Dumb Questions

I was reminded this week of a very funny and perhaps unfortunate story that happened when I was a therapist in training. The way I came to think about it was that one of my students came to me rather sheepishly and blushing, said, "I have a really dumb question that I'm afraid to ask you."
It seems that students think I have always known what I know now, and have always had a sense of self-confidence. I haven't. My student heard this story:

When I was in my first year of therapist training, my supervisor told me one day--not asked, but told me--that I'd be giving a talk on safer sex to a group of pre-teen gang wannabes. What an appalling idea, from a girl who had grown up very sheltered and who had had very little sexual contact with anyone. I think my actual response was, "I'd rather be thrown to lions." Because I came from a nursing background, he felt that I would have more credibility than he would. I hardly thought so. He was cool and the member of a minority group--as were most of the gang group members. I was White, uninitiated in gang life, naive, and I didn't know what kinds of words they used in their world to describe sexual acts. No matter. My supervisor handed me a pamphlet. "Everything you need to know is in this booklet. It's really good. You can do this--I know you can."
Well, I didn't know anything of the kind.

I took the pamphlet home and so anxious was I, that I never bothered to fully read it, or the title, or anything else about it. It was important to find the right words--the street words--that I could use and not be laughed at. I could just imagine myself saying words like vagina, intercourse, ejaculation, and see them howl in derision of me. I just couldn't take that. But I didn't feel that I could use vulgar language, either. Just thinking about it made me more anxious. As I leafed through the booklet, I kept seeing the word, works. It's your works that infect other people. Wash yourself well, especially your works, with chlorox after contact. Wow! So that's how they refer to genitalia, I thought. I never heard that before! Well, whatever.

A couple days later, I sat at the head of a conference room table holding a condom in one hand and my notes in the other. They looked at me warily. I just knew what they were thinking: What does this woman think she's gonna tell us that we don't already know? What indeed. They had probably had more sex at age 14 than I could even dream of, and I was 30! They began squirming and looking at each other with those knowing looks that make older people feel like fools.

"How many of you know how to use one of these?" I held up the condom. Snorts and dismissive noises all around. I'd have to hit them with some fact that would get their attention and respect. "Listen you guys, did you know that if you're having sex without protection that there are things you can do to keep from getting infected with AIDS?" I'd get to the heart of my message right then and there. "The public health people tell us that if you're not going to use a condom, you have to wash yourself with chlorox after you have unprotected sex." The guy sitting closest to me drew back in shock, his eyes squinting at me as though I were an alien. "Chlorox!" he repeated. "Yes," I said with authority. If you aren't going to be safe, you will have to wash your privates with chlorox to be sure there aren't any germs on you." There. I had them, even though I wasn't using the right words. They sat silently regarding me with a mixture of surprise and fear. "But chlorox..." one guy said.

I don't remember much else from that experience. My supervisor told me that I did a really fine job, even though I groaned about how mortified I was to have to talk to these tough little guys about condoms and sex. He said I was great. He must have been asleep.

Nine years later I had just moved to the Midwest to get my PhD. As I was unpacking my boxes of stuff into my new digs, I came across a pamphlet entitled, "Safety for needlesharing partners." I had no idea that I even had such a book. I leafed through it absentmindedly. Half way through, I had to turn it upside down because the other half of the book was entitled "Safer sex for teenagers." Then it hit me. When my supervisor gave me the book I was so anxious that I never noticed that there were two completely different topics discussed. Of course, "works" refer to needle paraphernelia--I knew that. But why didn't I pick that up back years ago? As I sat on the floor of my new apartment by the closet, putting away all those old papers, I had the fantasy of a bunch of young boys in Southern California with bleached pubic hair. "But she said to use Chlorox!"

The moral of this story? Everyone has dumb questions and some dumb questions could save the reproductive health of our clients! The second thought is that it's a good thing to be able to laugh at yourself. Some of us have more to laugh about than others.
Oh, and get your facts straight. I'm still working on that one.