Two Learning Days ago we looked at Science 4 for Christian Schools, a textbook training children to kill the moon. It also covered tubed and untubed plants along with the latest confusion about the mysteries of electricity. I think we can all agree I, top-rated Internet’s me, was a delight when I made fun of it, but I’m not sure it’s fair dunking on a book made entirely out of stupid questions. So let’s take a look at a book made entirely out of stupid answers because, lucky us, I own a copy of the teacher’s guide for Science 4 for Christian Schools.
This homeschooling book lays a great foundation for a future in volunteer border patrols or cautionary zoo deaths. It seems to have been produced by taking a regular 4th grade science program and adding several chapters on how the moon can’t possibly be true, thus proving all science is fake. It’s something a mother would only teach her children if she was trying to get their brains soft enough to join her multi-level-marketing business.
The very first lesson the book is, you guessed it, using the moon to prove the limitations of science. If science can’t touch it, hear it, or taste it, science should shut the fuck up. And was science there to taste it when the moon was born? ANSWER ME. Oh, it wasn’t? Well then you’re done with Lesson One: Theories About the Moon’s Origin. None of this, and I mean all of this, means anything.
The 17th strangest thing about Christian education is how after they prove it’s pointless they keep going. So we are given a series of questions you as the teacher can ask your children about the moon. For instance, we all know the moon sucks and can’t exist, but what are the three ways it glorifies God? (holds messages, tells time, lights) And which type of God could magically make a whole universe? (a great one!) Those aren’t jokes! Those are Christian sciences!
Not all of the questions are fun, though. Question #7 is: What’s the point of this stupid fucking moon? The answer is, and I’m paraphrasing, to one day turn red and kill you. This is a fantastic type of crazy, and if I’m being honest, I don’t understand how homeschooled Christians didn’t end up being the coolest genre of people. If someone asks me about the moon I bore them to death with crater facts. A graduate of Science 4 for Christian Schools will tear off their shirt and scream, “Did you say moon!? Hurry! It can’t see you if you’re nude, wait, who sent you!? Show me the birthmark!”
Like all good scientists, we know disproving the moon’s origin isn’t as simple as saying “you weren’t there, checkmate.” What you need to do is, wait, this seems weird… send your child into the back yard and tell them to spin? Throw balls at them and discuss? I’m not even sure what angle to take to ridicule or debunk that. This is like declaring the sun is a hoax by gesturing at an unfinished game of Candyland. And then gesturing at it again and again before saying, “You know, this would make a great science textbook in honor of His majesty, Jesus Christ, help there are too many bees behind my eyes.”
I started off thinking this book was pointless, mainly because its first lesson was how all knowledge was pointless, but now I worry about handing knowledge this powerful to a child. If a game of dodgeball proves man is wrong about the moon, could tennis undo the cotton gin? Would not frisbee golf threaten to unravel our understanding of time? Secular science is completely lame in the face of these fantastic possibilities.
If you read the student version of this book, you know their section on electricity was a long complaint about how electricity is an invisible mystery no one can explain, and also a shout out to hair dryers. In order for you to teach this valuable lesson to your kids, ask them four questions:
One: Where does electricity come from? (No one knows for sure.)
Two: Can you see electricity (no)
Three: Where does electricity come from? (No one has figured it out since last time you asked.)
And Four: What are some times electricity has hurt you? (No right or wrong answers– this one is just for fun.)
It’s hard to think of any way a teacher or a student could fuck this lesson up. This is a group shrug (for beginners) with a lesson plan. I expect the section on Photosynthesis will just suggest I pull a knife on my kids and tell them they’re asking a whole lot of questions about photosynthawhatsits.
Speaking of questions, there are a few more regarding the moon.
Let me summarize. Here’s the science you know about the beginning of the moon, dipshits: none. Here’s who would know the science on that: um, maybe someone who was there? And let me check if that was fucking you: no. So using logic so plainly obvious it seems strange they bothered to write it down, the only one who could know where the moon came from is the unknowable being who conjured it. Whether or not He told someone about it is how we can tell fact from theory. Theories, if you can prove them, can become laws, but they can never become facts. And unprovable facts, or facts, are this science we’re discussing, but not science. Science is your enemy, help, the skull bees are back; free me from their terrible bites.
Very briefly, I want to review Plants with Tubes. As you recall, our lesson included how plants with tubes are true plants, liverworts may try to trick you, and nothing else. There is one thing to add, though. Liverworts are named after the ancient belief that they could cure liver disease, but science says maybe not. So now it’s a question of who we distrust more: science or the word of an untubed plant. Discuss this with your child (missing).
Now that we’re finished with biology, let’s get back to the moon. It moves around the Earth, but what if it didn’t? (We don’t have to guess because it happened.)
Discuss how awesome His marvelous power must have felt to the people of the book of Joshua while a stationary sun boiled them alive. (so awesome) Emphasize how God really did that shit. (Jesus Christ!) Ask them to name a single human who would even try something like that. (Hitler, maybe some Batman villains, answers may vary) Think what He might do to you if you refuse to accept the Sudden and Unexplainable Moon Theory (keep pushing Him, you goddamn kids, I dare you).
Welcome to Lesson 25: The Throat. I guess these Christian educators figured if none of this mattered, you and your children might as well build a fuckable robot mouth out of garbage?
We’re almost done, but there are a couple more things we need to discuss about the moon.
