Here’s a poem I drafted quite a while ago, I think, while I was still teaching, that I was too hesitant about publishing, not necessarily because of the subject matter, but because this classroom inspired story was too recent, too close, and I might have been gun shy as the result of an earlier experience of blog-blowback regarding a student’s classroom shenanigans, even though the student in question remained anonymous. This occasion here, I think, was the last time I taught this novel by Sherman Alexie called The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. I’ve taken another stab at this poem, revised it some, and grew a pair–which, now that I reflect on it, is totally beside the point. This is only a provocative poem if you’re pro-censorship. Or anti-masturbation, I suppose.
Masturbation is not a thing,
or at least, some people
wish it was not,
like the parent who objects
to his child reading
The Absolutely True Diary
of a Part-Time Indian
because the narrator is
honest about self-pleasure.
There’s a whole
3/4 of a page or so
in the novel
where the narrator says
he admits to masturbating
and even that
he likes it. He thanks
God for his thumbs.
And then he immediately
transitions to something
more deadly and serious,
the fact that his high school
on the reservation
has not purchased
new books for its students
in over 30 years.
So the parent agrees
to allow their child
to read the book as long
as they don’t
read the side-splittingly
funny offending passage.
And to appease this parent,
I will send this student
to the library with an
expurgated chapter and
she will come back
to the classroom once she
has read it.
Her friends will wonder
where she was and
why she left the room.
They will likely tell
the student about
the funny passage she missed
where the narrator, after saying
he’s turned on by the isosceles triangle
but has to prove to us
he still likes female curves
by confessing how good
he is at masturbating
to naked lady pictures,
will throw a book at his teacher
because he is
so angry that his textbook
is 30 years old.
I’m sure the masturbating
details will get more air-time
than the book-throwing detail,
and the student
who missed that passage
because she was sheltered
in the library will likely
go back and read that passage
anyway because her friends
tell her how funny it is,
and then the parent’s efforts
to shelter his child
will have been thwarted
by that thing teenagers
do that some parents
wished they didn’t do:
they talk.
And they share funny stories.
And they curse like sailors
in the hallway.
And they talk about sex
and maybe even admit
to each other that they
masturbate.
And I wonder what parents
intend to protect
their children from.
Is it the reality that kids do,
in fact, sometimes or often,
pleasure themselves?
The embarrassment
around that fact?
The suggestion that maybe
because this fictional character
does it, their children
might be somewhat inspired
to do it too? Maybe
it’s not about protecting
the child at all, but rather
about protecting themselves
from the reality that their
sweet young child of 15 years
will do this thing,
has done this thing,
or does this thing more often
than they would like to admit.
It’s too terrible to
imagine, as it was too terrible
for many of us to imagine
our own parents, not only
masturbating, but making love.
Yes, for these parents
the conclusion must and always be
that masturbation is not a thing.
michael jarmer 