Everyone has moments when they’re totally clueless about something; that’s just part of being human! In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers share the growth that comes from a moment when they didn’t know better.

Part 1: Growing up in sexually conservative Ireland, Connor O’Donoghue is completely in the dark about sex, sexuality, and anatomy.

Connor O'Donoghue is a 42-year-old Irishman, living in London. In his professional life, he runs a teacher training company. In recent years, he has started writing and performing true stories, including a one-person show called Homobesity: How my fat gay body made me, which has had runs in London, Brighton and Dublin.

Part 2: Justina Assaad thinks the nausea she’s feeling while waiting to go parasailing is just a fluke.

Justina Assaad is a Speech-Language Pathologist in the Stroke & Neurological Rehabilitation program at Sunnybrook Health Sciences centre, and Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Toronto, finding joy in helping others discover their voice. Outside of her regular working hours, she is an actor, director, and playwright for her local parish, and self-proclaimed drama queen whose adventures and misfortunes appear to occur solely to entertain others. Though new to the art of performative story telling, she has been sharing her personal triumphs, laughs, and tragedies with complete strangers since childhood.

Episode Transcript

Part 1

I grew up in Holy Catholic Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s and I didn’t have much sex education at school. When I was 15, we did have a class called Relationships and Sexuality Education. It was taught by a retired policeman who was a past pupil of the school and he’d offered to help out, so the teachers got him to teach the one class nobody wanted to teach.

In a whole year of Relationships and Sexuality, he told us about respecting God, about respecting the law. He told us all about the effects alcohol has on the body and about drink driving statistics. In a year of Relationships and Sexuality, he never mentioned sex once.

My parents were a little bit better. When I was 12, they put a video on, and they left the room so I could watch it alone. It was a really Catholic video and it explained how sex was something that a husband did with the wife when they wanted to have a baby. It didn't mention masturbation or contraception or homosexuality or sex before marriage or even the idea of sex for pleasure.

Connor O’Donoghue shares his story at Imperial College London in London, UK in February 2024. Photo by Daniela Duhur.

There was a little cartoon penis and a cartoon vagina and the video said that my voice would deepen, that I'd grow hairs, that I'd get pimples, that I'd start sweating a lot. Basically, the message was wash well and wait for marriage.

So, my sex education was basically down to the boys in my all‑boys’ school. We whispered rumors about breasts and periods and vaginas. We told each other facts about women when we were standing on the steps where we used to smoke out of view of the teachers. We misinformed each other about girls as we were waiting for teachers to arrive at class.

There weren't any penis rumors. I didn't play any sports, so I never got to see any of my friends' penises, even though I really, really wanted to, so I never got to find out whether my penis was normal or not.

When I was 17, I discovered internet pornography. I would watch as the dirty photos loaded line by line over my dial‑up connection. When the top part of the photo loaded, I could breathe a sigh of relief. Yes, it's definitely a man. Then I'd have the agonizing wait while the torso gradually loaded. Would this just be a shirtless man or would he be fully naked?

The porn of my teenage years took a lot of patience. And the penises of porn confused me. They had bell‑shaped ends. Now, my penis didn't look like that. I didn't have a bell‑shaped, shiny head like all those porn penises.

I didn't know a lot about penises. I didn't know anything about foreskins. The only thing I knew about foreskins was that Jesus didn't have one because he was Jewish. And I knew I wasn't Jewish, so I thought I probably had a foreskin. But when I looked at those porn penises with the shiny heads, I thought to myself, "Oh, my God, I must have been circumcised when I was a baby, and the doctors must have removed this bell end that all the porn penises had."

And my mother was obviously too stifled by her old Catholicism to tell me about the circumcision that I was now sure that I had had, and I was way too embarrassed to ask her about it anyway. So, for the entirety of my 20s, I was a gay man who thought I didn’t have a foreskin.

My obesity, my Catholic guilt meant that I didn’t have sex very often. Once every four or five years. And that sex was way too exciting and drunken for me to ever examine the other guy's penis properly. I never asked them if I had a foreskin and they never told me that I did. Literally, no one ever told me I had a foreskin.

But by the time I was 30, internet pornography was way better, and so were my online research skills. I finally got the education I needed. I read articles, I looked at videos and photos and I realized that that bell end that all the porn penises had, that meant that they were circumcised and that it's actually the skin that goes over that bell end that's the foreskin, but that didn't make sense to me because my penis didn't look like either the circumcised or the uncircumcised penises.

And so I kept on researching and, eventually, I found something called phimosis. This is where your foreskin is too tight. Some men with phimosis can retract this, but it's painful. Other men, like me, their foreskin just doesn't move. They can't retract it at all.

I was puzzled by this new information. I wasn't sure what to do with it. I could masturbate fine. I could urinate fine. Did it really matter that I couldn't pull my foreskin back and see this legendary bell end? That I couldn't see my dick head?

