boinkage

The mr. is taking an anthropology class this semester and right now he's currently learning all about different cultures' notions of kinship. I happen to love anthropology and was secretely thrilled when he started recording the lectures and listening to them at home. I happened to be around and wasn't really doing anything productive when he replayed the last lecture, so I listened in and little did I know at that time that my listening to that lecture would set the stage for a chain of events which would also lead to a (ok, relatively miniscule) chip being made in Mimsy's (as in little 15-month-old inoocent, elfin Mimsy) innocence.

Now, before I say anymore, come closer. There's some pretty racy material here, folks.

That particular lecture was on the Canela Indians of Brazil. (You can read about them here, if you're so inclined.) From our primitive Western Judeo-Christian point of view, their notion of family is pretty odd. Basically, the culture is matrilineal (meaning that, unlike our society, inheritance is passed through the mother's side of the family.) And that ain't all. Apparently, extramarital sex is not a taboo. In fact, it's the norm. Fidelity is considered deviant.

But that's not what I wanted to tell you. I was just setting the stage. See, the professor apparently wanted to convey to his students that these people are doing nothing wrong and should not be judged because "Hey, sex is fun! Sex is great! There's no problem there! Everyone loves sex! Why shouldn't we do it all the time, with everybody?...And he used the word "boinkage" in there, not once, not twice, but many times. )

As for the extramarital sex, he apparently thought that this concept would be difficult for his students to grasp, because he was very explicit in his explaining it, and used several examples. My favorite was the last example he gave: ..."so imagine that I'm married to so-and-so (points to girl sitting in front of mr. redbench)... Now, since I'm married to her, we can have sex. Lots of sex. We can have as much sex as we want because we're married. But that's not all. Besides me, she can have sex with whoever she wants!..." at which point mr. redbench stopped the recording because I was huddled up in the fetal position on the floor laughing and he couldn't concentrate on the rest of the lecture. And then, being the drama queen that I am (and I mean that both literally and figuratively) I had to go into my own monologue about the subject.

So there I stood in my livingroom, wearing a grossly mismatched outfit and a stocking cap on my head (it was cold, alright?) doing my rendition of mr redbench's anthro class. It was something like this:

"Yeah, sex is great, sex is fun, sex is incredible! Sex is good for you! In fact, why don't we all have sex right now? Right here. Come on, who's first? Who wants a piece of me? .... (laughing)" ..."If I were married to what's-her-face-over-there I would have sex with her all the time, day and night, we'd be having sex on the bed, we'd be having sex on the floor.... on the kitchen table... on the rug, on the table again, in my car, on the kitchen counter... and then her mom walks in and I have sex with her, too..."

And then I stopped. I mean, it just got old all of the sudden. And then, then, my precious little darling of a daughter, who had apparently been enjoying the whole spectacle, and who just last week entered an adorable yet ever so slightly inconvenient phase in which she repeats things that we say without knowing what she's saying, clapped her hands, smiled at me and exclaimed: "Sex!"

What is a mother to do? At least she didn't say boinkage.