In the Mud

I got sent home from work yesterday, not for talking about my dick too much, as the title of this blog may imply, but for being ill. See-- when you work in a hospital, even a psychiatric hospital, they don't like it when you show up to work sick. Of course, being a relatively new employee, I don't have any sick time, so I stayed for three hours, saw some patients, ran a group, wrote some notes, and drove home.

On the way home, I listened to a radio program on NPR, because that's what elite snobs who drive Volvos do, even when they're sick. On this particular program, the topic was sex. This, coupled with the fact that my other two favorite public radio stations were in the midst of mind-altering fund-drives, was enough to compel me to listen.

I listened even though I maintain a pretty rigid policy of eschewing call-in shows. I can listened to any amount of talk radio run by educated professionals who are skilled and comfortable being on the radio, but as soon as some dunder-drawered donkey-dick from West Philly calls, my spine starts to disintegrate-- just a little bit.

I don't understand what it is about having your call get accepted on the radio that turns ordinarily logical, couth, appropriate people into, well, ham-lipped fuckheads, for lack of more florid terminology. People who call in to radio call-in shows just can't seem to get their acts together, and they inevitably end up embarrassing themselves and, consequently, me. They drone on endlessly, they interrupt people, they insist on having the radio on in their room or their car or wherever they're calling from, making it impossible to hear, or there is just dead air which, most of the time, is preferable.

Back in the days when my father had an eighty mile round-trip commute, he would often call in to sports radio shows and generally flip out on people as Israelis have been trained for centuries to do. My father always identified himself as "Frank," which is definitely not his real name. Frank is, in fact, the name the judge who processed my father as a citizen suggested my father adopt to "fit in."

"Frank?!" my father shouted at the judge, "FUCK THAT!"

Clearly, even back in 1972, Daddy Dearest was well on his way to American assimilation.

So, getting back to yesterday. I was sick driving home in my Volvo, with the seatwarmers turned on to help soothe my aching, elite body, and I was listening to this call-in show about a new report released about American sexual behaviors. I thought it was very ironic and annoying that the report studied Americans aged 14-94, and yet, the host of the show was constantly inserting the disclaimer that, "This is an adult conversation" and that "the content of this program may not be suitable for children."

Well, wait, I thought-- you're allowing "children between the ages of 14-17" to be studied, to be asked the most intimate, personal and revealing questions about their sexual status and behavior, and they're discouraged from listening to the fucking show about that selfsame study? Had I been a full-blooded Israeli instead of a watered-down half-breed with asthma, I would have whipped out my cell-phone to vociferously point out this hypocrisy, but, as it was, it was all I could do to keep from choking on my own phlegm and keep the car straight.

So, what did we learn from this study?

* Well, floppy, sloppy, crinkly, stinky, dusty, musty old people are having sex more. Thanks, Viagara.

* Teens are less sexually active than the prudish establishment thinks and, when they are, most of them are using condoms. Thanks, Trojan (who, incidentally, funded the study).

* More "newly-single" people in their forties and fifties are re-entering the dating scene and are not using condoms. Thanks for the herps, aging yuppie assholes.

* And, speaking of assholes, more people across the age spectrum are dabbling in anal sex. A couple of months ago, a former coworker shared with me a euphemism for this particular sex act: "Doin' it in the mud."

Play ball.