The Bible is vital to a Christian’s study of science, so don’t be afraid to use it to answer tough questions. For instance, what ingredients did God use when making the moon? (none) What kind of idiot would think the moon was made of something? (unsaved, foolish) What was electricity again? (fuck you, I don’t know) Thank you for your standing-sure-forever counsel, God. ( … )
Oh, sweet. There’s a Lasers chapter. And… it’s oddly comprehensive. There’s a lot of actual laser science and no mention of how they’re fake or an optometrist conspiracy to print Satanic messages on Lutheran corneas. So when your child graduates from Science 4 for Christian Schools, they will know two things: how nothing means anything, and how to build a real lightsaber. Five stars. ðŸŒðŸŒðŸŒðŸŒðŸŒ
“Men! WHO CAN FIGURE THEM OUT?” are the first words 101 Ways to Get and Keep His Attention says to the reader, and I challenge any author to more quickly demonstrate how inadequate their book is going to be. In six words, Michelle McKinney Hammond has told her audience, “I not only have nothing original to say about the topic, I can’t even conceive of someone who does.” And she’s right! Let’s read her shitty book!
There are a few important things to mention right away. One, Michelle is very Christian, and this book is not for people who perform, discuss, or condone sex. Two, when this was published in 2003, she had already written 17 other books exactly like this and did not have 101 more romantic tips left inside her. And three, Michelle is looking pretty good. She’s a handsome and sturdy woman who could show up to church in her worst hat and still get a few offers to breed a family of strong sons. And you should always question romantic advice given by clearly fuckable people.
Book Backstory: This book’s previous owner bought it on sale from a place called CHRISTIAN OUTLET and made only two notes– she underlined one Bible quote about love and kept a list of “verses to look up” before she presumably died untouched and alone. I probably now own her copy of 101 Ways to Get and Keep His Attention because it went unsold at her estate sale! The less grim option is she is still alive and has simply given up on love! Can you imagine surrounding yourself with thousands of these books when your brain immediately and ceaselessly extrapolates dark histories like this?! I can! I can.
The book opens with lists of body parts, delicately avoiding the self-lubricating or nippled ones. Tip #1 is “Eyes” and tip #2 is “Lips,” a couple things you’ve heard of and are already heavily marketed to women as important. It’s a nuclear amount of obvious. No matter where you are, if you just hatched from an alien pod more than six feet from this book, you will literally not be able to avoid learning all this before you’ve crawled your way to it.
Michelle speaks poetically about all things as if they represent the majesty of His creation, but her main point is you should make your eyes and lips look nice. And here’s a fun tip: if you’re trying to clinically prove you’re unnecessary as an author and person, start your book about attracting men with, “Ladies, men can see your whole face! But would you believe they make decorative paints… for your eyes and lips?”
For tip #3, “A Welcoming Smile,” Michelle suggests your “grim lips are hiding the beautiful inner you.” That’s not anything. That’s a slide you’d expect to see at the launch of Google MindSmile, a new solution that generates weird sentences about smiles. And I’d argue by the time Michelle gets to tip #4, “Beautiful Teeth,” that’s close enough to “A Welcoming Smile” she’s already started repeating entries. So to be clear, in a book about 101 things, she has said two things you couldn’t possibly not know, gone insane, started repeating herself, and we have 97 things to go.
No one has ever so purposefully run an idea into the ground as quickly as this. I was promised 101 cute tips on luring Presbyterian dick and this woman is describing hands and arms to me. Tip #10 is fucking “Neck!” And it’s not about perfumes to rub on it or exercises you can do for it– it’s about how a neck can express, and I quote, “How dare you! Don’t you ever do that again! Stop right there. Don’t even think about getting any closer!” Oh, are those not enough things? She also suggests a neck can say, “Get back!” This woman sat down to write a guide on attracting men and she’s explaining what necks are and how they might be useful in defending against ape attacks. If 1994 Damon Wayans told you, “I have this new character I’m working on called Dicksuck Jackson,” listening to his pitch would have the exact same content as Michelle McKinney Hammond’s “Neck” entry.
“Yeah, girl, feet.”
– Michelle McKinney Hammond
Once she’s listed all the parts she’s comfortable talking about, Michelle suggests maybe having a hot body might work to attract men. She supports this with a Bible verse about how tits are like gazelles which was not one of the verses the book’s previous owner marked for further reflection.
I don’t know why I brought this one up because I have no notes on it. I honestly think this would work.
Michelle does concede 84 entries later that just having a regular body should work too. Look, do your best not to die, have all your holes with you, and that’ll probably do it. With those gazelle titties God gave you and that church full of foot perverts, you’re going to be fine, girl.
The gun pressed against Michelle’s head. “Say something obvious about brushing your teeth,” the unseen voice commanded.
“I already did! Several times! This book has so many mouth and teeth ones!” She tried to sound strong, but her voice betrayed her fear.
“Do another one,” the gunman growled. “We are trying to do more than get his attention. We need to KEEP it.”
Michelle took a deep breath. “Tooths are the moon and stars of the mou– no, wait. F-fresh breath is a… is a must! Uh, uh, especially if you want to be kissed! I did what you asked; let me go!”
“Not until you’re done. You said something obvious. Now say something weird.”
Michelle screamed her response, “Your breath carries life in it! It speaks of the woman within!”
The gunman must have been satisfied because he vanished into the shadows. “This is actually really good,” conceded Michelle as she saved her progress to the floppy drive.
Praying together isn’t just a fun activity for horny singles. When you synchronize your prayer you can determine which one of you God hates more. Yeah, science, girl.
The author slumped at her desk holding her head in her hands. “Come on, Michelle, just 24 entries to go. Think, think, think… what gets a man’s attention? What gets… wait, no. Could it really be that simple?” The word shone on her monitor like a glistening desert oasis. Woman.
“Thank you, Jesus, for this inspiration in my time of need,” the author whispered.
“ALSO FEET!” boomed a voice from all directions at once.
