How Big Mouth’s “Shame Wizard” Still Shows Up When You Eat Plan B For Dinner
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Damn, did you just buy three boxes of Raisinets and every flavor of Orbit gum at the register to “distract” your visibly high, and completely unattentive teen cashier from your main purchase?
OK, so you spent the last couple of hours at this guy’s house and it was all fun and good. He was, generally speaking, a nice person. And he wanted to go out for dinner afterward or something. But you couldn’t really take your eyes off his bookshelf when you were putting your clothes back on, because it only consisted of 48 Laws of Power and several Eminem biographies. He was nice, but he isn’t for you. It was just a hook-up, something everyone does, all the time. So why did you spend the entire Uber ride contemplating your own existence?
Oh my god. What if the condom broke? How would you know? Are you pregnant? That would be hilarious. Actually, that wouldn’t be funny in the slightest. You don’t want to tell your maybe future child that their father was just a right-swipe on Tinder on some random weekend. You get out of the car, run to Walgreens like a weirdo, and get a box of the trusty, emergency contraceptive that really needs to start doing Groupon deals. And you go home, pour yourself a glass of water (or your very cheap wine! did you know that alcohol has no effect on contraceptives?), and have Plan B for dinner.
Remember the “Shame Wizard” from Big Mouth? That floating ghoul with two different colored eyes that shows up whenever the kids are doing something he thinks they should be humiliated by? He shames them for acting on their urges and engaging in any sexual behavior. But to make things worse, he specifically targets the girls on the show and slut-shames them. He makes Missy feel bad about masturbating and does the same to Gina for letting her crush touch her. Meanwhile, Andrew was the one doing actual weird stuff like jerking off to someone’s bathing suit. During his friend’s family’s pool party. Big Mouth shows us the double standard we already know.
The Shame Wizard definitely shows up in your adult life if you’re a woman. We are inherently taught from a young age to make ourselves smaller, quieter, and not be or do “too much”. Yeah, your guy friends can just casually and publicly talk about random sexual experiences they had and it’s deemed as funny and cool, but that might not get the same reception if you or any of your girlfriends did the same. Or maybe that’s not true, and you feel bad all on your own about having sex because you were just raised to feel ashamed about any natural, completely human urges you have. Especially if you grew up in a strict, religious household. The guilt can feel insane, and sometimes even take over you.
So when you’re eating Plan B for dinner, (ok, obviously you’re going to seamless yourself drunken noodles after) and the Shame Wizard shows up, floating around in your tiny apartment and hissing at you, just remember that you’re a bad bitch and you can do whatever you want. Whatever patriarchal, slut-shaming bullshit was the norm is on its way to being a thing of the past. And Rabbi Poblart said it best when Andrew asked, “Rabbi Poblart, what does Torah say about sin?”. “My dear Andrew, what’s a sin is the parking situation at the synagogue.” So remember, it’s completely fine for you to have sex as little or as much as you want, whether it’s with your partner of six years or someone you met last week. What’s immoral is bad parking situations.