Four Terms for Sex Slang I Learned As An HIV Educator

Yeah, looking back over the past few entries - or maybe the past few dozen - I've realized it's been all work, no play. Although I've done my best to keep them inspirational, they've been somewhat somber and melancholy with their underlying tones of fear, loss, illness and heartache. So today, in an effort to provide "more funny AIDS" which Jon DeLeon has occasionally urged me to do, I give you this installment of the jimagery blog formatted in an homage to Cracked.com.

Now, before I dive in (no pun intended), I must tell you that 1) these are true stories, 2) there's definitely some NSFW material here (although the pics are PG-13 at worst) and 3) you may learn things that you never wanted to learn. If you're conservative, sheltered, missionary-positioned, or weak-stomached, you may want to hit the back button immediately because I was exposed to these terms over the course of ten years and you're going to get it all in about three minutes. But, if you know what "backdoor" means then you can probably keep reading. These are things which, throughout my many years as an HIV educator, I learned from teenagers. There I was, talking to them about sex and, low and behold, there they were teaching me a thing or two about sex in the 20th century. Like this moment when I was in front of a bunch of high school students and was taught the meaning of....

Jimmy Hat

This is the "Jimmy" I know.
And he aint' wearing no hat!

My days of educating others about HIV took me to the four corners of the world. Well, maybe not the four corners but it took me places. Most of which the world has probably never heard about... like Kansas City Missouri, Louisville Kentucky, Baker Oregon and Storrs Connecticut.

One of the more scenic cities on my travel itinerary was a little place called Cleveland, Ohio. Ah, yes, Cleveland. Where crime rates are high and venereal disease is a common Christmas gift. The public schools there were shit in the 90's. I don't know what they're like now but, back in those days, I would walk into a classroom and paint would be peeling off the walls. The radiators (yes, they had friggin' radiators in their classrooms) would be doing one of two things: 1) not working at all or 2) pouring out enough steam to turn the pages of their textbooks into recyclable mulch. But the city is home to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame which makes it a fine place to visit - for about two hours. And only if you're a Bruce Springsteen fan.

So there I was in Cleveland, rolling a condom down a banana (it was listed in my job description - I had to do it... I swear!) and one of the students said, "I ain't never seen a Jimmy Hat used like that!"

Um, what?

I think part of my confusion came from the fact that growing up I was known as "Jimmy." So when she said "Jimmy Hat," my first thought was, "I'm not wearing a hat." I didn't start doing that until well into my thirties when the hair loss became almost embarrassing. I mean, I was rolling a condom onto a not-so-phallic looking banana. So I had no idea where "Jimmy" or "Hat" figured into this equation.

Yes, this is how we demonstrated condom use.

But, being the best educator I could be, I tried to reach out and learn the slang of the youth of the day. So I was honest and said, "I've never heard that before - what's a 'Jimmy Hat'."

To my surprise (and chagrin), a "Jimmy Hat" was slang for a condom. And, in my very fast moving, problem-solving, deductive mind, I quickly realized that if that term was slang for a condom then "Jimmy" was slang for... yeah. Penis. C*ck. Baloney Pony. Hot Beef. Schlong.

My childhood nickname meant I was a D*ck. Well played, ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends. Very well played, indeed.

Teabagging

Do you know this one? It's gone mainstream, so there's a good chance that you do. But back in the day, I didn't hear it until I was working on a video for high school students in Connecticut. It was 1996 or 1997 or 1998. Don't remember exactly but I do remember that's the first time I heard this particular term.

Now, to be honest, there were no students present during the filming of this educational video so, although I learned this as an HIV Educator, I didn't learn it from a teen. During production, a black curtain was draped behind us as we sat in a very uncomfortable chair for two or three hours. An interviewer asked us some very personal questions, many of which were of a sexual nature, and we were supposed to respond with answers that were "suitable for a teenage audience."

Probably the least sexual thing you could imagine, right?

Okay, I can do that... talk about sex without getting graphic... and get paid for it!

Oh, but I digress - I didn't learn the term during my interview. No, it was during another of the interviewee's sessions. I was sitting on the sidelines. He mentioned "teabagging." I had to ask him afterward what it meant. But I didn't catch him right away as I was up on camera next. So I had to wait 'til later that night when an opportunity presented itself.

Not everyone gets it
right the first time.

Sorry folks. Told you this was NSFW. Probably NSFF (Not Safe For Friends) either. But what the hell... put it out there and see what happens, right?