You might think there’s nothing stranger than listing body parts in a Christian guide for picking up men, but Michelle includes a chapter in this book called “Smell– The Scent of a Woman.” And it is all about smells. Like “Myrrh,” the embalming fluid inexplicably given to Jesus’ mom at her baby shower. What does this have to do with romance? Shit, I don’t know. The best she could come up with was, “A woman must carry herself with an air that expresses attributes of being able and willing to sacrifice at the appropriate times for love?” Which raises the question, are you happy with that, Michelle? Are you sure you’ve successfully adapted that child’s book report on the Gospel of Matthew into dating advice? Because it seems like you might have lost your entire goddamn fucking mind.
Even with me constantly reminding you and myself, it’s easy to lose sight of what the hell is going on here. This is a book by an accomplished romantic author intended to condense her vast knowledge of desirability down into 101 pieces of advice. And she has reserved one of those for raisins. Ladies, if I am listing your positive qualities and “she leaves raisins out” makes the top 101, you are a piece of trash. If anyone, ever, has complimented your raisins it’s because you had too many open sores to risk mentioning your face or body. If a man says, “You have the best raisins,” he’s really saying, “You are so ugly that if anyone catches us having sex I’m going to tear your wig off and pretend it was a fist fight.”
Pungent fruits? Say no more, girl. I am good to go.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme, Pauli Poisuo: the pungent fruit in the room of our hearts.
“Take this book! It’s too late for me!” screamed the man who leapt through my window. I nodded, mistaking these for the words of a dying man. Instead, he remained alive, saying many, many more things as the night turned into morning. Along with the book, he gave me his life story and several apologies for the window before he left. Still, I’d like you to imagine how chilling and mysterious it would have been if he had thrust this book into my hands with his last breath.
Let’s talk women, ladies, and all the things that make women “Great!” Shoes! Underpants! Shoes! Shoes! Can you name 999 more? Stop, don’t bother! In 2005, “authors” Lisa Birnbach, Ann Hodgman, and Patricia Marx already did it! Their shitlike but feminine minds wrote the definitive guide to dingbat stream-of-consciousness, 1,003 Great Things About Being a Woman.
Lisa, Ann, and Patricia never tell the reader who wrote which ones, but there are three distinct styles in the book. One of the lady authors thought it was her job to just list tired gender stereotypes without context or comedy. I think her goal was to create a collection of lady driver references so joyless it could be sent back in time to undo Steve Harvey. Speaking of tired gender stereotypes, one of the ladies is the kind you find in any group of women two or larger: horny as fuck. She is single-minded in her interest, and it’s cock, yummy and now. And finally, one of the ladies is 107 years old and her brain is misfiring as it accesses ancient pop culture references and debunked social theories.
In what might be a stupid-fucking-tidbit-book record, Lisa, Ann, and Patricia exhaust their premise 2% into the writing of their book. It’s page 11 and their idea of “great things” has turned into trying to think of the female sidekicks from cartoons and nursery rhymes. And it doesn’t even make sense. “Without Olive Oil, Popeye wouldn’t have eaten his spinach?” She doesn’t have anything to do with his spinach. That’s just an unrelated element of the show. It’s like saying “Without Wonder Woman, Superman couldn’t Aquaman and Garfield!” It’s like Olive Oil having sex with a gorilla after a murder rampage and saying, “I did something!”
Thank your local women for “for annoying child actors” and “hell.” And again, fantastic job on the book, ladies. Terrific stuff. Pointless, but not “funny” pointless. Technically words, but not “meaningful.” Congratulations, Lisa, Ann, and Patricia. Most doctors would never be brave enough to put their patients’ dementia on display like this.
This one is a good look inside Lisa, Ann, and Patricia’s creative process. Because if you’re idiots listing female side characters from TV and history to frantically fill a book called 1,003 Great Things About Being a Woman, Eve is going to occur to you. And then it’s time to brainstorm what makes Eve great. “She’s made out of a rib? Two of the numbers from my childhood address followed by a sharp pain in my arm? I say we go with the rib one.” Many fools will live their entire lives and never say anything this useless or dumb. This is nothing. This is not the start of an idea; this is not helpful or cute to any person real or imaginary. Fuck this world for allowing anyone to be this bad at anything without breaking any international laws.
Sure! Who knows? Lisa, Ann, and Patricia don’t! They’re not sure why they brought it up! Or kept it in the book! Or which 4 o’clock it is right now! Or if their nurses are robots like Greta Garbo told them in a dream!
These women barely have a handle on one language and now they’re bragging about how easy it would be for them to learn a second one. Like Ann Hodgman is going to take Aramaic night classes after her nephew comes over to show her again how to add the little flower in a Wordstar document.
Yes, we heard. Truly, the wonders of the female mind are limitless.
Wait. S-so your husband doesn’t? Either these women are randomly hitting typewriter shapes to see what happens or Ann just confessed her child is the product of adultery.
It could be argued women get the better deal in polygamy? Followed by no argument? Hold on, do these three women share a husband? And they’re hoping someone, maybe outside this circle of sister wives, could make a good case for polygamy? “Look, it’d take someone smarter than me to explain why it’s great, but I’m one of the top six servant holes in a pretty exclusive sex cult.”
This is a really positive spin to put on your bitch ass high-jump, Ann.
Jesus Christ, we are 24 pages in and they’re already so out of ideas they’re listing their physical defects. Well, not the defects themselves, but their ability to detect asymmetry? They have droopy eyes? At least one of them has a-a… some kind of long foot? The minds of these three ladies are fucking done with 292 pages to go. This is like signing up for a marathon and shitting out all your blood on the way to your car.
Oh, this is the catty side I was hoping to see out of you ladies! You are bad. This will teach Shelly, that insecure bitch, why she should have confided in you about her low self-esteem!
Well, except Shelly. Fuck you, Shelly! You ruined everything again!
