C was aware of this resemblance, and brought it up first.  “I have nothing against vibrators and dildos,” she said.  “I’ve got a bunch.  They’re great!”  A little more evidence for the “not involved with anyone” theory.  Plus her openness in talking about such things with two strangers was appealing.

I agreed:  “Sometimes you just want to get off.  I know what that’s like!”  B and his friends turned from their football talk, looked at us for a second, then turned back.  C laughed and said she agreed, then turned to Jack and said she hoped he wasn’t offended by frank sexual discussion.

“Not at all,” he said with a smile, the same smile that had gotten me wet many times.  “I don’t get threatened.”

Rather than continuing with the present line of discussion, and maybe from there talking about which specific toys she’s used and had fun with, and for that matter explaining the benefits of non-vibrating dildos, something I don’t know very much about, she instead went on talking about Yo Gabba Gabba!  “I just don’t think that sex toys should be characters on kids’ shows.”  We laughed.  She continued:  “You know what’s the worst?  That purple dinosaur.  I’m not even going to say his name.”

We both hate Barney.  Our daughter has never watched him, and will hopefully live out her entire childhood never knowing how much he sucks.  Jack told C of our mutual disgust and hatred of Barney.  “I used to work with kids when Barney was big,” he said.  “Every single one of them loved him.  If I go the rest of my life without hearing that stupid ‘I Love You’ song, I’ll die very happy.”

“I hated the Teletubbies,” she said.  “My eldest always wanted to watch them.”

“Yeah, that was another show that was huge when I worked with kids,” he said.  “The worst thing about it is the fact that they didn’t make any sense.  The best children’s shows always have some intelligence to them so that parents who get stuck watching with their kids don’t get bored.”

“No!” she said excitedly.  “That’s not the worst thing about the Teletubbies.  I didn’t like the baby talk, but the worst thing was the one with the purse.”  Although I hoped that I was completely wrong, I could sense where this was going.  I didn’t look at Jack’s face, but I could picture his expression, undoubtedly the same as my own.  It was the same expression I might have as I watched an imminent train wreck.  When C spoke again, the train plowed into a gasoline tanker stalled on the railroad tracks, exploding loudly and spectacularly into a roaring fireball that could be seen from miles around:  “Homosexuality is wrong, and I am going to teach my kids that it is wrong.”  By this point Jack was looking over his shoulders and in all directions, probably to see if he was on Candid Camera.  She crossed her arms in front of her chest and went on, but by this time our built-in stupidity protection had kicked in and neither of us could hear the words coming out of her ignorant mouth.  It’s for this reason that we haven’t been able to hear the audio feeds of the GOP debates this fall.

After a few more seconds, we both stood up and excused ourselves.  We walked back into the house, where the sounds of more intelligent discussion filled our ears.  Dinner was about to be served, and while we waited we found some new people to talk to.  Eventually C came back into the house, and we realized that she wasn’t anywhere near as hot as we thought she was.  It was either the dim light cast by the jack-o-lanterns she was sitting under, or else the horrible narrow-minded crap that came out of her mouth.

Neither Jack nor I consider ourselves politically correct.  We spent a couple hours at a Starbucks with friends the other night talking (probably too loud) about our visit to a sex club.  We espouse opinions that might be considered unpopular.  We don’t always censor ourselves, and we insist that society not try to censor us either.  Anything that we say or do that might be considered politically correct (or for that matter politically incorrect) we do not because it’s popular or trendy or to get a reaction, but because it we feel that it is morally right.

We’ve got a lot of gay friends.  There were three lesbian couples at our wedding and a fourth couldn’t attend.  Our tolerance for LGBT individuals (and I hate using the word “tolerance” to describe acceptance for normal things that shouldn’t cause revulsion in mature, intelligent human beings) comes less from a desire to be seen as fashionable and more from our dislike of discrimination of any kind.

When we left the party hours later, we laughed about the ignorance we witnessed.  We laughed not because it was funny, as it most certainly was not amusing in the slightest.  We laughed the way we might laugh after narrowly-avoiding a car accident or other serious mishap.  We didn’t even wait until we got back to our car.  As soon as we were down the walkway, we both let loose.  The release of tension after holding in what we’d experienced was cathartic.

What really struck us, though, was the confidence with which she said it.  There was no, “I’m sorry, but…”  No “You guys are probably going to think I’m backwards and homophobic, but…”  She just assumed that we were on the same page and unburdened herself.  Her tirade was almost admirable in its ignorance.  This level of close-mindedness is rare, though not refreshing.  In this day and age it must be difficult to be an unapologetic hatemonger.

We appreciate all of our lurkers, followers and regular commenters.  I think most of you are open-minded, sex-positive people and think along the same lines that Jack and I do.  But if you feel as C does, you have our permission to stop following us and look elsewhere for your reading pleasure.

-Jill