food analogies!

As a sophomore at an all-girls Catholic high school, I walked into my morality class one morning to find the following phrase written on the blackboard:

"Sex is like frosting."

It wasn't the first time I'd heard it -- the analogy, brainstormed by morality teacher Patty O'Brien, was virtually a legend at our school. You heard sly references to it from the first day you stepped foot on campus until the day you graduated.

What did it mean? That just as you use spoonfuls of frosting to cover up a cake's flaws, sex is used to cover up the underlying problems in a relationship.

Naturally, the lesson was supposed to contribute to our pro-abstinence education. But it really just resulted in people making a whole bunch of obscene sounds whenever there was birthday cake involved.

Oh well. At least I'm blogging about the experience 10 years later, so I guess Mrs. O'Brien wasn't that crazy after all.