But, eventually, out of curiosity, more than anything else, I went to a doctor and I asked him. He said, “Well, yeah, I mean, you could get circumcised, I guess.” But what he said was I needed to focus on losing weight. He didn't even examine me. He said, “No surgeon would ever dream of doing an elective surgery on someone as fat as I was.”

This was the kind of response I was used to having from people. It was hurtful, but I was used to people using my weight as a weapon against me.

When I was 30, I moved to London. One of the reasons I moved to London was because of all the romantic and sexual opportunities that I was sure a big city like this would provide. I found myself in the world of chubby chasers, men who were attracted to fat men. I weighed 28 stone at the time and I'd only had two sexual encounters in the previous nine years.

I'd spent the last two years chatting to chubby chasers online, but I'd never been brave enough to meet anyone. But now, I was in London. I was a big city boy. I threw caution to the wind and suddenly I had a sex life, a glorious, moist, noisy, filthy, life‑affirming sex life.

These men tried to wank me. They tried to suck me. It felt horrible. I batted them away and I focused on their penises instead. My orgasm could wait until I was at home alone.

After I'd been living in London for about three years, I had a kidney procedure. Surgeon and nurses were gathered around my crotch because the surgeon was trying to insert a camera up my penis.

He exclaimed in disgust, "It doesn't retract at all. I can't even see the glans."

You don't know humility until you've had a team of medical professionals gathered around your naked midsection while a handsome, young doctor criticizes your penis. It was the first time in my life that I thought, "Actually, you know what, maybe I should get a circumcision.”

So I went to my GP and he examined my tight foreskin. At this stage, I was the lightest I'd ever been as an adult. I'd lost 14 stone and this meant that doctors took me seriously, meant that they took my sexual life seriously.

He examined my tight foreskin and he was just as surprised as the kidney surgeon that it didn't retract at all. He started asking me some questions I really didn't expect. He asked me if urine ever got trapped in there. Obviously not. The hole at the tip works perfectly fine.

He then asked me if it ever got caught during sex. He asked me if sex was painful. I didn't know how to respond to that question because it was so new to me.

But then I started thinking, I had always thought that I didn't like men touching my penis because that was just kind of how my sexuality worked. I figured some gay men were like dominant tops and they love using their penis during sex and I was just a submissive bottom and I didn't particularly like my penis being involved in sex.

But when the doctor asked me if sex was painful, a cloud cleared in my mind. Maybe it was the discomfort of my tight foreskin that meant that I didn't like when men touched me.

I got the number 59 bus home. I was very emotional and I started crying on the bus. Maybe I could come when another man touched me. Maybe I could have sex just like the other boys.

My sadness turned to anger. I cried and I cursed my obesity and I cried and I cursed Holy Catholic Ireland and I cried and I cursed everyone who'd had a decent sex education and I cried and I cursed everyone who'd ever had a mutually orgasmic sexual experience.

In the days that followed, I asked literally everyone about their foreskins. No one had ever told me that you need to pull it back to pee. No one had ever told me that children need to practice pulling them back to loosen them. No one had ever told me that you need to pull them back to wash. Now I knew. Now I became a foreskin expert.

I don't have a foreskin anymore. The NHS kindly paid for my circumcision in January 2020. I healed really fast. I'm still not 100% sure I want men to touch me there on my tender bell end, on my fresh dick head, but I'm way more willing to try things out than I used to be.

No one ever told me I had a foreskin, but now I tell everyone I meet that I don't have a foreskin anymore. You guys, I don't have a foreskin.

Part 2

It's 2018, and my family and I are sitting on the beaches of Cancun, Mexico, when a beautiful Mexican man approaches us and asks if we want to go parasailing. If you don't know what parasailing is, essentially, you are wearing a parachute and then you're attached to a boat that goes around on the ocean. Then you have this, like, hang‑gliding experience and it's like a beautiful thing.

So we make our way to the shore where he tells us that we need to get on a water taxi that's going to take us to the watercraft that we're actually going to be doing the parasailing on.

We get on this water taxi and it's not a particularly windy day, but the waves are moving and shaking. And my stomach is also moving and shaking. But I'm very confused by this sensation because I've never been on the open sea before. I've never been on the ocean on a boat. My only experience with the open sea are stories from my family.

Justina Assaad shares her story at Burdock Brewery in Toronto, ON in March 2024. Photo by Glenn Pritchard.

My parents grew up in Egypt right on the Mediterranean and their childhood stories were all about boating and fishing and swimming. My sister loves to snorkel. And so you could say that being comfortable on the water is a part of my family history, my heritage, and what is expected of me.

So we're making our way to this boat and I'm a little queasy, but I know that I'm going to be fine because this is not who I am, this queasiness. Who I am is a water warrior. I have it in my blood, I know it.

So we get to this boat and now I'm unwell. I'm not feeling… there's no war that I am winning. And we go and there's this man who's having his parasailing experience on that boat, which is like 10 or 15 minutes because they want you to enjoy, and he's up there.

