Tag Archives: tabooistic subject

Children’s Alternative Acronym for the MCAS – Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: College student
Residence: Sudbury, Massachusetts
Language: English

Text:

Massachusetts Child Abuse System (MCAS)

Context:

The MCAS is a standardized test in Massachusetts that stands for Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System. The informant, who is from Sudbury, Massachusetts, took it throughout their time at school. Every child is required to take this test in grades 3rd-8th and 10th. It covers English language and math in all years; science in 5th, 8th, and 10th; and civics in 8th. Passing this test in 10th grade is a requirement to graduating and if a child fails, they have to retake it in 11th grade. The informant heard this nickname for the test through previous generations of students at their school. They used this term with their friends as they talked about not liking the test and bonded over a shared dislike of standardized testing. The informant finds this nickname funny and it’s primary use was as a joke.

Analysis:

Children are obviously not going to enjoy a standardized test but the severity of the language chosen reflects just how much they hate it. In this case, kids are slightly exaggerating their anger at a standardized test because they are aware that it isn’t child abuse but it still shows an extreme level of annoyance. Child abuse is a very heavy topic that children are dissuaded from discussing. Children’s interest in a subject generally goes up based on how much they are told to avoid it. Making jokes surrounding a topic is an easy way to access it in a safe way. It allows children to explore a difficult concept without any real risk to themselves or others. They are simultaneously using it as a way to talk about a topic that they aren’t supposed to.

Children want to rebel against adults when they can because adults control almost every aspect of a child’s life. When they have the opportunity to break away from that control, they take it. This isn’t contained to just children, any group that lacks control over their lives looks for ways to subvert the powerful. One way that is commonly used is jokes, such as this. Jokes are a way to go against what you are told to think or feel or, in this case, told to not think or feel. Jokes can be counter hegemonic and allow kids in this case to regain some power in their lives. This acronym translation is an example of how children exaggerate their annoyance with adult control over their lives, rebel against those adults, and use tabooistic topics within jokes as a way of exploring them.

Discrete Ways Men Reference Masturbation

Informant Context: The informant is a 20-year-old white male from Riverside, California.

Conversation Transcript: 

Collector: “I am exploring tabooistic vocabulary around masturbation. For men, are there any phrases or gestures you use to reference male masturbation?”

Informant: “I mean, when I’m talking to my boys I’ll straight up just say ‘jerk off’ and be more explicit. Sometimes I will do this–“

The Informant cups his hand it into a cylindrical shape, then moves it up and down. The gesture aims to demonstrate male masturbation.

Informant: “–and say ‘yank one out’ or ‘beating your meat’. Meat is just another word for your penis.”

Analysis: I was not surprised by the tabooistic vocabulary the informant shared about male masturbation. Those phrases and gestures are commonly used in our age demographic. What did surprise me was how openly the informant discussed masturbation. He said around peers, he is not afraid to explicitly talk about the activity. When it comes to people outside his peer group or age bracket, he avoids talking about it all together.

Row Your Boat Parody; Swim Ye Sperm

Informant was a teacher of sixth grade science for several years at a private, US K-12 school in the South.

Swim, swim, swim you sperm
From the testicles
to the epididymis
and onto vas deferens
Snack, snack, snack you sperm
on the sweets galore
From the seminal vesicle
not the grocery store
On, on, on you go
through the donut hole,
the prostate press
shoots you out
It is the great escape! 
(last line preformed as goodness what a mess, but when dictated out loud this was the last line used)
Swim, Swim, Swim Ye Sperm Preformed

Informant created this parody of row, row, row your boat for her sixth grade science classes when they learned the reproductive system. Her goal was to ease some of the awkwardness of the subject of genitals for middle school students by having them sing a silly, goofy song to both help them remember the reproductive system and to normalize the discussion of the topic. The other teacher that taught sixth grade students did not teach their students the song, so it became an identifiable marker of who was or was not in the informant’s class or associated with her. Additionally, because the song was so absurd, students often remembered the informant by this song she taught them.

As the informant’s daughter and with features that bare resemblance to her, I would be approached by random students several times throughout my years at the school she taught at. They would ask “Are you [informant]’s daughter?”, and when I replied that I was, they would explain that they were in her sixth grade science class and still remembered the song she taught them and then they would sing it to me.

The American School System has a long history of lacking when it comes to sexual education. Many students’ sex education can be summed up by the word “abstinence”. Although the private school this song was taught at did not have an extensive or even satisfactory sex education, it did have material covering the reproductive systems of males and females and how they worked individually. The conservative approach to the discussion of sex, sexual organs, and sexuality leads to those subjects being taboo both in school and outside of it. The informant’s use of a well know song to ground the subject in something well known and her parodying it with a subject rarely discussed provide a medium by which her students could comfortably and socially acceptably learn and talk about the reproductive systems that were taboo up until that time in their lives. She would sing the song to them first before they had to do it with her to ease tension and let them know it was okay to say or sing all of those words in her class. The need for such a song is indicative of the long standing taboo treatment of sex.