Believe me, Meghan, I didn’t want you to find out this way. Discovering my vibrator in the “treasure box” under my bed while I was in the shower yesterday morning was not how I imagined your first introduction to mechanical self-stimulation would go. If I had it my way, I would protect your sweet innocence for as long as humanly possible and lie to you about sex for years and years, thereby making you feel like it must be something dirty and shameful. But now you’ve gone and found my little toy and all that’s out the window. So yes, Meghan, that is mommy’s vibrator. But, and I say this with the utmost respect, Meghan, given all the social media and cable television and YouTube videos available at the click of a mouse, I’m frankly just a little shocked that you’ve never seen a vibrator before.
Have you ever seen Girls? No? Maybe you’re old school and you watch Sex and the City. I don’t see how it’s possible that you have a computer in your room with no parental controls and you haven’t found all the sexually explicit shows available on Netflix already. What’s the point of giving you freedom and privacy and access to the Web if you’re not going to independently seek out answers to all of your questions about human sexuality, thereby exonerating me from the responsibility of having a frank discussion with you about it?
And seriously, I’ve taken you to Brookstone before. What did you think all those “personal massagers” were all about? They’re shaped like big old dicks. Dicks, Meghan – I’m sure you know what those look like. Did you really think that Hitachi wand was designed to ease the tension in your back? Grow up, Meghan. They’re for sexual self-stimulation. Frankly I’m just surprised you haven’t put it all together yet.
Okay, look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be yelling at you. You’re only five. How much experience and exposure can I imagine you’ve had to such things? Although – and this isn’t a judgment but simply an observation – your friend Pauline’s parents made some comment to me at a PTA meeting last year about how they would love to “play around with us” sometime and then Pauline’s father winked at me, so I’ve got to imagine that their bedroom is just loaded with weird sex toys. So forgive me if I’m a little incredulous that you haven’t once run across a simple vibrator in that split-level suburban sex den.
Okay, Meghan, please don’t cry. I’m sorry. Clearly you just haven’t had the exposure to mainstream sex toys that I’d imagined most children would have by the time they’re in kindergarten. Isn’t there some perverted little boy in your class who goes around pretending all the obelisk-shaped objects are phalluses? You know, a boy who holds a carrot to his crotch and runs around whacking people with it until the teacher has to give him a time-out and call his mother? What am I paying $20,000 a year for private school for if not for someone else’s child to pass on his naïve, misinformed, damagingly erroneous and misogynistic perceptions of sexuality to my daughter?
Sigh. It’s not your fault, Meghan. Mommy should have had a frank discussion with you about sex toys, auto-erotica, and fetish porn a long time ago. Mommy should have taken on that responsibility. Or hid her vibrator somewhere you couldn’t reach. With a lock. The point is mistakes were made, Meghan. Now do you want your cereal in your Dora or Elmo bowl?