And Shelly knows while she’s up there getting married you goddamn bitches are back there whispering about how she’s definitely pregnant. “I’m so fucking fat,” she thinks on the happiest day of her life.
I know we’re only screwing around here, but I think it’s important to take a step back and remember: this is a book listing reasons women are great and Lisa, Ann, and Patricia chose to include “sometimes we have a hunch babies are boys.” Let me be clear: if the universe allows anything less related to female empowerment than that to appear in a book called “1,003 Great Things About Being a Woman,” it will prove, definitively, we are ruled by nothing but chaos.
“There is no God and we have proven it.”
– Lisa Birnbach, Ann Hodgman, Patricia Marx
Look, I know this is an embarrassing level of horny, but when Senator Joe Biden fucks you in your dreams, you write it down and publish it in a list of feminine achievements. “I haven’t had a chance to read the latest pages yet, but I’ll get back to you after the weekend,” said this book’s editor before dying on a boat trip.
I’m not well educated in gender studies, so I don’t know what’s happening here. Is this like a story? Did one of them have a straw hat with… I swear I’m reading this wrong, w-with fake hair attached to it? And then they lit one of their heads on fire to lure single men from the nearby firehouse? Am I interpreting this correctly? And if not, what the fuck are these ladies talking about? You horny idiots, can you not think straight near the word “fireman?” And, of course, there are socks with false teeth in them. Firemen bring both balls to the bathtub. Oh great, now I’m doing it.
I honestly don’t know enough about panty girdles to know if these facts are great or irrelevant. My gut tells me one of these authors had to pee while she was trying to remember which talkies had girls in them and she put that inspiration into her writing.
This one is kind of fun. Men get cancer in their ass and have to watch each other pee. “Not us ladies,” say Lisa, Ann, and Patricia!
When I consider all the things that set women apart from men, “eligible to fight in the U.S. military” might make my top 4.008, but definitely not my top 1,003. Honestly, if I had to write this book the whole thing would be Susan B. Anthony jokes. Just offensive nonsense about how she’s some lady on the shittiest dollar and nothing else.
Oh my god, yes! Precisely this! This was my exact terrible idea, Lisa, Ann, and Patricia!
I know this one, Patricia. “You point a gun at his panda!”
PATRICIA: Gals, I think we should do an entry about Sex and the City.
ANN: I never watched it, but I heard it was a very popular show.
PATRICIA: Oh my god, Ann. Ann, say that again.
ANN: What?
PATRICIA: Say that. The fuck. Again.
ANN: That, um, it was a very popular show?
PATRICIA: That’s it! That’s the entry right there! “Sex and the City was a very popular show.” Ann, you magnificent slut!
Picture yourself as a teacher teaching any grade in any country with any level of advanced placement or special needs. You ask your class “What are some things that make women great?”
A kid raises their hand and goes, “WHY DO THEY LIKE TRUCKS SO MUCH?”
The kid asking that, without question, would be the dumbest piece of shit to ever disrupt your classroom, right? You would instantly know that child was going to die from an aerosol overdose. You would quote “WHY DO THEY LIKE TRUCKS SO MUCH” while trading drunk stories with other teachers about their dumb pieces of shit. And yet here, in this written book by three professional adult authors, nobody thought it seemed out of place.
It’s the battle of the sexes and the stakes could not be higher! Men are in the lead after liking trucks so much for some reason, but women answer back with how their houses aren’t really clean! Then the ladies follow up with how they, if reminded, will send postcards to their nieces and nephews at camp! Women win again!
Okay, I am choosing this word very carefully here, ladies: lol
Look at the balls on these women. They have all the intellectual curiosity of elephant seal cows waiting their turn to get impregnated and they’re quoting Charlotte Bronte like she was talking about them. They led into this quote about the gender-spanning power of the written word with the words “You finally found the perfect red T-shirt!” It’s beyond the scope of irony. This is like John Travolta telling you to always be yourself while your dick disappears into his face’s elaborate disguise.
Dear Ms. Birnbach, Ms. Hodgman, and Patricia,
We have had a chance to go over your writing packet and while it shows promise, there are no current openings on our staff. However, we can offer market rate of $29 for your joke about women’s magazines and Jell-O.
– The Office of Bill Maher
Lesser authors of a “Great Things About Women” book would have simply written random facts like “panty girdles proved control and comfort!” or “we don’t get prostate diseases!” But Lisa, Ann, and Patricia? They put in the work. They scoured lady medical journals for weeks to see if there were any health complications related to smoking, and since they’re the best– they found one.
This book was published in 2005 when any of the three women or an editor could have used Google to verify a claim like this. I promise I didn’t go into this book thinking I was going to debunk the idea of women being great, but:
The danger of this kind of error is that now I have to reconsider everything these women have taught me. Is this red T-shirt I found not perfect? Were some of those firemen I fucked married? Is the real question why they DON’T like trucks so much!?
Living through an era of chastity belts might explain why Ann can’t go three entries without mentioning rough hands and wet penises (I think I’m starting to figure out which lady is which!).
“We’re too ugly to be eaten! The side effects of menopause are good, actually! Ladies, I don’t feel so good? Good is a weird word, group cycles, where am I, Jane Austen! Jane Austen!”
Okay, no more jokes. I think Lisa had a stroke.
Oh no. Patricia, hang on! Someone help them! Don’t let them keep typing through these brain seizures! This is the most humiliating way anyone has ever died!
Please! Please!! Whatever your motivation, there has to be a more ethical way to collect data on dying brains than this! Surely some of Hitler’s scientists kept notes you could use!
I’m sorry I made fun of you Lisa, Ann, and Patricia! No one deserves to go out like this… confused and alone, punching every stray thought into a typewriter. I’m so sorry!
