People often ask me how I find topics to write about for Your Sexy Librarian™ blog posts. The answer is very simple as I am inspired by everyday life. My partner, my brother and my closest friends will often email or text me various links to sex- or taboo-related internet posts they think will interest me. Friends flood my facebook account with an incredible amount of sex-related chatter; my suggested feeds are mostly all about sex now. Even my mother will jot down something she saw or read about that she thinks would make a good subject for me to research.
I scan news tickers on television news programs, tune in to health-related broadcasts, read newspaper articles and books about sexual health and sexual issues and scan pharmaceutical literature (required reading for my day job) for ideas as well. Morning radio shows provide me with little blog gems from time to time. I love using Google for idea-gathering as well.
Other people, oftentimes newly introduced to me, are a wealth of ideas. At networking events, after people find out what I write about, they sometimes whisper things like, “I’m poly.” or “I married a transgender man.” or “I struggle with an eating disorder.”
This week’s blog is all about a recent Saturday night my partner and I shared with some of our closest friends. We hosted our first party together as a couple, which was a pivotal moment in our relationship as it was the first time we introduced our individual friends to each other. We carefully selected the party guests, debating whom would blend together nicely while making homemade pizzas before playing a rousing “party game for horrible people” for several hours.
Cards Against Humanity (CAH) drips with sexual innuendo, encourages political incorrectness and pushes the envelope on what is acceptable to say out loud in mixed company. There are answer cards that specifically reference sexual acts, such as “reverse cowgirl” and “pixelated bukkaki.”
The bukkaki card is one of my favorite cards as it reminds me of an awesome moment spent with my mom. She joined me, one of my best friends from college, my friend’s new husband and several of their friends for a game of CAH during my friend’s after-wedding celebration. The deal I made with all of the players at the beginning of the game was that if this card came into play, someone other than me would explain the card’s meaning to my mom. My friend’s new husband had the joy of explaining that while I left the room. My mother told me she was not embarrassed by the term and that she was too busy trying to keep a straight face while the poor guy blushed a deep pink and looked to the ceiling while explaining “bukkaki” to her. After this CAH game, my mother has been known as the “Coolest. Mom. Ever.”
Let’s return to the Saturday night to remember. The night started when my partner asked everyone in the room, a total of nine, when was each person’s last bowel movement. I knew this was question would be asked as it is one of the few rules of CAH: “the person who pooped last starts the game.” The other eight people all looked slightly shocked, with a few open-mouthed reactions that reminded me of goldfish fresh out of water. No one would answer, leaving my partner to work backwards through time from hour to hour until finally it was declared that my partner pooped last and the game could begin.
Every player picks ten white answer cards to get started. The person who pooped last starts the game by selecting a black question card. There are CAH question cards that can be flipped quickly into a sexual situation depending on the answer cards played in response.
For example, a guest pulled the question card of “Why am I sticky?” All nine answers played made that question a rather sexual one without fail. Then there were the questions cards of “Help me, doctor! I have _________ stuck in my butt!” and “What is my new safeword?” The stickiness was the result of “tentacle porn,” someone had “Samuel L. Jackson” stuck in her butt and “struggle snuggles” is the newest safeword du jour.
CAH contains answer cards that will always be viewed as racist, such as “the KKK,” or that will cause a noticeable reaction no matter when played, such as “the Holocaust.” Cards exist that poke fun of celebrities, such as “Oprah sobbing into a Lean Cuisine.” or the card that casts doubt on M. Night Shyamalan’s skill as a screenwriter. (I cannot remember the exact wording, but it always makes me think of “The Village.”) Then there are the equal opportunity offender cards guaranteed to offend someone in the room, such as “the black half of Barack Obama” and the “white half of Barack Obama.” CAH even makes fun of itself with the answer card that is something along the lines of “a bunch of idiots sitting around playing a card game instead of interacting like real people.”
What makes CAH amazing and wonderful is not its inappropriateness, but the human interaction that occurs during game play. There is a barrage of uncontrollable laughter and a great deal of witty banter between players. The object of the game is to get to know fellow players well enough to predict which answer card in an individual’s hand is best suited for the personality and preferences of the player asking the question in each round of card play.
In our game over the weekend, we hosted a practical gentleman who always chose the literal answer during his question round and the wild card lady who picked what made her laugh the most with the rest of the players running in between those two personalities. One player would not play an answer if she deemed it “too inappropriate” while another player would only hand out outlandish answers. One man would sometimes read his answers with theatrical flair, making the rest of us laugh out loud at even a lame answer. One woman always read answer cards quietly and would start laughing before reading the most highly inappropriate cards in her answers. Another guest would sometimes wait to read her chosen answer last in each round, announcing “for the win…” prior to reading the winning card.
CAH is marketed as a “party game for horrible people,” but I disagree with that statement. This game connects individuals to one another as they all journey down a path of temporary inappropriateness together that is, at times, the funniest thing one has heard so far in the game. At least until the next round is played!
XOXO,
