Erna-the-Nun
George had a colleague who was a nun. A fairly tall woman, yet quite plump with huge breast, which was of no use to her, considering her age: "Those 'mountains' just get in the way when eating," she commented, "I have to go over them with my arms to get food into my mouth." During conversations, she regularly alternated the biggest nonsense about herself and her figure with quite intelligent observations and analyzes about her profession as child psychologist. Erna "did" children, George "did" adults. There was some common ground because children have parents and parents have children. Not only that, both parents and children can be deranged or become deranged, and parents may drive their children crazy, and children their parents. All of them can be deranged or even criminal, which you could or should prevent. So, conversation topics with Erna-the-Nun were inexhaustible.
George and Erna liked to retire regularly to George's foreign holiday home. Female colleagues didn't like it at all. "George, how can you put up with such a crazy person?" That wasn't a question, it was rather a failed attempt to tell George that they themselves were much smarter and more attractive than Erna-the-Nun. "And she's ugly too," some of them said. Men even called her "hideous." Erna was indeed the complete opposite of "a sultry."
What George and Erna shared was a complete lack of value judgments. He could discuss everything with her, nothing was too crazy for her. Was there such a thing as a gay birthday? Yes, and Erna had been there as the only woman. "How was it?" George asked. "Quite enjoyable," she answered. "Enjoyable" wasn't her word, hers was "affectionate." "What do you mean by "affectionate?", George asked. "The way people interact with each other." Erna answered. "Do you mean 'sweet'? And that at a gay party?" "No, affectionate." "Then tell me what you've been through."
In one room, people had been sitting together chatting and laughing, as was the custom on most birthdays. But there was a dark room in the basement furnished with a sling. Someone could hang in there and then be "taken from behind." And there would also be "fist fucking" as an attraction, but the story didn't end there. So, all was "very affectionate."
Sexuality is a favorite theme among psychiatrists. Among those of the Freudian school, but even more so among those who think of the Freudian school to be obsolete. Both Erna-the-Nun and her colleague An knew how to talk about it. "Sex for psychologists" is not a book on how psychologists should have sex. It means fodder for psychologists, who can never get enough of it. It is also a big deal for female colleagues, as An said. An was the most cordial of all the people George knew, colleague Bé was of a much older date, but talking about sex was a piece of cake for both of them. Sometimes it could be painful in company, as the next chat between two women at a party shows.
"Some people are narrow-minded. I recently got a woman on a therapy setting who didn't want to be taken from behind!" "Yes, there are people who are easily ashamed of such things." "Oh, people can do strange things with themselves… a few days ago, a friend doctor had to help a man brought into the emergency room with his spring mattress where he had put his genitals in. The paramedics, who were alarmed, couldn't help him without damage because his genitals were swollen and bleeding.
The ladies in the party burst out laughing; only the colleagues of course. The gentlemen and ladies non-psychologists deemed such conversations unsuitable in company. They thought "Can't you talk about anything else!" Which is not quite right, because psychologists talk about everything and incessantly.
Yet, there is something special about sex, both in real life and talking about. George was always keen to know all ins and outs about it. What was a better opportunity to talk about it than with a nun. With Loudon's nuns (France, 1634) in mind who were not only fooling around with friars day and night, but also getting hysterical, George asked Erna-the-Nun what it had been like in her convent. In the meantime, she no longer wore a habit, as George had known her from their early student days, lived independently and only came to the monastery on heydays.
Loudon, that was something else. At a time of hysteria and fear of the devil sometime in the seventeenth century, wealthy girls for whom no suitor could be found or no dowry was available, were usually sent to a monastery. Those girls weren't there by vocation. Their sexuality kept bubbling up. The vow of chastity had been forced upon her, and as a result, the monastery garden was full of buried baby corpses. Erna had lived in several monasteries: "No, George, really not, never bothered, no urge, I really don't know anything about lesbian loves or something like that, I think only men are bothered by sex." That is of course not entirely true, because nymphomania does exist. But the novice period in the monastery sifts out such candidates.
George recently heard of a serious scientific study that had shown that sex sometimes hasn't to come out like the air from an over-inflated bicycle tire, as Freud believed. The "safety valve theory" turned out to be incorrect. Sexual urge is not like hunger and thirst, but simply arises during a learning process. George had once heard the same from a Buddhist monk: no lust, no desire, just occasional wet dreams.
The story doesn't end there yet. The fact that the friars did it with the boys and sometimes with girls was not revealed until later, although many had suspected it for a long time, and therapists had to hear harrowing stories. The church is however only a man of his time as well —if we may use the word "man" here to refer to a collective. Catholic nuns believe that humans are of good will, and therefore, they really have to do with people. When the superior of a monastery heard about the safety valve theory in the 1980s, she immediately took action. A therapist was engaged, a man, because unfortunately there was no Catholic woman to be found who was familiar with similar matters. (Catholic psychiatrist Dr. Anna Terruwe was well into her seventies at the time.)
The nuns were given information about sex, as feminists had advocated. And, consequently, masturbation lessons (think of the safety valve theory). Erna-the-Nun couldn't resist talking to George about it. He had to promise strict secrecy, but he refused. Nevertheless, she told her story. She had been given a vibrator from the course to experiment at home herself. That would have been of little help. One day, she went shopping with that thing in her and on-mode. She went to the bakery and as soon as she stood on the doormat, she had an orgasm, the first of her life! At the same time, the store bell was activated, letting staff know that a customer had entered. The orgasm was so intense that the store girls yelled for Erna to get off the mat because the bell kept ringing. When Erna left the store, she was somewhat calm and, like Pavlov's dog, so-called classical conditioning manifested itself. This scene repeated itself every time Erna entered the bakery and stood on the door mat. Erna kept having orgasms despite the screams of the shop girls. That happened more than once a day for a week. "One of the sacred numbers mentioned in the bible is seven," Erna-the-Nun commented.