Ha ha this one is pretty good. She burned to death.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme, Benjamin Sairanen: Who can actually tell you the single greatest thing about being a woman, though the forbidden knowledge has driven him quite mad.
There is no shortage of knowledge out there. A woman named Annie Hawkins-Turner has the world record for biggest tits, for example. Yet there are so many mysteries left unsolved. Trees? Electricity? The fucking moon!? Name a single thing other than God that can explain them. Let me show you more answers inside the pages of Science 4 for Christian Schools.
We’ll be looking at the 1998 edition of Science 4, which remained unchanged since its first printing in 1976. As we get into it you’ll see why Bob Jones University Department of Science Education had no reason to update anything after 22 years. They nailed all science on the first try, which is pretty impressive when you consider they were just guessing at how any of this shit works. I’m not sure what the stakes are when you’re publishing a Christian science book, but I imagine convincing your reader that science is the work of imbecile liars who don’t trust the moon only makes the case for God stronger. Which seems to be exactly what they were going for.
The faculty of Bob Jones University have stood for the “absolute authority of the Bible since 1927” and their amazing toll-free number, 1-800-BJ-AND-ME, still works. Jesus Christ, this means their business model of making dumb people dumber for money has been working for over 90 years. And speaking of something almost one hundred years old, let’s talk about the moon.
Bob Jones University goddamn hates the garbage piece of shit moon. They open with an exhaustive look at how everybody’s wrong about the moon and it sucks. This book, which covers all of science, seems to be focused entirely around ranting about the moon.
The theories presented in Science for Christian Schools are framed as poorly worded arguments against the very things they’re trying to teach. So they give you enough details about the bitch ass moon’s shitty orbit so you can scoff at it and be satisfied anyone trying to figure it out is stupid. It’s ridiculous, especially when you consider the moon is an egg and its coming hatching makes all other knowledge effectively pointless.
The author’s frustrations with moon theories continue until page 8 when they finally explain how this confusing bullshit thing came to be. It’ll seem obvious after you hear it, but God made Moon instantly because it was better than Not Moon. If it occurs to you that instantly explains anything, maybe you now see the appeal of Christian Science.
So we’ve graduated, right? After 8 full pages of education we’ve learned magic is real and it’s a much better, faster answer than any fussy theory. If we’re not done with all learning, we’re at least done with the moon, right? Right!?
After a few more pages debunking moon facts, the author goes off the rails and starts hammering questions into her typewriter. “Why did God even make the moon!? Or you!? Non-whites!? W-why did God make anything!?” This leads us into our first homework assignment: explain three ways the moon proves God is awesome! Did you guess lights, lights, lights, LIGHTS, LIGHTS, LIGHTS, ha ha HA HA HA HA HA LIGHTS!!!? Close! It was werewolves three times! Look, I’m losing my mind. I think we’re good on The Moon. I’m going to jump ahead a few pages…
Oh Jesus, I think the moon knows we’re trying to stop learning about it.
This is, by any standards, fucking crazy. Why is this an entire page? I can’t picture anything less useful to a 4th grade science student than hearing how God is going to kill them, but not to worry because He’ll blow up the moon first. They don’t even know what horses or wheels are yet! Maybe save this advanced shit for Science 5 or 6? I’m going to go back and check the table of contents to see if there are any non-moon chapters in this goddamn thing…
Okay, good. It goes: moon, insects, electricity, plants, measuring, digestion, moon. That means only two out of the seven sciences are Moon. Let’s keep going!
I want to make sure you understand this isn’t a bit. The author of Science 4 for Christian Schools spent the first 16 precious, outlook-forming pages going over the full history of the moon from its origins of “suddenly made by God” to its final moments of “God is done with it,” and almost all of it is written in the form of questions. Even they don’t know why they did it. If you replaced fourth grade with a season in the NFL, it would do less to fuck a kid’s brain up. They’ve presented all other scientific knowledge as the bad guesswork of protracting fools who could have simply screamed into the night for the answers they sought.
If you presented this book to Joseph Goebbels he would say, “Zis is close to vat I vanted, but I asked for a ridiculous plan to make ze American children stupid, not a stupid plan to make ze American children ridiculous. Two stars.”
Let’s see if the lessons get any better in Chapter 2: Insects, Arachnids, and Myriapods!
This is word association madness. This is something you’d stammer at Denise Richards if she was your biology teacher in Topless High 3: Maximum Nipplage UNRATED BONER POOP EDITION. I get that not every first draft is good and 1976 Christian Science was still mostly Moon Fear, but they had twenty two fucking years to go back in and change this to something, anything resembling knowledge. Maybe the next chapter, Electricity, is better.
Oh, okay. It’s a mystery. They can’t say what it is or what it does or where it comes from; only that it makes telephones ring. I’m starting to see the limitations of using God as the answer to all things since He might refuse to talk to anyone for a couple thousand years. If you’re a Christian Science researcher who wants to write a book about electricity, all you can do is go out into a rainstorm and hold up big metal questions. And even then, He can only say yes or no and one of those answers kills you. So until God tells us how to interpret the leavings of the gloriously electrocuted, there’s just no way of knowing what “electricity” is. Let’s move on to the fourth school of science: Plants.
The first classification of plant, of course, is called Plants with No Tubes. This includes fungi, which leads the author to several questions and observations. For instance, what the shit is a fungi? How do the fungi eat? Are you why strawberries betray me, fungi? Fungi! How do you eat!? You tubeless abominations, tell me how you get foooood!
After Plants with No Tubes, God had a second idea. It was, you guessed it– pediatric diseases! Then inspiration hit– God would take the thing everyone hated about Plants with No Tubes and get rid of it. And that’s the story of what we now know as Plants with Tubes. This is a fascinating classification of plant, but the giant picture of “some unlabeled plants of indeterminate tubing” didn’t leave a lot of space for text. Luckily they were able to squeeze in four Plants with Tubes facts including the most important one: “liverworts have no tubes.”
