Pain
I don’t want to slip into 1980s, Sinbad-brand humor, you know — women be different from men — but, to tell the truth, women be different from men.
(If you don’t know who Sinbad was, or if you’ve mercifully forgotten him, don’t ask questions. Just be thankful.)
Sinbad
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Anyway, my post yesterday about the dreaded prostate exam brought scads of double-Xers out of the woodwork to proclaim that a doctor’s digits inserted into a man’s rear entrance for the purpose of gauging the size and consistency of said man’s gland is, well, nothing.
Nothing, that is, compared to what women have suffered.
It’s not even nothing. It is, these commenters will have us believe, akin to getting one’s hair tousled by a favorite uncle or finding a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk.
What is it about women that they take such pride in the type and extent of pain they can suffer?
◗ No pain on Earth can compare to that of childbirth.
◗ Nothing is like getting a pap smear.
Torture Device Or Stainless Steel Duck?
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◗ The full pelvic exam must have been developed by a psychotic sadist.
One correspondent wrote, “Guys are such wimps.”
I get the feeling my women friends are, well, proud of the pain they’ve suffered.
Such a strange thing to be proud of. Especially considering my own life has been devoted to the avoidance of pain. I’m proud of no pain. I am proud, though, of having dodged countless episodes of pain in my 57 years.
Women, I love you all. But, y’know, we’re just different.
Maybe I am getting all Sinbad-y here. I’d better stop.
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Censorship And Sensibility
As you know, this is Banned Book Week. And the number one challenged book in the nation for the year 2012 was — drum roll, please — the Dav Pilkey juvenile story series, Captain Underpants.
According to the American Library Association, the Capt. U. books were banned and otherwise persecuted by constipated, paranoiac, supremely pain-in-the-ass parents and officious do-gooders because Pilkey’s prose includes bad language.
The Officer In Question
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No, not fuck or blowjob. Not that kind of bad language. And certain not rape, war, dismemberment, nuclear bomb, or slavery — hell, nixing books that contain those obscenities would probably leave nothing for our precious teens and impressionable adults to read. Which, come to think of it, just might be what many of the busybodies of this holy land want. But, back to Pilkey, his word sins include fart and snot rockets. The monster.
This variety of verbiage has driven professional tut-tutters to organize and pressure school boards and municipal libraries to remove such smut from the public’s shelves.
Makes you want to thank god we have such caring, conscientious individuals around to protect our delicate eardrums and eyes, no?
Anyway, my fave banned book always has been Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Use the comments section on this page to tell us what your most beloved banned book has been. Or, if you prefer, let us know the last banned book you’ve read. The following list may help. It includes selected banned titles from the Library of Congress’s Books That Shaped America exhibit.
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X
- Beloved
- The Call of the Wild
- Fahrenheit 451
- Gone with the Wind
Banned? Honestly?
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- The Great Gatsby
- In Cold Blood
- Invisible Man
- Moby Dick
- Stranger in a Strange Land
- To Kill a Mockingbird
Moby fucking Dick?
Look, folks, these uptight lunatics have to be stopped. The first thing any of us can do is read a banned book. Do it.
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