Saturday night, thirty seconds after exchanging introductions, a not-to-be-named member of the Baker’s Dozen said to me, “I shaved off all my pubes today.”
My heart was aflutter — I knew it must be love.
Just. Kidding.
I stood there completely unfazed and continued on with this bizarre conversation.
I expounded upon my personal Pro-Pubes position for two minutes before the BIC-ed B.D. jumped in with his second killer line, “You know, you’re really funny.”
Yes! Double fist pump for Jana. Because people are always writing me off as the hot blonde with huge tits, so when someone thinks I am funny…
Oh, wait a minute.
What the B.D. boy said next actually gave me cause to pause. “Most people would have found this conversation really awkward,” he continued “But I guess you don’t.”
Shouldn’t I, though?
Shouldn’t I be caught slightly off guard when a random guy — who has no idea that I relish writing about this type of absurdity — tells me about the Mach 3 adventure he had on his private parts?
This dialogue with señor smooth got me thinking about previous conversations that I have participated in or had related to me that have raised my awkward-sexual conversation tolerance to such staggering levels.
What — if not strangers and their pube — actually silences my ever-at-attention sarcastic commentary?
1. “Um…yeah. Can You Finish Soon? “
Who: Me & Partner-X
When: When there is a greater probability that I will die from spontaneous combustion than experience a sensation that could be faked for an orgasm.
What I Say: “Feel free to finish. Please.”
What I Think: “Don’t roll you’re eyes. Don’t look bored. Did I throw in the last-lap-ass-grab… Do I have a reading response due tomorrow?”
What Follows: To look into someone’s sweaty, stoic, sex-face and say, “Whenever you’re ready,” is sort of sad. Because my god if they are not giving it the ol’ college try. Quite literally. When another human being has just been on top of me, it is impossible to say something snide, so afterwards we sit — not snuggling — in stale sex silence. Mmmm… that’s nice.
2. “Illness/Reason for Your Visit to YUHS: I broke my penis.”
Who: My friend, who has a penis.
When: After running to the bathroom to see why his penis was in such excruciating pain.
Where: Exclamations were made in the bathroom, on a late night cell phone call to his brother, back in the bedroom and finally in the first floor lobby of DUH.
He Said: “Oh my god! I broke my dick!”
He Was Thinking: “Oh my god! I broke my dick!”
What Followed: As it happens, my friend — still in possession of his foreskin — had managed to batter and bloody his member while having protected sex [not with me!]. Something about foreskin and that foreskin catching and slightly tearing on the latex…
I missed the rest of the story because I threw up a little bit in my mouth and blacked out for a second. Upon regaining consciousness I must admit I laughed a little.
Okay, a lot.
But I was speechless. To fill out a DUH health concern admittance form with the ailment, “Broken Penis,” says it all.
[This does not give uncircumcised men the freedom to not use protection. Just please, be careful in condoms.]
3. “Do You Do Anal ?”
Who: My Mother Asking My Sixteen year-old Sister [I could not make this stuff up if I tried.]
When: Does it matter? — no time is the right time to talk anal sex with your heterosexual, hyper-sensitive, high school daughter.
My Mother Said: “I just found out that a lot of the girls are having anal sex as a form of contraception. Do you use anal sex as a form of contraception?”
My Sister Said: Nothing — unless you count her silent prayers asking the lord to break open the floor and allow the carpet and concrete to swallow her whole.
My Mother Thought: “Clear communication=closeness.”
My Sister Thought: “I did not think she could not make our relationship more awkward. Man was I wrong.”
What Followed: Upon returning home from mother-daughter bonding my sister sat in her room and wept from emotional scars she knew she might never overcome. My sister then told me and swore me to secrecy. My mother and sister are now reading this column and feel deeply betrayed.
[For all you who sweat my family and have been looking to be adopted — a space has most probably just opened up.]
4. “The Pediatrician Called…”
Who: My Mother Talking to Me
When: Spring 2004 — I had delayed my return home because I was in New Haven buried under “work”.
She Said: “We have to stop by the pharmacy. That was the Pediatrician. You have a UTI. The Doctor said it could be from self-infection. Or from sexual intercourse.”
She Was Thinking: “You are a dirty, dirty whore.
I Said: Nothing — it was one of the only times of in my life that the sensation of shame has rendered me immobile and mute.
I Was Thinking: “Oh my god. I am a dirty dirty whore.”
What Followed: I have not seen my pediatrician since. I simply can not face the dear man who delivered me, saw me through chickenpox, asthma and allergies knowing that the last entry on my chart says, “Primary Care at Yale University. Ailment: whoredom. Rx: penicillin and curbing the copious amounts of dirty bunny-humping sex.”
I want to thank the aforementioned B.D. for providing me with inspiration this week — your shearing plunged me deep into contemplation. I would also like to thank those closest to me — because nobody develops such an astounding threshold of irreverence on their own. It takes years of wildly inappropriate conversations made possible by friends and family who are secretly as messed up as me — but just don’t write about it.
Jana Sikdar fears not the Brazilian wax.