| It wasn't for jokes, honest.
I've had this for a while now, sitting in a directory called "random movies" filled with Megaman speed runs and one of Disney's anti-Nazi propaganda cartoons and video of a fireworks factory exploding, because I've been waiting my whole life for that to happen. I've never even really watched this film; I just scanned through once to see if there was any hilarious footage of retards humping.
Okay, one joke.
But there was an earnest curiosity involved too. It's not something you even think about as an issue until it's pointed out to you. Can the mentally handicapped be taught sex education? Should they? How would one go about it? Does this explain Arkansas? So finally I decided to sit down and actually watch the film, to perhaps answer these questions and more. Mind you that this is in no way connected to my need for material for an article. This is entirely for science.
The movie opens in high style, with Super Beaten About The Face With A Shovel Mario in a car that looks like a rodent, stopping near a girl walking down the sidewalk. He beckons her to come closer so he can begin pawing at her hair. We have to assume the girl is mentally handicapped, both because she's in this thing and she hasn't run away yet. In fact, his moves are so smooth that she gets into the car with him. The whole scene is set to some folksy guitar and whistling, an incongruity that manages to make the whole scene more disturbing. Imagine if the interrogation scene about the bladed dildo in Seven was set to the Andy Griffith Show theme. The scene then cuts away to an inky abyss that is either an infinitely dark plane of damnation or a black-uniformed police officer walking down a poorly lit city street. It's impossible to tell what he's doing, but one's forced to assume the girl was never seen again or found beaten in a gutter or something. And the whistling keeps going. And now on with the show!
Here we meet our narrator, who will guide us through the wonderful world of retard sex. Look, if I play the frames in the right order it looks like he's having the same reaction to the last scene as I did.
He explains that it's important to teach trainables as much as they can absorb to help them better get along in the world. He doesn't exactly explain the definition of "trainables," so I have to guess it's one of three things.
1. A procession of male cattle
2. Pre-packaged locomotives that you can take to school and come with a small bag of Skittles
3. Mentally handicapped people who have the capacity to learn
The narrator (whose name, by the way, is Richard Dix. Yes, Dick Dix. He's asking for it so hard I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of a comment) also takes a moment to showcase an annoying little habit he has.
yes hello today we are talking about tardfucking which is a noble and historic practice that dates back thousands of years but now I think IWANTTOBEREALLYHUGE
They just arbitrarily cut to a close-up for no reason. I could see you fine before. You can't even fit in the fucking frame. Back off. It's bad enough that he always looks pissed off like Wilford Brimley in those Liberty Medical commercials. Yeah, all your supplies are covered, whether ya use insulin'r not! Go ahead and don't use insulin, I don't even care. Whadya think about that, asshole?
Dick's giant head tells us that sex education for trainables is easy as ABC.
"A - Awareness of their bodies and their feelings
B - Understanding the simple mechanics of reproduction
C - Training in responsibilities and appropriate social behavior"
Dick's grasp of lettering systems, however, is apparently as easy as AUT. The first part of this system is demonstrated in a class where the group is being asked to shout out synonyms for penis. Yes, the primary focus on educating people about sex is strengthening their vocabulary for dirty limmericks.
 
Some of them are a little more enthusiastic about it than others. The surprisingly-cute-for-this-crowd woman on the left acts like she's been waiting all her life for the chance to yell "PENIS" in a crowded room, but the one on the right hesitantly throws out "peter" before trying to eat her own lips for allowing such filth to cross them. Near her, Anne Heche is seen attending a sex class for retards, which is surely the surprise of the fucking century. They amass a decent list, though some of the choices are a little stranger than others.
 Cock!
 Rod!
 POOOOP
 No, Clyde, poop isn't a word for penis. What else?
 Weiner!
 Dick!
POOOOP
I told you, Clyde, that's not what we're looking for. Anyone else? You there, in the back?
 Yes, I also believe the answer is poop.