So there I was in the same little bed & breakfast (the Tolland Inn, if you're curious) as the other participants when one of them invites me to their room for a glass of wine and a soak in the hot tub. My room was nice but it had no hot tub. And I was curious as to what "teabagging" meant. Again, I was enlightened as he explained that it meant "Dipping your testicles into the open mouth of another person. Kind of like dipping a tea bag in and out of a cup of water." (Okay, that's not the exact verbiage he used... I just stole that from Urban Dictionary).

Soaking, bubbling, pruning, and pouring plenty of wine, my companion suddenly asked if I would be willing to "teabag" him. What the what?!?!!?

First, that is NOT a seductive move. Mostly because you can't assume everyone knows what that term means. Especially those like me who, at the time (c'mon, I was 25!) were very sexually naive. Second, that's what you consider foreplay? There are many better options available - can we try one of those other things first then move onto this wackiness you've named after a bag of dried herbs?

To say the least, the teabagging incident left both of us wanting. Me, wanting to go directly back to my room. Him, wanting to go shrivel up into nothingness like his own little teabags under the covers on his bed.

(And, by the way, his bit was cut from the final edit. You can watch the final video here.)

Rainbow (or Roman) Showers

I have to be honest. I'm embarrassed to even share this one. To this day, I can't believe I even know what it means - and it's one of those things that will haunt you forever. And (hopefully) you'll never be asked to participate in. Thankfully, I've never been asked. But I did learn what it meant...

So maybe you've heard the phrase "Golden Showers" before. It's crept it's way into Hollywood movies and Comedy Central skits. But I'm going to go on a limb and say you've probably never heard of a Rainbow Shower - probably can't even come close to guessing what it is.

Ahhhhh, rainbows... the stuff of unicorns and pots of gold and leprechauns and Dorothy and Oz. Sounds so... magical.

Oh, but don't be fooled my friends. This has nothing to do with those fantasies, although it does have a fantasy element. I first heard of this one when I was in California - a group of students I was speaking to in San Diego I think. Although it would have been much more expected from a San Francisco or New York audience. As described in the Urban Dictionary, a "Rainbow Shower" is sexual vomit play. I'm thinking Rainbow may have the chosen descriptor because vomit can be so colorful after a night of drinking orange wine coolers and kiwi-strawberry Mad Dog 20/20?!?! This fetish may also be referred to as a "Roman Shower." The Roman element I guess dates back to the days of emperors like Caligula. There were Corinthian columns and Dionysus and feasts and orgies and vomitoriums so you could purge then binge again. They must have rolled all that stuff into one and got the vomit mixed up with the feasts and orgies at some point. I won't go into any more detail but let's just say that thank all of those gods that you've never experienced it... because, like  me, you'd probably benefit most from avoiding it altogether. Especially the Double Rainbow.


Tossing Salad

Who would've thought lettuce could be sexual?!??

Now, what good is a little blurb on the extreme's of sexual acts as learned through conversations with high-school students than the oh-so-yummy sounding salad tossing?

This took place in Lousville, Kentucky. I was giving my regular spiel. You can get herpes and syphillis and gonorrhea and chlamyidia and HIV through these unsafe sexual practices. Then, a young woman - it was a twelfth grade classroom so I hope she was 18 - raises her hand to ask a question.

"Can you get any of those things from having your salad tossed?"

The entire room, aside from the teacher and myself, burst out laughing.

Okay, we old folks were missing something. And, by old, I mean I was 27 at the time. But we were about to learn because....

...I did what I always did at the time. I asked. "What is that?"

One of the guys in the front row, still laughing his ass off, speaks up and says, "It's eating her butt!"

And he was right. Supposedly, the term was coined from prisoners who practiced this act and used Ranch salad dressing to cover the taste of....

Well, I think you understand.

Okay. I'd learned enough now. Bill Cosby hosted that show, "Kids Say The Darndest Things." I bet he never interviewed these students though.

HIV education was my contribution to the greater good - my way of saving the world as a young, naive twenty-something guy - but it was also teaching me more than I'd ever wanted to know about sex. Even more than that best-seller Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask. No, these things would be better suited for a more contemporary title Everything You Could Never Imagine About Sex And Wouldn't Even Think To Ask. Maybe I've become more adventurous in the bedroom since then. Or maybe not. If the latter, it's probably because of the things like this that those oh-so-enlightened students passed on to me kept me from ever venturing into unknown territories when doing the horizontal mambo.

Now, I think I'm going to Rainbow Shower all over myself.

(I warned you not to read it.)