One thing I’ve noticed as we get further into the book is how the smugness the author had back when she was disproving mainstream moon science is gone. She is now basking in the wonder of the Lord our God, Maker of Tubes. The section on light is basically “can you believe how fucking amazing eyeballs are!? FUCK!”
Scientists don’t even know what’s going on with eyes. They look at eyes and shit. They pull their eyes out of their own skulls hoping it will blind them to science’s lies, but they still see them when they dream. And hey, let me wrap both hands around your neck and scream, “Have you ever thought about trees, or as you may know them Tall Plants with Tubes!? Use the wonder of your self-repairing pocket telescopes to see the majesty of God’s tree science!”
I think this book was written by someone with good intentions who merely wanted to disprove the moon to children, but something happened while they were writing it. Maybe there was a gas leak in the BJ-AND-ME office. Maybe this is what happens to any brain when it gets too close to unmitigated truth. In other words, you can learn to classify trees.
The best thing about Christian Science is how there are sort of rules, but you can turn them on and off when you need to. So if someone points at a big, stupid canyon and says “By the measurable rules of erosion, this is older than the Bible,” you can say, “Not if you account for the Earth Softness of, I don’t know, 1753?” These fuckers saw a child win at tag by saying they had a force field and based an entire field of study around it. In other words, you can learn to classify trees.
Oh, hi! Do you like butt stuff, only you wish it was more of a clinical exploration of the erogenous clusters inside your anus? Then you’ll love the 2003 VHS cassette tape, THE BETTER SEX GUIDE TO ANAL PLEASURE!
Warning: This article is explicit as fuck and technically safe for work, but holy shit is it going to catch the eye of anyone reading over your shoulder.
“Pleasure” is a word invented by gross people to be used only when having uncomfortably frank discussions about sex. “Pleasure” is what a couple explains they share when they eat out of each other’s diapers. “Pleasure” is the word you purr when you list your top five concert fucks to your grandchildren. Anyway, the word “pleasure” appears on the box of THE BETTER SEX GUIDE TO ANAL PLEASUREnine (9!) times.
The box also praises the host, Jack Morin, PhD., as “the world’s leading expert on anal eroticism.”
Almost every tape like this is produced by grifters and crazy people, so the first question a potential customer should ask is, “Is there a single way to prove these wild claims right or wrong?” If it’s a tape on witchcraft or picking the best dog, no. But in this case, yes, of course. You simply walk up to every other anal expert and say, “We each explore five butts; may the most erotic man win. WHO AMONG THE NEARBY WANTS TO GET PLOWED IN THE SPIRIT OF COMPETITION!?”
I’m having fun, but it turns out Jack fell into this role of, let’s call it U.N. Assmaster General, as a therapist in San Francisco where clients had a disproportionate number of anal eroticism questions. It may be entirely academic, but given his dedicated research, data collection, and clinical specialization, he might really be the world’s leading expert on anal eroticism, an absurd claim but awesome first date conversation starter.
In the spirit of this defying of expectations, the structure of my article will be this: I’ll give my initial reactions to each section of the video as an absurd piece of tone deaf pornography marketed as an instructional tape. This thing truly is weird as fuck. Then, after watching the entire 60 minutes plus the generous, lengthy behind-the-scenes featurette, I’ll add my Anal Hindsight, a section where we can compare my newfound butt wisdom with my first impressions. I’m making it sound more complicated than it is, but I am desperate for everyone to know this anal sex guide produced a segment just to show us everything that went into building a fake living room and pointing cameras at the fucking people.
Let’s get started!
The SINCLAIR Intimacy Institute’s logo swirls in while amateur saxophone music honks. It’s, anally speaking, the closest you can be to fart sounds and still count as music. It seems impossible so much care went into designing and animating this and no one ever said, “Maybe let’s try an anal sex production logo without the butt sounds.”
The SINCLAIR Intimacy Institute is basically a group of adult toy salesmen who market themselves as medical experts. They seem to specialize in very common sense advice, but worded a little more gently than the Important Safety Instructions on your butt plug.
This man with no broadcast skills comes on and hisses the words “IT’S HARD TO TALK ABOUT SEXsss.” With panic in his eyes, he scans each line of a dry cue card about the nature of eroticism. He’s the least erotic man I’ve ever seen and I’ve watched Gene Simmons eat a corndog. They probably cut the part where he said, “I was once Important Safety Instructions on a butt plug when the kiss of a lonely Top Amazon Reviewer brought me to life.” It would explain why he never says who the fuck he is or lists any qualifications. If Jack Morin is the “World’s Leading Expert on Anal Eroticism,” maybe this man, whoever he is, is “Cleveland’s Usedest Diarrhea Guy” to offer a counter perspective?
It turns out the man I guessed was Cleveland’s Usedest Diarrhea Guy, who “won’t be beat on yesterday’s and the day before’s loose poop!” is an executive with the SINCLAIR Intimacy Institute, and this was the best of 14 takes. They actually make fun of this in the behind-the-scenes featurette. His employees found him terrible at this unnecessary, unhelpful thing he hated doing and had no reason to hire himself for! He got humiliated in the high-production video he put up the money for! I understand the stakes are very low in the world of introducing anal sex videos, but it’s safe to say he failed much harder than should have been possible.
Let’s meet some of the other participants.
A couple things are made clear very quickly here. This video is going to include real couples sharing anal pleasure, and Ben and Karen aren’t comfortable with any of that. They kiss like two counselors putting on a heterosexual demonstration at Mike Pence’s Teen Camp for Demonic Possession and Gay.
