Thought of the Day: “Personal Fears:Anonymous Box”

We had this class back in high-school called Family…something or rather. It was bascially sex-ed except that they had to show a condom being put over two fingers instead of over a dildo where the anatomy makes some kind of sense. One of the greatest things about the class (and I’ve seen it repeated in similiar classes since) was a box left outside the class at all times for anonymous questions. The idea is pretty simple. Anyone with a question could write it out on some torn up bit of paper and put it in the box anonymously. At the start of each week, the teacher would go through the questions in front of the class, and we’d discuss the issue till everyone felt pretty comfortable about it.

For a class like that, the questions were mostly about what was normal. We were all teenagers, all endlessly curious about sex and bodies and bits (still are, but with fewer questions, I imagine). “Is it okay if my breasts are different sizes?” “What’s a BJ?” and of course “What’s the G-spot and is it real.” Interestingly enough, the answer to a lot of these questions usually involved a bit of advice about learning more of your own body. It was quick, efficient advice. You didn’t have to wait to sort anything out. You didn’t have to feel like you were the only one with the question.

I was thinking about this earlier in the context of personal fears. I think it’s pretty normal to have a few things that are really upsetting you, that you’re trying to figure out about yourself. I wonder if there is any way that the Anonymous Box would work for this.

The Family class had the advantage of dealing with a sexy subject matter that everyone wanted to talk about. I”m not sure any but a few close friends want to spend much time on dealing with my own worries (and of course, the whole point of this, maybe, it to keep anyone from knowing your question). The class also had an advantage in that it dealt with a lot of facts or, at least, statistics. It also dealt with a lot of general practices which were supposed to be adapted to your own life. ie. ‘a condom works like this…you try,’ or ‘if let this get put in here, you might get an std, your choice.’

So would this work for us now? I feel like we’ve got a lot of the sex stuff worked out; each of us has found whatever groove they are going to be in. But what about the larger issues. The real hard, deep personal fears. I’m not saying we’re all walking around plagued by something, but I also know that, happy as I am, there are some things that I think about and worry about, things that are private and my own and not, in most senses, immediately sharable.
So, could my friend, struggling with her trust issues with men, answer a question like, “How do you learn to trust guys and are they all assholes?” It’s really so specific to her. The question wants to know her context, her history, what she’s doing now. Could we put a question like that into a box between friends and deal with it directly enough?

So I’m going to think about this, and how it might work. I feel like a lot of us have questions or concerns. I think most problems want attention, want to be heard. Trouble is, most problems can only be answered by giving them the time they deserve.