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Old Questions for Dear Abby and Ask Beth
by Jay Ruttenberg
I was at my parents' house recently and found myself rummaging through boxes of old junk. In the muddle of school transcripts, spiral notebooks, decrepit MAD magazines and baseball cards celebrating the achievements of the Ron Cey-era Chicago Cubs, I made an odd discovery: a cache of advice columns, clipped out of newspapers years ago, doling out awesomely bad and clueless advice. This was the forgotten stuff that I chortled over in high school and college. Two clippings, in particular, remained bizarre and funny.
The first is a "Dear Abby" column by the original (and, at the time, very old) Abby, Abigail Van Buren. It was cut out of The Chicago Tribune; judging from the hysteria of Abby's reply, it most likely was printed during the media's gang scare of the early 1990s:
Dear Abby: We have two sons. One is 14, and the other 11. They recently
asked us if they could get their heads shaved. They tell us that all their
friends are doing it, and it is the "in" thing right now. Both sets of grand-
parents say this is part of growing up. Should we allow our sons to shave
their heads?
-Concerned Parents
Dear Concerned: Shaving the head may be the "in" thing, but in some areas,
it is also the "gang" thing. If children adopt gang styles, even if they
are not involved in gang activities, they can put themselves at risk. Gangs
don't take kindly to non-members who "copy" them, and rival gangs attack
members of other gangs. The principal of your children's school, or your
local police department, can tell you if shaved heads are dangerous in your
community.
Imagine, for a moment, that you are Concerned Parents, genuinely bemused by your sons' request for crew cuts -- so frazzled that you are moved to write the doyenne of newspaper advice, Dear Abby herself. You read her response and learn that in truth, your 11-year-old doesn't have bad taste in hairstyle -- he's an aspiring gang-banger! And if you let him shave his head, his life may be at stake! "I'm sorry," Concerned Parents were forced to tell their young sons, "but you cannot shave your heads. Because of gang violence and all."
"What are you talking about?" the 14-year-old said.
"What's a gang?" the 11-year-old asked.
"Abby has spoken, children," Concerned Parents insisted. "Now go to your rooms and grow your hair."
The second exchange comes from "Ask Beth," a touchingly naive column that ran in The Boston Globe under the rubric "Sense About Sex":
Dear Beth: On my last visit to our pediatrician I got an erection when the
nurse pulled off my underpants. I couldn't make it go away. I closed my
eyes and tried to think about something else, but I was too embarrassed.
Then the doctor put her hand on me and told me to cough. I completely
lost control and had a "wet dream." I turned bright red and apologized over
and over. She told me to forget about it. She told my mom what happened,
and that I should see a male doctor from now on. My mom went ballistic
and told me I must be really sick. I can't talk to my dad because they are
divorced. She wants me to tell my priest and go to a psychiatrist for
counseling.
-Still Embarrassed
[Dear Still Embarrassed]: What happened was completely normal. Teen-age
boys have high levels of testosterone, which causes them to have more
spontaneous erections than older men do. You can get erections from many
things, such as sexy thoughts, or exercise, or just the friction from your
underpants. Your mother needs to learn what is normal for adolescent
boys. You are not sick, nor are you oversexed! Her overreacting is a big
mistake because it makes you ashamed of your perfectly normal behavior
and at a time when you are already very sensitive about it.
Looking back a decade or so, I recall the publication of this letter -- obviously a hoax -- as being met with great annoyance in my college dormitory. For months, my friends and I had conspired to send the perfect "Ask Beth" prank letter; now, Still Embarrassed had beaten us to the punch. I had already been feeling like a slacker in my studies, but there's nothing worse than realizing you have been too lazy to carry out a simple prank. In retrospect, I'm guessing that at least a quarter of the letters mailed to the Ask Beth column were, in fact, fraudulent. Boston, of all cities, has enough students to perpetuate an endless supply of hoax material. Indeed, the other letter in the column that week, about a 16-year-old worried about growing hair on his "butt," concludes with the words, "This isn't a joke!"
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