, to regain control. Clearly he was angry that anyone would question the caloric content of seminal fluid, although he shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, we’d just finished the unit on exercise and nutrition, during which he’d ingrained in us the importance of burning more calories than we took in. Weren’t we just trying to heed his advice?

You know how a crowd of people will be laughing and talking, and then, there will suddenly be a deafening silence? That unexpected lull appeared to be precisely timed with me turning to my friend and making the following comment: “If come had 2,000 calories, I would be a freaking beached whale.”