2013-05-09
Explanation
The comic shows a mother answering what is implied to be a child's question about where babies come from. She starts with the classic euphemism about a "special kind of together-hug" but then goes off the rails, explaining that over time, together-hugging becomes tiresome and repetitive, so couples would rather watch TV. Because together-hug frequency is seen as an indicator of relationship health, they have to find ways to maintain interest, making the together-hugs "scarier and scarier." This escalates to a vivid description of wearing a vinyl clown suit, sitting in a bathtub full of coconut oil, flogging each other with antlers, and shouting "Call me Grandpa!" The child, now traumatized, says she doesn't even remember her original question.
The comedy works through a bait-and-switch: it begins with the familiar, sanitized "birds and bees" talk but veers into an uncomfortable lecture on how long-term relationships lead to escalating kinks to combat sexual boredom. The mother's explanation is simultaneously too much information and delivered with the same matter-of-fact tone parents use for age-appropriate explanations. The joke also plays on the idea that the euphemistic language ("together-hug," "scarier") somehow makes the increasingly explicit content more appropriate for a child, when of course it doesn't. The child's final line -- "I don't even remember anymore" -- suggests the explanation was so overwhelming that it effectively erased the original innocent question from her mind.