Onan and the rest of us

I'll never forget the scene in Pleasantville where the mom reclines in the bath tub, starts breathing heavily as objects around her turn color, and eventually twitches her way to the shot of the tree exploding in the front yard.

(This was not too long after the scene where Reese Witherspoon tells her about sex and how she doesn't need dad to...you know)

My girlfriend at the time looked over and asked me what she was doing in the bathtub - 'what happened? I don't get it...'

This was the moment that being the first boyfriend of a private-schooled high school valedictorian english nerd really registered.

This Slate article and Saletan post offer more interesting fodder, and actually helped dislodged the above, decade-old memory.

I dig the tension between the natural order and the old testament.