When a School Board Meeting Goes Erotic
Thank you, Capo Unified, for turning us all on.
Back when I was a rookie writer at The (Nashville) Tennessean, the country singer Tanya Tucker released a four-CD box set called, simply, “Tanya Tucker.”
At the time I was 22, recently single and horny AF. I also knew that Tucker boasted a local reputation as something of a get-around gal. A colleague of mine had recently attended a party with the singer and—according to lore—Tucker approached his friend and whispered seductively, “So are we gonna f@ck, or what?”
They f@cked.
As a result of all this and all that, the primary image of Tucker from her CD set (Tanya standing in the water, peering into the distance, thigh revealed) became, cough, bedside material for young, lonely, single me. She was alluring and local and sexy. In other words, I pleasured myself to that photo a lot.
I bring this up because, as decades pass and families grow and libidos shift and tastes morph, what once passed for erotica turns dull. Nowadays, when I see the long-faded picture of Tanya Tucker, I chuckle at my old self. I was a kid in need of a release. I haven’t felt that isolated jolt of pent-up sexual lust for a long time.
Until, that is, last night.
In case you missed it (and be happy if you did), the Capo Unified School Board held its monthly meeting carnival of fools. Which is to say, a once-serious body—now overtaken by MAGA lunatics and Moms for Liberty cutouts and Botoxed heads glued to plastic lips—gathered inside a room to discuss, among other things, books that are on the chopping block. In particular, a gaggle of parents (led by Amber “The Cool Girls Never Let Me Hang in High School So Now I’m Getting My Revenge” Smith) have their sights set on “The Poet X,” a young adult novel written by Elizabeth Acevedo. And if you’re a normal person with a functioning IQ, you know two important things about “The Poet X” and Capo Unified:
A. It’s a highly regarded book (with some mature content).
B. If you don’t want your kid reading it (or any book), you—as a parent—can opt out.
And Point B … well, that’s a pretty big one, so I’ll emphasize this in all caps, and throw in some bold typeface. IF YOU DON’T WANT YOUR KID READING A BOOK, YOU CAN SIMPLY OPT OUT AND THEY WON’T READ IT. IT’S NOT COMPLICATED. IN FACT, IT’S RIDICULOUSLY SIMPLE. YOU, AS A PARENT, HAVE RIGHTS. THAT’S ONE OF YOUR RIGHTS. IT’S SCHOOL BOARD POLICY.
Alas, that’s not enough for the MAGA crowd, who can’t merely allow scholastic reading options, but need to tell us all—left and right, old and new, smart and dumb—which books are appropriate for our children’s tender ears. All of our children’s tender ears. Even if you, as a parent, are cool with “The Poet X.” It’s not your say. It’s their say and Jesus Christ’s say, dammit. And Jesus Christ doesn’t read YA filth!
Wait.
I digress.
In a scene straight outta Huntington Beach’s recent book banning efforts, the anti- “The Poet X” crowd took to the microphone at last night’s meeting, and let us know (in no uncertain terms) that the material is dirty. Really dirty. P-r-o-f-o-u-n-d-l-y dirty. So, so, so, so f@cking dirty—that we will stand here, at a school board meeting, and read the sexually arousing smut aloud!!!!!
To all of you!
Even the kids!
LFG!
Um …
Is it just me, or did the temperature rise 20 degrees? Because, lord, I am friggin’ horny! And not in a normal way, like, “I ate too much chocolate” horny. Nah, I’m Tanya Tucker four-CD box set horny.
I want that book!
Now!
Here!
By my bed!
ASAP!
And I assure y’all, any high school student listening to last night’s meeting now wants “The Poet X,” too.
•••
That’s the thing about many of our greatest book banners (to be clear, I am not specifically referring to the two people in the videos).
Somehow, over the course of their lives, they collectively morphed from normal and open-minded to lining up (in this case) behind a professional troll who runs an anonymous, hate-filled Instagram feed penned at a third-grade reading level. They stand before a crowd of people, pulling carefully selective passages from an award-winning book, terrified that maybe, just maybe, a community’s teenagers might have their eyes exposed to masturbation (gasp!) or blow jobs (what!) or homosexuality (no!) or … sex (arrrrrggghhhh!).
They are proud culture warriors. Loud. Strong. Empowered. Up in arms by day, but oftentimes masturbating to Sabrina Carpenter photos in the closet, or paying $10/minute on the gay phone line when wifey/hubs is asleep late at night. Are they upset by their Dear Leader cheating on wife 1 with wife 2, wife 2 with wife 3, wife 3 with a porn star he paid off in hush money? No. Are they bothered by their leader greeting the recent murder of a Hollywood director and his wife with ridicule and scorn and chuckles? No. Are they bothered by masked government agents grabbing Brown people off the streets and hauling them off in unmarked vehicles? No.
What turns them on—what specifically turns people like Amber Smith and her Capo Unified cronies on—is the audacity of folks not sharing their (closed-minded) white pseudo-Christian nationalistic world viewpoints. They do not understand it. Cannot comprehend it. Fail to grasp it. And yet, are weirdly aroused by it.
As a result, they go on the attack, presuming the only way to save society is to bludgeon one and all toward submission.
And whether they’re right or wrong, a single thing is clear.
It’s hella sexy.
•
PS: This was Amber’s little moment last night, with a fun shot at moi …
And there are only three points I’ll address:
Girl, if you still live in California, and still call California home, why are you lying on your business bio?
In 2025, “so-called wanna-be journalist” is kind of a compliment.
The reason this site focusses upon you is because, for reasons that will forever befuddle me, the four MAGA fools on the school board follow your lead, use you as a mouthpiece, allow you to speak multiple times at meetings, appoint you to positions (ones you are horribly unqualified for) and involve you in covert Zooms with the Gays Against Groomers dude. You put yourself in this mess, kid. And, yet, you “call Texas home” and don’t even have children in this school district. You’ve become the irksome lad who shows up to trick o’ treat at the same house six times in a night, even when the owner tells you to bug off.
As a lifelong librarian and ex-parent-of two-kids-in Capo, can with equivocation say 1) this kind of censorship is wrong, period. And 2) Capo has much bigger and more important issues to be focussing on rather than hearing out lunatics.
So true, these lunatics are just in it for the show. As you mention, it is policy for a parent to opt their kid out of any book so why the F are these weirdos wasting everyone's time at these meetings?