Can't Private Parts Be Kept More Private?

OK. I’ll just say it.

The Vagina Monologues.

Well, at least I can write the words about that play in Boston. I certainly can’t say them. I know it’s not just me. Really – don’t you feel uncomfortable hearing intimate words all over the place?

Now they’ve got this Vagina ad on the radio. Tell me. Why is it that we never hear these things when we’re by ourselves?

Remember the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings? I watched them on TV in my parents’ living room with lots of family around.

“ . . .  hairs on the Coke can,” the commentator said. I hope you know which hairs I mean. I just can’t say it.

“What hairs?” my 84-year-old father said. None of the 15 people there answered.

“What’s for dinner?” I asked Mom, my face red hot.

“Tongue,” she stammered. “No  . . .  no tongue!” She attempted to compose herself. “I mean brisket,” she said, her face looking hotter than mine.

“WHAT HAIRS?” Dad repeated, louder. We all pretended he wasn’t there.

Then we had to hear about the Long John Silver analogy. Please don’t ask me to explain. Use your imagination. I guarantee you’ll be right.

“LONG WHAT?” Dad yelled from his favorite Archie Bunker style chair.

My entire family left the room en masse, like one big swarm of fruit flies. I was alone with my father.

“Well, Dad  . . .  this hair  . . .  ”

“A federal case about a hair?”

“And, um  . . .  Long (cough) Silver was  . . . ” 

“What’s with the cough? Are you sick?”

“Yes!” I ran out of the room coughing.

Last week, my husband Bob and I saw the movie “Ali” starring Will Smith. The love scenes, though not explicit, were explicit enough. I whispered to Bob, “How can they show this?”

“Everybody has sex,” Bob whispered. “YOU have a problem.”

“Everybody picks their ears. Do I have to see it on the screen?” The couple in front of us moved 2 rows away.

“Sex is a part of the story,” Bob said.

“Right. We really need to see Ali sweating in bed to understand the finer points of the film - his existential angst about life, his  . . .  ”

“Shhhhhh,” the man behind me said.

Call me an infantile bonehead. Call me sexually dysfunctional. (OK. Call me both. Why should you be any different?) But when I’m with our lawyer signing second mortgage papers, I don’t want to hear about vaginas on his radio, so to speak.

It’s not about intimacy. It’s just that often the least intimate act, in the movies as well as in real life, is sex.

In “Ali” there was a scene where the camera showed only the hands of Ali and his new bride. They were just touching fingers. This, to me, was the sexiest moment of the movie.

And finally, what is it with entertainers like Michael Jackson grabbing themselves while dancing? I don’t know about you, but although I love watching his Fred Astaire caliber moves, thinking about Michael Jackson’s crotch makes me nauseous.

And so, this Mother’s Day, which would I prefer? Watching a movie with let’s say - Denzel Washington - going through the motions in one raunchy love scene after another, or would I prefer receiving a sweet lace-trimmed card with deep heartfelt thoughts of love?