Laurie and Debbie say:
Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon’s insightful and disturbing post on abstinence, sex education and the Christian right brought up some related thoughts for us.
“The way that lollipops figure in an abstinence-only class is you pass them out, everyone starts to eat them and then you ask if you would want someone else’s lollipop after it’s been opened and chewed on a bit.” Apparently, the lollipops (red with embedded hearts) are symbols of women’s sexuality, although everyone gets a chance to be grossed out at the thought of licking someone else’s lollipop.
First thought: is it just us, or would anyone else’s immediate associations with lollipops be, perhaps, not women’s sex organs? The mouth is the cunt and the lollipop is the dick, no? So are they really asking whether or not you want to put your mouth (or your cunt) around a lollipop that’s been around the block? Been on the down low? Been checking out somebody else’s tongue?
Could they really be more concerned with abstinence for men than for women? Seems unlikely.
Then, there’s another thought. The lollipop, the candy, is clean (and dry) until it goes into your mouth, after which it is dirty (and wet). So another hidden message here is not that the lollipop is dirty, but that your mouth is dirty. Your orifices are dirty. Anything that’s been inside you is not fit for anyone else to touch, let alone to take inside themselves.
They’ll do anything to make us believe that bodies are dirty.
Here at Body Impolitic, we believe in soap and water.