Autobiographical Moments: Vaginas and Catholic School Part 1

After years of therapy, I can share  without the horrid flashbacks, my experiences at a post-Vatican II catholic elementary school run by nuns. Years would pass before realizing how deep this torment buried itself into the depths of my psyche.

In my school faculty members unmarried to Christ fell into one of two categories. On the one hand, you had the group comprised of widows or unmarried women who not only cast no shadow  in the mirror of focused self-reflection but left no visible marks of their passage through classrooms and hallways. In the 8th grade, I theorized that similar to a star destined to become a black hole, the sexuality and vitality of these women collapsed upon itself and created a misery so dense that it couldn’t stop draining the life force of any living being around. When I came of age, I was nonplussed by the plague of extemporaneous erections which weighed down quite heavily on the spirit of my then compatriots.  One of these teachers would pass by and this dull ache in the depths of my abdomen would commence. Finally,  my erection would skulk away in a way comparable to how my penis retreats to safety the moment the woman who I am on a date with  tells me she is a vegan, or follows the friendship first approach to dating. Suffice it to say, I never had to think about baseball,  although the parallels to a dry leather cracked mitt and well-cleaned vaginas atrophied from lack of use, are astounding. Those two images  are a classic pairing reminiscent of  Boucheron cheese and a Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay.

The other group was comprised of young women, who recently got their teaching degrees and wanted to experience the polar opposite of what we considered was the shit-flinging, rutting simians enclosures of public schools, i.e. the hyper-ordered, hyper-restrictive fascist arena of a Catholic Education. These women all smelled nice and smiled. I found them all, regardless of in one case severe acne, or  other noticeable deformities attractive. It seems that the Lord Jesus welcomes all into his fold if they are willing to accept a low-end salary, for the poor shall inherit the kingdom of God. I’d imagine towards the end of their first year their gynecologist informed them that the egregious dryness would be reversed only after they left the hallowed halls of our elementary schools. To reiterate, these young teachers lasted about a year. No surprises then that they all ended up pregnant within months of leaving.

Either way, as I was to discover, as an African American I’m turned on by optimism. Who would have known given my second class status that I would have responded to it so positively? All this left me totally unprepared for a healthy sexual relationship. I was under the mistaken belief that there  were women who were devoid of bitterness. Rather, they were shimmering balls of pure energy and vitality that floated through that disenfranchised corner of reality that I inhabited. To put it another way, every religion inculcates upon its willing followers a moral, ethical, and spiritual framework from which to navigate the mysteries of our ephemeral human existence. For that reason when at 22 after jumping through the hoops of fire and other death defying feats to secure consent, my fourteen years of catholic education were silent on the topic of the female orgasm, g-spot stimulation, and whether or not I should call the next day. Even now as I thumb through my pirated copy of the Bible, the closest reference to the female orgasm I can find comes from the book of Ezekiel:

She lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. Ezekiel 23:20 NIV

So size queens and cream pies were popular even in biblical times was the conclusion I drew from that chapter entitled two Harlot Sisters. Next time I catch a donkey show in Tijuana I won’t empathize for the workers as much. Clearly donkey shows are a  mean of empowering women to rescue the sexual elements of their narrative from the patriarchy. No one should feel shame for bestiality, fucking animals is everyone’s right as a sentient being and also college cheerleaders. Perhaps the ‘shepherding the weak through the valley of the darkness’ in Samuel Jackson’s celebrate Pulp Fiction monologue quoting Ezekiel 25 :17, was an allusion to pimping the harlot sisters from two chapters before. But that’s a separate post.

Stay Tuned for Part 2