Boy, I had no idea what that guy was offering when he asked me if I wanted to go smoke a joint. There are some notable exceptions from the list. My grandma always called it a tallywhacker. Let's ignore for a moment why my grandmother was talking to me about dicks, since I'm not allowed to discuss that until the case is settled, but I will ask: Is this regional? I think that's the one euphemism I've never heard anywhere other than locally. My grandma grew up in Florida near the Georgia border, I always wondered if it was just a southern thing. Me, I wasn't a fan, though it did make its way into some of those dirty Mad Libs I'd make with a friend of mine in elementary school. It was the height of cool to turn an innocent fairy tale into a rousing sex romp, even when we had no idea what the hell we were talking about. We basically filled each one with just the words "vulva", which we knew had something to do with girls and that was good enough, "pines", because we were too fucking stupid to spell penis right, and "sex machine", which we probably learned from Kindergarten Cop although neither of us were able to define exactly what one was. I have to admit that I imagined one of those large, room-filling mainframes from the '50s with dials and buttons and gauges and vacuum tubes. Laugh all you want, but it was the source of a great deal of embarrassment the first time a girl got undressed in front of me and I tried to stick a punchcard in her vagina.
"Teachers must be able to use these words without getting upset, or they will be unable to teach their students. Now, let us watch a teacher leading a
OOGIEBOOOGIEBOOGIE
Goddammit stop that. "Let's watch a teacher leading a session about the differences between boys and girls."
And let's do it on the floor of a barn, hell, why not.
All the major parts are pointed to and identified, each followed by questions like "Do you think breasts are a nice thing for a woman to have? Are you happy you have breasts? I am." Now, and some make take issue with this claim, but I am more or less a fully mentally functional individual, and I still don't know what the answer to that question would be. I mean yeah, sure, I think breasts are a nice thing for a woman to have. But am I happy to have a dick? Do I wake up in the morning, look in my pants and say "Oh boy!" And as opposed to what? Yes, I think I'd rather have a dick than a small barking dog attached to my crotch. But what if it was, like, a cash dispenser? Or a super rad R/C car with real working lights and sounds? That's a tough call to make.
Demonstrating the value of one-on-one training, here we see an instructor teaching a trainable the proper way to camouflage yourself into your surroundings so you can sneak up on potential mates. And something about hard-ons, I dunno.
 CHECK OUT MY ERECTION ITS LIKE A ROCKET SHIP
The female one-on-one conversation involves trying to sort out which of the 20 holes in the diagram is used for urination, which is for menstruation, and which is for "when you make a BM." This must be another regional thing, because I had never heard the term until very recently. Given that the instructor was pointing at the rectum, I had to assume BM stood for bellowing malodorousness.
Instructors are also encouraged to teach younger trainables about body changes before puberty sets in, so they are properly prepared and won't be afraid. This is demonstrated by a teacher speaking to a young girl in the most rehearsed and unnatural manner possible while demonstrating to her with a giant wad of something that looks like a maxi pillow. "This is. What happens to. Me. It will. Happen to. You. It's. Alright. It's. Part of being. A woman." Maybe the mentally handicapped see things differently, because I think that would just make me more scared. It's like an old crone popping out of a closet in a haunted house. "I bleed uncontrollably for days on end! And now.. It will happen.." *raises and points withered, bony finger* "..to YOU!!" *thunderclap*
The importance of repetion is stressed here. The term "trainables" is not a simple politically correct euphemism. Lacking the proper cognitive mechanisms to learn by traditional teaching methods, these people do indeed need to be trained rather than taught, new information drilled repeatedly until it is learned by sheer force of rote memorization. Conceptual thinking and other abstractions only needlessly confuse and compound complex subjects and render them all the more abstruse instead of providing the clarity and definition required by I'M WET AND STICKY
Oh hell no.
We're thankfully given another fade to acoustic guitar as the counselor sits down (the guitar covering what most likely was an audible squishing sound) to explain the mechanics of why little Frank just spermed his sheets. I can only hope that during this time the counselor also took the time to explain why little Frank is burgeoning into manhood at the age of 35.
Oh man, I can't believe I had a wet dream, now I gotta clean up before time to clock in at the bottling plant
After his shift he'll hit the bar and win the Joe Cocker impersonator contest for the fourth consecutive year. By the way, I encourage all of you to make "I'm wet and sticky" the start up or system message sound on the computer of someone you love.
The counselor tells Frank it's best now to just show him how to clean it up, and we thankfully cut back to our humble narrator as I fully come to understand that counselor for the mentally disabled is the worst job ever. I've had some shit jobs, but I proudly stand by a 23 year legacy of never having handled someone else's bodily fluids. It should be on one of those motivational posters shallow, vapid bosses hang around the office to inspire their team.
