I had no idea PSY 177, Human Sexuality, would be this fun.
It was female anatomy week. As Prof. Sloan passed around a plastic bag of chocolates, customized to include the favorite kinds and brands students had listed the first day of class, she clicked her laptop and a giant vagina flashed onto the screen.
"Who here with one of these has used a mirror to look at it?"
It was our third class meeting, and we were beginning to understand that Sloan's strategy for teaching us about sexuality was to incorporate relevant material from our personal lives.
Seated directly to Sloan's right at the seminar table so that facing her, the rest of the class was just outside my peripheral vision, I raised my hand. Then, I turned to survey the number of women also interested in regarding their vaginas.
I was the only one.
Slowly I dropped my arm, embarrassed at the possibility that everyone in the room was imagining me with my pants down and a mirror between my legs. I am not the weirdo. It is a good thing. It is a good thing.
Now, we were passing around another aphrodisiac. The "Big Book of Filth: 6,500 Sex Words and Phrases." Tuning out Sloan's endocrinology lecture, I took a long turn with the book, jotting down the best terms and phrases to share with my friends.
Bagpiping (late nineteenth century)--coitus in axilla, i.e. intercourse under the armpit. That sounded boring. Pre-dawn vertical insertion--1980s slang for sex in the early morning, from a description by Reagan of the 1983 U.S. invasion of Guatemala. Does it count as 'slang' if the only person to use it is the author of the book?
Spearing the hairy doughnut, sinking the sausage, funching the munch.
Russian Salad Party (1950s-60s)--an orgy in which everyone is drenched in baby oil. The logistics seemed awkward. Would have to think about that one more.
"Okay, we're going to play a game."
If you are a Duke student who takes classes in which games are played, you know the genre into which this game fits. Games in college courses involve role-play, index cards or movement to the right or left of a given space to express whether you agree or disagree with a statement. This game fit into the second category, designed to help us memorize the facts of female anatomy.
"Without looking, tape the index cards to your backs. You will ask the rest of us yes-or-no questions to determine what you are."
The first girl twisted her body to display her new identity to the class.
It was cryptic. The card read: female symbol (vertical line topped with a circle and dissected with a horizontal line), dash, the number "23." Apparently, I was presumptuous to assume I knew how it all works; this was no typical twenty-questions game.
"Am I a body part?"
"Yes."
"No she isn't. She is in every cell of the body."
"No she isn't. She's only in the ones... you know. There."
Some of us had deciphered Sloan's code to signify the X-chromosome, others to signify the gametes in her ovaries. The gamete group, of which I was a member, won with loudness.
"You are only in one specific place!"
"Am I eggs?" We clapped.
Others went, one after another, pouncing on self-discovery like they finally understood things, after all this time searching.
"I am the embryo!"
"I am the clitoris!"
"Am I the anus? Yes!"
The next candidate stood and spiraled his torso, showing off his card like a door prize. Groans filled 319 Soc/Psych.
"Oh, great. It's a hard one. I must be a hormone. I'll never get it. Let me go ahead and guess--LH? FSH? Oxytocin?"
"No!"
"Am I a body part?"
"Yes!"
"Am I near the cervix?"
"No!"
He was clueless. Like good therapists, we reviewed what he did know about himself.
"I know I release a substance. I am not for sexual pleasure. Does the egg implant itself into me?
"No! There are two of you, remember?"
"And men have them, too." We abandoned the yes-or-no rule. This was taking too long.
"Do I swell or burst?"
The girl seated next to him had an idea. "Think about what I am."
"The labia?"
"No! I'm a gland."
"Oh, right." He had it. "Adrenals!" Applause. Laughter.
"We should play this at parties!" I freaked everyone out for the second time of the night.
Finally, the evening was coming to a close. We had one last question for Prof. Sloan, who had not been present during the controversy over the enigmatic female-sign-dash-twenty-three card.
"Does this," someone held it up, "denote the gamete or the X-chromosome?"
"Neither," she smiled. "It's the cover card. Twenty-three is the number of cards in the stack that I gave you--all of which are about the female body."
Silly us! We took advantage of the cheap laugh, closed our notebooks and grabbed some chocolate for the road.
"Goodbye my little fetus," I hugged my friend Tsu-Yin. "Fetus?!" She pulled away. "I am not a fetus; I am a nipple."
As I left class, I checked my voice mail to find a message from my friend Amy that began with the following sentence.
"Hey Mary, two things. First, from now on when people ask, 'How are you?' I am going to become very distressed and yell, 'I'm dying!'
Second..."
Boredom is boring. Sex, life when it is noticed and other people are not.
Coitus in axilla. I suppose even that could be fun with some creativity.
Mary Adkins is a Trinity senior. She is a guest columnist.
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