This few seconds of an awkward kiss is basically all the Ben and Karen time we get. The SINCLAIR Intimacy Institute cut them almost entirely from the video. I think we’ve all discovered mid-anal that we may not have a ton of chemistry with a partner, but at least none of us have ever been declared “useless even for the purposes of education” like Ben and Karen.
Wendy and Mike, as is customary, exchange cute little gifts before they let strangers film their all anal action.
Wendy has only had two lovers in her life, which means she went from full virgin to cowgirl-riding a man with her asshole in front of a documentary crew in one step. Erotically speaking, this is like trying your first joint on Thursday night and carving “TU ERES EL SIGUIENTE” on a DEA agent’s body on Monday morning.
These two seem comfortable as hell. I get the feeling Judy and Chris have fucked in front of people before.
Of all the times they performed analingus on each other later, they never did anything to suggest I was wrong.
Here we meet Billy and Julie who seem to be going through a 1955 yearbook to see if Julie remembers Mort Krabheimer who Billy just received word had passed. Ahh, look at these pictures, they were chairman and treasurer of the Wichita High Wagon Burners Segregation Team, respectively. “I remember Mort,” contributes Julie.
I’m making these two sound sexier than they were. Billy has a dick game any medical examiner would describe as “multiple lacerations and stab wounds.” He fucks like he’s specifically trying to remove the lubricant from Julie’s colon in the least pleasant way possible. He fucks himself like that too. Every time the video mentions masturbation, you’re guaranteed to see a shot of Billy cranking off with the determination of the legendary frontier explorers he grew up with. He is a cranky, joyless elderly man and whoever said, “Let’s film him jerk off with crazy eyes and increasingly large things in his ass for hours,” should be arrested.
Eric brushes Wendy’s hair; they seem nervous yet excited. “I hope you brought that hairbrush from home, Eric!” I shout at the TV. He probably did and it’s a dumb joke, but I love this rush I feel from being smarter than the man untangling his wife’s hair with a brush he found at an anal photo shoot, even if he’s completely hypothetical.
They never do show the hairbrush go inside anybody’s butt, but you’re a fool if you think that proves it didn’t happen.
Leila and Charles seem to be going through some informative anal literature together. This is like a weekend project for them now that the garage is done. “Oh, it’ll never be DONE,” says Charles. Leila says nothing. She’s heard this joke too many times and has decided to stop encouraging it.
Charles is super square and very much in love, and he says things like, “We become more comfortable exploring each other’s bodies.” I get the sense Leila is way more than he can handle and this public butt stuff is a desperate way to seem adventurous. He was definitely hoping she wouldn’t see the flyers for this at their couples nude pottery workshop.
Chris and Lisa smooch over a game of mostly naked backgammon, which as a comedy writer would be on my short list of choices for most hilariously unsexy foreplay activity. Chris has the hairless build and bodyfat percentage of a toddler after his first haircut. He’s a slow, soft tube of quiet perversion and Lisa seems like she might be in danger.
Lisa explores Chris’ anus like they’re poorly supervised children playing scientist. And it seems like they play backgammon with Loser Gets Hit in the Head With a Shovel Rules. Chris takes butt fingers with all the enthusiasm and rigidity of a pillowcase full of warm shrimp. I’ll never be able to describe the theme of this video more artistically than Chris when he explains how he came to tolerate Lisa’s anal explorations. This is an exact quote:
We finally get to the main title card and a woman walks onto a living room set, does not introduce herself, and declares, “WELCOME. IN THIS PROGRAM WE WILL LOOK AT ANAL EROTICISM.” She delivers it like an actress playing a newscaster in a movie about undead snakes. And after rephrasing “In this program we will look at anal eroticism” many different ways, they show us her name is Jane Monreal (no medical or sexual qualifications listed). Here’s the thing: there are no shortage of out-of-work sex experts. I hire them off LinkedIn all the time to Skype in and tell me which objects in my office could replace a human vagina. It only costs like $1800. Plus, there’s also no Council For Truth in Erotic Claims. So if they didn’t want to hire a host with a real sex therapy background, they could have simply declared Jane Monreal “City Comptroller of The Butt.”
I made fun of how Jane Monreal sounded like a fake TV anchor before I found out she went on to be a Fox news reporter in Florida. Which means I stumbled backwards into a truly elegant joke. In the behind-the-scenes, the voiceover says she was chosen “because of her comfort level with the material and her professionalism” which implies the existence of at least some applicants who giggled the whole time Lisa fisted Chris.
Jane takes a seat on the set couch NOT for anal sex and robotically lists the variety of options in anal self-pleasure. The copy was written by someone who had to fill 8 minutes with information on anal pleasure and had no way of hiding they had 7 minutes less than that of butt knowledge. Suddenly, and holy shit, wait, no, what, it pans to a tilted monitor featuring a pornographic drawing and the words “A CRIME AGAINST NATURE.”
Jane does not mention this or even seem to know about it. She is still talking about the joy you can smash into your partner’s filthy hole while the video jumps right into the history of criminalized assplay.
I hope you’re ready to get sexy! Here’s a brief history of our Great Nation’s sodomy laws. It was illegal in some states, the ones you’d expect, and now here we are in 2003 where you can disguise a dildo advertisement as a beginner’s sodomy guide.
The vast majority of the video, about 45 of the 60 minutes, looks like this. Couples do things to their butt or the butt of their partner and an inset of Jack talks about the dos and don’ts of body cavity searches. There was no effort to time these two things together, so Chris might be getting beads pulled out of him while Jack talks about the importance of washing your rectum.