After a brief discussion of the old how's your father, it's time for another.. um.. touchy subject. Social appropriateness. Making sure the trainable (or retardate as Dick randomly begins calling them) knows when and where it's appropriate to rock out with your cock out.
So we meet Ricky. He looks kind of.. dead, actually, but even the icy chill of life's end can't keep him from taking little Johnny dancing at old Knuckle Junction. The only movement in the shot, which lasts several seconds, is this lump under his cover moving up and down, then they actually cut to a close up of his glazed-over eyes just so we can be sure he's really getting into it. Maybe he's got one of those Farah Fawcett posters on his ceiling. I sure hope he's got some kind of catch under those sheets, or else he'll be WET AND STICKY. But just then, the door handle turns... Oh no!
  
"Oh! Excuse me Ricky. Ricky, I did see what you were doing. It felt good, didn't it?"
Dude, I totally had a dream like this once.
I swear to God that's what she says. I'd like to meet one person who can be trained to the point where their initial, immediate reaction to catching someone flogging the bishop is "What you're doing is a good thing. I'm glad you're doing that. I'm sorry I interrupted you." She goes on to praise him for choosing to give himself a low-five in the privacy of his own room instead of out in the street or in line at the DMV, and one begins to wonder how the morality of the parents factors into this. Beyond the basic concepts of social acceptability aka When And Where Can I Cough My Filthy Yogurt, things like guilt and shame are strictly avoided in order to simplify the learning process and not risk fracturing an already fragile emotional mind. But does this mean the child is living in sin? Can certain forms of sin be preempted by extenuating circumstances? Perhaps, does he unknowingly represent a purer ethos, a return to natural form unfettered by institution and decree, free of an encroaching and intensifying strata of convoluted anxieties and guided solely by the intangible stir of instinctual passions? And in so doing does he become the truer spiritualist, more enlightened by his ignorance than those who seek to guide him, while they become the true broken minds, handicapped not by physical deformity but by a self-imposed labyrinth of counterintuitive edicts? Retards are deep, man.
Meanwhile, Sandy is taking her instruction to draw inside the lines out of context by shelling her oyster in the middle of crayon time. Her teacher catches her and flops her sloppy hand back on the table, which finds its way back to Tuna Town as soon as the teacher's back is turned. Sandy and Ricky are like the Goofus and Gallant of self-abuse. Gallant knows when it's appropriate to fondle himself. Wouldn't you rather be like Gallant? *picture of Goofus fucking a knothole in a fence*
Another thing: These guys aren't actors. And they damn well didn't set up cameras in a bunch of classes (and, uh, a boy's bedroom) and wait for someone to beat off. When the question of whether someone will even be able to understand the mechanics of sexual intercourse is up in the air, how do you tell them "Okay we want you to get in front of these strangers and jerk off while they film you BUT ONLY THIS ONE TIME OKAY" without confusing the hell out of them?
Well, this is undoubtedly the result. The mentally disabled are especially vulnerable to exploitation, we're told, especially when it involves Harold Ramis feeling you up in the john. Like most things in this damned film, it's really just weird more than anything else, as the guy doesn't move or express any sort of emotion. It's like watching the Terminator executing his inappropriate touching protocol. The trainable wiggles and cringes and tries to shrink away and the guy just keeps.. slowly.. rubbing. While still standing in the same exact spot. The camera pulls away to reveal that hey, what the fuck.
So you know we were thinking about getting that new sectional we had our eye on, but -- oh, hey, molesting a gimp, huh? -- but we're not sure what color we want yet. So anyway, you going to the game on Friday?
I still can't figure it out. Maybe the molester is working on increasing his reps and he needs a spotter nearby. Maybe the guy watching is a molester in training and he's been paired with a pro to learn from. Maybe I should stop watching this scene looking for jokes before I go to sleep and have my usual dreams of fairies and unicorns interrupted by a unicorn standing up and slowly rubbing my back while its dead eyes bore into my soul.
We end on yet another example of what can go wrong if you don't properly teach a trainable.. Hey! It's the cop from the beginning of the movie! Well, you can't really see him in this shot, but I assure you he's there. He's the arm reaching out from the left. Of course, he wasn't looking for the girl, he was arresting this retardate jerking off to a porn store window! So really that means.. they, uh.. never found her..! Oh.. boy! Wow, what a way to bookend the movie. Please do not reveal the incredible secret of Sex Education for Trainables.
I'm going to go never download anything from the Internet again.
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