Miss Jackson and the Plastic Vagina
I.
There were waivers passed around in early
spring, in anticipation of the last
chapter in our sexual educat-
-ion, that first year of high school, in a brick,
renovated building deemed “not enough,
only up to date but not state of the
art,” by my father, when baggy pants and
hockey jerseys were still very much in
vogue, and braces plagued the adolescent
mouths of a grand number of us.
II.
Both my
responsible parents dutifully
signed it, and I was ignorant to the
fact that it was, in fact, a parental
right to refuse. Upon that discove-
-ry, I remember thinking about the
outrage with which I would have greeted the
news that my mother and father were to
deprive me of the chance to hear about
breasts and intercourse, and all these other
things which were to fill my sordid,
acne-ridden head.
III.
Ms. Jackson, about
my mother’s age, greeted us all (minus
one, whose parents exercised their rights), and
set the new ground rules for engaging the
materials covered in the next few
chapters in our textbook (and here I have
to believe that she knew we read ahead).
IV.
The reading, however, was not memor-
-able, not satisfying my puerile
need for visuals. Although, there was an
afternoon in which we suffocated
a banana with premium latex
condoms (I thought the packaging looked a
bit goofy), all of us taking our turns
after Ms. Jackson demonstrated the
proper technique (“Get the air bubbles out,”
she said, rolling it down towards the stem, a
reminder that I would receive a year
and a half later in the bed of some-
-one else after school, before I went to
work at the pharmacy), before we ran
to the bathroom, giggling, to wash the
smell of spermicide off.
V.
No one could have
foreseen the complications involved when
out of her bag, Ms. Jackson produced the
plastic vagina. Gender mattered not
as she placed the beige body part on the
beige desktop: we were all in a state of
utter disbelief, with an esteemed class-
-mate Nate emitting a hushed “Holy shit.”
Class proceeded, but our fresh teenage eyes
seldom diverged from the unexpected
guest.
VI.
As Ms. Jackson began detailing
the names of all the various regions
contained within this as yet unexplored
region of the female sex (both in the
classroom and the field), her fingers ventured
inside, I suppose as a way to catch
our attention and demonstrate its depth.
It seems, though, that this action, smacked not of
prudence, as when she attempted to ex-
-tract her hand from someone’s replica,
she found herself unable.
VII.
As students,
this was fast becoming a bit too much
for one period’s worth of awkward dis-
-comfort; true, some did laugh, but most of us
stared without offensive intent, simply
coming to terms with the fact that our ninth
grade health teacher had gotten her hand lodged
uncomfortably, unintentionally,
and apparently quite securely in-
-side a plastic vagina about which
we had absolutely no forewarning,
and trying to retrace how exactly
we got here, and what we’d be doing if
our parents had never signed that waiver.
VIII.
Too young to analyze what this situ-
-ation meant for the long term student-and-
-teacher dynamics of authority
and power, we silently complied as
she dismissed the class, waiting until we
were at the other end of the hall to
begin our laughter, that slow, rising song
of puberty-plagued guffaws, done before
the ringing of the sixth period bell.
