Interview with Maria Falzone

He said, she said; she remembers, he claims he doesn’t.

But the conversation no one is having openly is about sex and sexuality. We’ve heard about sex, sure, accompanied by the frequent: “Don’t have it.” They preach abstinence. But Maria Falzone, who I recently had the opportunity to talk with, says otherwise.

“Education needs to start in the home,” she explains, “at infancy.”

Maria Falzone, comedian and real talk pioneer, has traveled across America, reaching thousands of college students with her performance, “Sex Rules.” She invites open--and hilarious--discourse regarding our bodies, sexual health, and consent.

“It’s only sex,” she asserts. “And it’s only weird and awkward because parents make it weird and awkward.”

But knowledge about sex is power, and guardians are not only nurturers but educators. She recalls changing her daughter’s diaper, narrating, “Mommy’s touching your vulva.”

Falzone encourages exploration and discourse that ultimately leave “the lights on, sheets off, and communication about why, when, and how you want it.” Such conversations are nonexclusive to those offering support to Ford or to those backing Kavanaugh. Sex is bipartisan; sex is universal. But conversations about sex--and consent--aren’t going to be generated in the White House.

A couple months ago, Falzone was diagnosed with cancer and shared that she had, at best, four to six months left to live. What’s left for us to do now is to “take on, full force, the stigmas of sex and sexuality.”

Stigmas--those of being LGBTQ, of being female, of being people of color, of being “captain of the football team, of having big breasts, of having small breasts”--plague our conceptions. The general assumption is that sex occurs between two individuals who love each other, but even that, Falzone comments, isn’t necessarily true. And then there are “conservative Christians who make assumptions about those sexually active outside of wedlock, and liberals who judge decisions to abstain.”

As Kavanaugh takes his seat in the Supreme Court and Falzone shares her last utterances of “Sex Rules,” we must listen. Hear not that rapists can be Supreme Court justices, but rather, that kids need to be familiarized with their bodies and with this concept of sex. Healthy, consensual, communicative sex.

“Raise bad girls and bad boys,” Falzone proclaims. Because bad girls and bad boys know how and when to say “NO,” and in their lack of complacence, people need to start listening. I hope Kavanaugh is and if not, well, catch you at midterms.