I generally like to think of myself as pretty realistic when it comes to talking to kids about sex — and if I have my own someday, I definitely don’t expect them to wait until I’m in a nursing home before they do the deed. But maybe I’m a bit more old-fashioned than I thought, because when Andy Cohen compared his baby son to The 40-Year-Old Virgin my immediate reaction was, “Um, wait, what?!”
It all started with a sweet Instagram photo of little Benjamin, who is absolutely adorable. And, as I mentioned, happens to be a baby. The following slide was a photo of Steve Carrell in his now-iconic role as Andy Stitzer in the modern-day classic comedy film.
“The 40-Day-Old Virgin,” Cohen quipped in the caption.
Benjamin couldn’t possibly be any cuter and the intentions were surely harmless, but there’s something a little unsettling about discussing a baby’s virginity on a major social media platform — especially during a time when important conversations about the sexual abuse of children have come to the forefront. And with those conversations, we’ve seen a dismissal of the pain experienced by survivors, especially boys. Take, for example, Barbra Streisand’s recent comments that Michael Jackson’s alleged sexual abuse of two young boys “didn’t kill them” and was apparently, therefore, no big deal.
Cohen has 3.2 million Instagram followers and we all know there are people out there who are all too eager to sexualize children, regardless of how young they are. This joke would perhaps be better-suited to share with close friends, not the entire world. After all, Benjamin has plenty of Insta-worthy milestones ahead of him that have absolutely nothing to do with his virginity.
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