Cucumbers and Sex Ed

The Worldnutdaily is reporting about a group in Maryland that is up in arms because a new sex education program in Montgomery County Public Schools includes a video of a woman showing how to put on a condom by using a cucumber:

Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum features an excerpt from the seven and a half minute video on its website. The group is fighting a decision by the Board of Education of Montgomery County, Md., to show the video, entitled "Protect Yourself," to students as part of its new sex-education curriculum.

"Remember to use a condom for oral, anal and vaginal sex," the young actress says, noting that if the condom is accidentally put on inside out, it must be discarded for a new one.

"Don't unroll the whole thing and then try to put it on," she advises as she rolls a condom onto a vertical cucumber. "It won't be easy, and the condom is much more likely to tear."

Leaving aside for the moment the obvious fact that using a cucumber for this demonstration can only lead to disappointment later...it seems to me there are only two alternatives here. Either use a real penis for the demonstration (and I highly doubt they'd like that any better) or don't bother to tell them or show them at all how to use a condom correctly. Now remember, these are the same people that scream about failure rates of condoms, apparently oblivious to the fact that failure rates are almost always the result of human error, not manufacturing problems. I think the numerous people who have commented on this here are right - for a large portion of people against comprehensive sex education, they don't want kids to have the tools to protect themselves if they decide to have sex. They actually want for them to suffer for their choices, either by getting pregnant or by getting an STD. From my perspective, it's just mind-boggling.

Update: It just occured to me that perhaps their real concern here is not that using the cucumber is too explicit, but that using the cucumber might persuade some of the girls to use them instead of the real thing. What's the word for floral beastiality? On the other hand, if that was really a problem we would have found out about it long ago. After all, Adam and Eve did live in a garden, right?

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There were no cucumbers in the garden of eden. Cucumbers are a result of sin/man's fall from grace. (Surely if there were cucumbers available, Eve would not have EATEN an APPLE, would she?) Cucumbers are the work of the devil. THAT is why these people are opposed to their use.

By GeneralZod (not verified) on 11 Mar 2005 #permalink

Um, are they using American cukes or European cukes? The two varieties have very different form factors.

/TIC

If you're using the cucumber for, um... "floral bestiality," then there is really no need for a condom. I'm not aware of any diseases you can get from vegetables.

Oh wait... I guess someone did get hepatitis from produce once. Maybe you need those condoms after all.

Leaving aside for the moment the obvious fact that using a cucumber for this demonstration can only lead to disappointment later...

Perhaps it was a gherkin??

Ack! You've reminded me that there is a comic short story out there, set in a lefty commune-type environment, which ends with--you guessed it--cucumber sex. Must find the title and report back...

Parents to teenage girl: How could this happen?! How can you be pregnant??

Teenage girl: I don't know! We put the condom on the cucumber every time we "did it!"

By Michelangelo (not verified) on 13 Mar 2005 #permalink

Dave S: I think the comic book you're thinking of is Naughty Bits. Which is sorta like the Cathy strips if Cathy was perminatly on the world's worst case of PMS with a helping of Andrea Dworkin-type bitterness. I didn't care for it and I'm a damn liberal.