There’s a great moment where Chris takes a deep breath and signals Lisa his anus is ready for another finger, nodding to her like she’s a zipline guide and he’s sure he’s the bravest boy on the tour. Meanwhile, Jack is listing dozens of ways you can tell your partner you don’t want something in your butt. “Let’s wait. Let’s try external stimulation. Let’s do it another time…” You won’t be surprised by this, but a huuuuge amount of anal play education is teaching you ways to gently break it to your partner you’re not into anal play. We’re only ten minutes into this video and all I’ve really learned about butt stuff is that most cultures hate it and I can delicately explain to each of them how they’re right.
Let’s move on to the Anatomy section, or as Jane introduced it, “LET’S EXPLORE THE NATURE OF ANAL PLEASURE.“
This is, by any definition, hardcore full-penetration pornography. Still, it does a good job avoiding what you’d call “sexiness.” For one thing, Jack’s head is constantly floating near the genitals and saying things like, and I quote, “elimination is a key function of the anal area.” And each segment is broken up by a newscaster reading another bland cue card about how “rimming” is sweeping the nation. These are amateur couples terror-plowing one another in a deliberately clinical setting. I guess I don’t know the perfect tone for a video like this, but it’s definitely somewhere between this and “Hey, NASCAR fans, I’m professional driver Backdoor Larry– The Rocky Mountain Ass Man! And I’m here to show you and these lucky wet assholes how I lost my sponsors!”
Anal sex is one of those things that seems pretty intuitive, but once you start writing the instruction manual you realize there are a lot of bases to cover. So this man’s head is constantly floating there, rattling off butthacks as they occur to him. “The anus (shower first) contains many nerve clusters (and parasites), but you won’t be able to get to her vaginal sponge through it, so you’ll want to do some clitoral stimulation with your fingers (file your nails down) or a vibrating sex toy (available on the SINCLAIR Intimacy Institute’s world wide Website), and you will rupture something if you don’t relax (practice with a kegel regimen); remove all penises (or objects) slowly! Remember to smile! Communicate! This is fun, in my expert opinion we’re having fun!!!”
To drive home the pleasure part of all this anal pleasure, a big portion of the Anatomy section is watching Wendy clean the parasites and feces off her butt plugs. Speaking of, let’s move on to TOYS.
I’ve been a capitalist long enough to know a commercial when I see one, so I figure this section is going to hard sell me on some kind of “Anal Beginners Kit.”
“The full kit includes 22 ounces of water-based lubricant along with The Regular, The Coward, and The Coward For Her.”
These people spend a lot of time talking about sex toys, but no one -no one- is comfortable with it. This is the safest space anyone will have to discuss vibrating butt beads and they all act like they’re going to crack up or their parents might barge in. It’s so weird. Aside from everyone butt fucking on the same couch, no one involved had any idea what this thing should be.
Yes! There’s a whole title card just for INSERTION! And while we’re talking about the graphic design, we should really take a moment to appreciate the bold decision of THE BETTER SEX GUIDE TO ANAL PLEASURE to use the color scheme of an unflushed toilet. This is, no lie, the actual line I typed in my Notes app while watching this:
“INSERTION is brown still. Good, great choice. No notes on brown. This part is definitely going to be shots of people sticking things up their ass while the inset explains how gross and life-threatening that can be.”
I was right. This part was unpleasant and went over a lot of ground already covered with some of the cast’s less attractive sphincters. So now that we’re very, very, very educated on the mechanics of purchasing items and safely navigating our colon with them, let’s move on to SHARING PLEASURE.
The video seems like it was edited by someone who did not want to spend a lot of time looking at amateur anal, so these chapter titles are pretty meaningless. None of the footage has lined up with the advice and we’ve already seen every couple go at it several different ways. Which means the announcement that we’re about to SHARE PLEASURE comes as a shock– you mean, those people gazing into each other’s eyes while they fisted weren’t?
To be fair, Jack slightly changes his tone here from “you’re going to hurt yourself trying this” to “teach that butthole to sing.” Unfortunately, it seems like the director gave Billy “The Butcher Cock of Jackhammer Street” the note to add some tender communication to his lovemaking. He growls to his wife, “YOUR FINGERS FEEL SO GOOD, HONEY.” I hate it. I fucking hate it so much.
Charles, the man who seems very much a passenger in his sexual adventure with Leila lays down so she can place a pinky in his ass the same way a Subway employee might put a fallen pepperoncini back in your sandwich. He explains in the inset, “With her touching me there and kissing me there, it slowly is becoming kind of an erogenous zone.” He hates stuff in his ass as much as I hate Billy sweet talking through it.
There are definitely going to be some safety precautions in the ass eating section, so I think we’re done with the romance for a while.
Analingus is “popularly called rimming,” which helps demonstrate the gap between academic knowledge of sucking someone’s butt and practical understanding. These filmmakers are taking this raw, filthy thing done almost exclusively by people born after 9/11 and packaging it for elderly anthropologists. My point is, if I already have interest in putting ass in my mouth you don’t need to give me the “street name” for it, Jack.
Anyway, now that I’ve written 3000 words about THE BETTER SEX GUIDE TO ANAL PLEASURE, let’s move on to the final chapter.
ANAL INTERCOU– hold on. We are 42 minutes in, we’ve watched every cast member get plowed multiple times, and we’re only now starting the section on “ANAL INTERCOURSE?” At this point every viewer has a master’s level education in the field of Anal Intercourse. If I was in a taxi and had to perform anal intercourse on the way to the hospital, the headline would be, “COOL PASSENGER WOWS IN ASS FUCKING EMERGENCY.”
For twenty minutes, all we’ve learned comes together to create education magic. Each couple has graphic anal sex while an inset of them describes all the trust, cleaning, work, and communication that went into it. It’s exactly porn, but the performers were probably paid less, and you never stop feeling like an alien observing human mating behavior. I learned a few things, and it’s, without question, the most lavish butt plug commercial that will ever be filmed.
