Exclusive: Rep. Todd Akin Speaks Out.

Republican Congressman Todd Akin, currently running for U.S. Senate in his home state of Missouri, has come under fire for saying in a televised interview that according to doctors, pregnancy from rape is "really rare,” adding, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Amid censure from presidential candidate Mitt Romney and calls from Akin's own party for him to resign, the congressman has chosen Progressive Boink as the media outlet to exclusively run his official statement on the situation.

After saying yesterday that women can't get pregnant from legitimate rape, I've done a lot of soul-searching. And I've come to the conclusion that we as a society need more comprehensive sex education. Of course, I don't mean we should deviate from abstinence-only sex education -- heavens no.

But in order to have a society that fully appreciates and understands how precious this God-given gift of life is, we need to do a better job of educating our youth, as well as our 65-year-old congressmen, about the very origins of life. I realize now that I was wrong to think that if a woman gets pregnant from being raped, it can only mean that she secretly wanted it, but my misapprehension was born of innocent ignorance. I truly believed that a woman's woomb (sp?) is filled with hundreds of homunculi that repel rape sperm. How wrong I was.

And so I propose a comprehensive overhaul of our sex education system, an overhaul that will prevent such wrongheaded statements from ever being uttered again. Our children need to understand things like the perils of the food dye Yellow #5, which top scientists say shrinks our nation's penises. Any Tom, Dick, or Harry in a lab coat will tell you that, and yet the nation remains woefully ignorant of this most basic of biological facts.

Indeed, our nation's knowledge of simple biology and anatomy is truly a sorry state of affairs. Why, I must have been nearing 40 years old when I finally realized that girls peed out of their butts. I laugh to think back to my ignorance, but I was merely a product of the anatomical education I was given. I'm not really sure what I thought before -- maybe that they had retractable wieners? I don't know. That stuff is pretty gross, so I guess I just never really thought about it.

And yes, I must admit that the introspection of the last 24 hours has shaken me to my core to the extent that I recognize that responsible sex education, though emphasizing abstinence above all, should at least address the matter of birth control. While I shudder to think of our nation's teens even being made aware of the phenomenon of premarital sex, I do realize that some married people may elect to use some form of birth control as a matter of family planning, and teens should know about their options before getting married. Simple, over-the-counter Coca-Cola, for instance, when used as a douche (not quite sure what that is, but a woman would likely know), is a failsafe form of contraception, or so I have heard from highly educated doctors and scientists.

The bottom line is that we need to do better by our children. They need to understand that, yes, you can get AIDS from a water fountain. Or by getting gleeked on at a pep rally. Mosquitoes can carry AIDS too. We as a society must be aware of these risks. We must better inform our youth about lesser known diseases like hepatitis, which, what is that?

Ultimately, the blowback from my gaffe has been humbling, but it has also been a teachable moment. Why, just yesterday, I believed that a simple "circle-circle-dot-dot" tracing pattern on the back of the hand can protect a woman from getting pregnant. I now see my naivete -- such a simplistic remedy protects her neither everywhere, nor for life.

And so, in conclusion, I would like to announce that I will be taking a hiatus from public life to better educate myself about biology so that I may approach the legislative process with regard to such issues from a more informed position. My first task will be to find out what a period is. Can boys get one? What's a tampon, and how is it connected to the common period? Only our nation's top scientific minds know, and I intend to enter high-level discussions with them to bring their knowledge to the masses. I expect to return to Congress in the fall with an official inquiry into whether or not Jamie Lee Curtis is really a hermaphrodite. Also, what is a hermaphrodite? I mean, I know what it is, but I just want to make sure my fellow congressmen know. Thank you, and I look forward to returning to the public eye in a few short months.