So we get to this boat and I'm still thinking that this will pass. By the end of the 15 minutes, I'm delirious. Like, my head is in my hands being cradled like a child. I am rocking back and forth, doing the most to maintain an ounce of decorum in front of all these people and in front of my family.

In addition to my delirium, I'm also, like, yelling into the ether that I need to go next. That if you just get me in the air and I'll be okay. I presume everyone has heard this. I am screaming at the top of my lungs.

By the end of these 15 minutes, I'm in full‑fledged fever dream. I don't know what's going on. I'm not paying attention. And from the corner of my eye, my dad is running to go next.

And I'm thinking, “I just made a declaration that I would be going next. What is this man doing?”

But he looked so happy. This is what he loves to do. He loves to be on the water. This is his childhood. He's just so joyful that I couldn't take that joy away from him. And I also knew that this is my family history and my heritage and what is expected of me. I know that I can wait and let the man go.

So my dad finishes his experience. At this point, now I'm in active labor, like Sarah. But when he comes, I pounce. I am right there, ready to go. They strap me up and they hoist me up in the air, and this wave of relief washes over me because it is absolutely breathtaking. The piercing blue of the ocean, the sky was completely clear, there are people playing in the water, you're just enjoying the view.

But there is a demon right here and it's saying, “It's too late. You're too far gone. The omelet from breakfast is coming and you can do nothing about it.” And this is the genuine thought I am having right now.

“Excuse me, demon, sir. I took Grade 11 Biology and I know that the esophagus has an automatic process through which food makes its way down to the stomach, and it's called peristalsis, and it occurs after the act of swallowing. So I think I'm going to swallow this sucker right back where it came from.”

And so I'm swallowing and I'm swallowing, and it's rising and it's rising, and it's ascending its throne. It's here. It's mid‑throat, mid‑pharynx, if you will, since it's a science show. And so I think, “Okay, I'm going to hold my breath,” as if that was going to sustain anything.

And then I'm making chipmunk faces, doing my best work. And it's rising. It's ascending. It's here. And I'm recognizing that I'm going to have to accept defeat.

But just the physics of this situation, I cannot allow this vomit to go straight out and then hit me back in the face. I cannot allow it. I won't allow it. So I think, “Okay, I'm a genius. Game plan. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to turn our head. We're going to let it go that way.”

So I accept defeat. It's the grand finale. I turn my head and projectile vomit proceeds to flow, descends down to the ocean below. And it feeds the fish.

And now I'm feeling great, you know? Now, I'm at the top of the world, literally. I'm flying. I'm Superwoman. I'm having the time of my life because I've relieved.

I sort of like, looking around, turn my head and realize, “Oh, that's my cover‑up flying in the wind,” and it's absorbed all of my vomit. I did not, indeed, feed the fishes. So when they hoist me back, they bring me back to the boat, they've got to dunk me in the ocean to clean off my dress.

And so ended the most embarrassing experience of my life, you would think. But, you see, the beautiful Mexican man had offered us a video recording package, and so this travesty is on tape.

Now, I have never seen it. I will never see it, but it's my sister's favorite thing to watch. When she's having a bad day, she'll watch it. I can live with that.

Despite this whole ordeal, I know it's still a fluke. This is my family history. So when my dad wants to go deep sea fishing the next year, I'm in.

We wake up early. We get some breakfast. We head down to the dock. The guy’s telling us about fish and we're like, “Oh, okay. Great.” And we start to make our way to the middle of the ocean.

We're about halfway there when I begin violently vomiting in a plastic bag, over the side of the boat, in a bucket. You name it, I vomited in it.

So you'd think, “Okay, Justina, hang up the proverbial fishing pool. Well, that's not for you.”

But, you see, I now have recognized what the common denominator is between the first two voyages. 'Twas not seasickness. No, no. 'Twas eating before said voyage.

And so I thought, logic asserts that you can't vomit if there's nothing to vomit. So when my sister wants to go snorkeling on the Pacific Ocean the next year, I am in.

So we, again, are getting ready in the morning and I fast the whole day. We get on the boat and we make our way to the middle of the ocean.

Fun fact about nausea, you don't have to have anything in your stomach to be retching in a tiny toilet in a boat on the Pacific Ocean. I learned that.

So you're probably thinking, “Okay, this girl's a little crazy,” right? This, like, delirious insistence that I must become a sea monster is insane.

But it's my way of connecting to my roots and to my family. You see, my rational brain says motion sickness can happen to anyone. You just have motion sickness. But my emotional brain is telling me, you must fight it, because this is how you're going to get close to your Egyptian roots.

So I went to my dad, and I said, “What do you think about your child being so inept at what should be in her blood?”

And he goes, “Well, you didn't grow up there. You didn't really have these experiences like we did. I don't really expect much from you in that sense.”

But I think this idea of identity and trying to connect to your roots is something that a lot of children of immigrant families experience. I think we get to choose how we want to connect to our roots. And so no matter how many times I regurgitate my buffet breakfast, being comfortable at sea is part of my family history and my heritage and it's what I expect of me.

Thank you.