You know how retrograde fundamentalists all over the world keep banging that irritating don’t-teach-young-people-about-sex gong? And that irritating don’t-teach-young-people-about-evolution gong? And all those other irritating gongs that conspire to turn their kids into scared, confused stupidheads about all sexual reproduction everywhere?

Obviously, the best thing would be to turn the gong-beaters out on their deafened ears. But were I a teacher feeling helpless and hopeless in a school dominated by retrograde fundamentalists in America or elsewhere, I might like to find an end run around the problem. A way to teach about human sex and evolution by teaching about, say, plants and animals.

We could start with an article like this one in the New York Times concerning a scientist and her ducks:

When she first visited in January, the phalluses were the size of rice grains. Now many of them are growing rapidly.

Some ducks grow phalluses as long as their entire body. In the fall, the genitalia will disappear, only to reappear next spring.

A bird phallus is similar — but not identical — to a mammalian penis. Most of the time it remains invisible, curled up inside a bird’s body. During mating, however, it fills with lymphatic fluid and expands into a long, corkscrew shape. The bird’s sperm travels on the outside of the phallus, along a spiral-shaped groove, into the female bird.

Not only is stuff like that demonstrably noncontroversial (hey, they’re just dumb animals; we’re talking facts, not morals), it’s also totally fascinating (ducks have big dicks that fall off then regrow!), and it raises the obvious question: how come?

Part of the answer, [Dr. Brennan] has discovered, has gone overlooked for decades. Male ducks may have such extreme genitals because the females do too. The birds are locked in an evolutionary struggle for reproductive success.

Plus, it’s an easy segue into the sexual mechanics of species whose dicks don’t fall off every year: STIs, contraception (female ducks have a kind of internal diaphragm they use to block sperm from, er, “forced matings”), gay animals, and the rest.

And that’s just one little article.

I know, I know—capitulating to retrograde fundamentalists is distasteful. It’s just not done. But for those of you stuck in atavistic corners of the world: Think of it more like slipping an antidote into the poisoned Kool-Aid.

Does anybody want to get to work on a handbook? We could call it Better Teaching Through Euphemism.

Discovered in the course of researching this post: The Icelandic Phallological Museum!

Which not only houses this intriguing item (moderately SFW) but, if you visit its catalog, you will see that among the specimens of bear, whale, and billy-goat phalli, there are a few listed under homo sapiens sapiens:

Foreskin from a forty year old Icelander. May 2002. In formalin.

Pending, cf. Letter of Donation from Mr. Páll Arason.

Pending, cf. Letter of Donation from Mr. Stan Underwood. With a mould.