We’re always happy to see a successful Catholic in the entertainment business, but let’s be honest, they’re not all going to be Raymond Arroyo.
TLC closes out the first season of its freshman panel-talk show “All About Sex” on Saturday, Feb. 14, with an episode called “Reinventing Romance.” Unfortunately, it’s also somewhat about “50 Shades of Grey,” which is, one way or another, going to be a main topic of conversation this weekend
The series, which airs at 11 p.m. ET — that should give you some idea how frank the conversation is — features comedian/actress Margaret Cho, actress Marissa Janet Winokur (at left above), sex and relationship expert Dr. Tiffanie Davis Henry (who has a Phd in Human Sexuality, at right) and writer/comedian Heather McDonald (center), talking about all issues related to, well, you know.
Click here for a clip from this weekend’s episode to give you an idea what the show’s like (no bad language, but some candid talk).
McDonald is a cradle Catholic — and a native Angeleno, having been born and raised in the San Fernando Valley — but since she was a regular on the ribald E! latenight talk show “Chelsea Lately,” with Chelsea Handler, and she wrote a 2010 memoir of losing her virginity at the age of 27 (not for religious reasons, but because she was looking for Mr. Right) entitled “You’ll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again: One Woman’s Painfully Funny Quest to Give It Up,” it’s not hard to surmise she may veer from some Church teaching on human sexuality.
Now married to an investment banker and mother of two sons, with a stepdaughter from her husband’s previous relationship, McDonald sat down with me in January for a frank chat about the show, her life and her ongoing relationship with the Faith.
On why she agreed to do “All About Sex”:
You don’t really turn down TV shows. I loved doing the daily topics and the social commentary that I did on ‘Chelsea Lately’ for seven to eight years. I also wrote and produced the show and was there from the beginning. When the show was ending, I told my people that I wanted to do talk, whether it be daytime or nighttime or panel or whatever. So then this came up, and they said, “Will you talk about sex?” I go, “Sure, there’s nothing that I don’t talk about.” I wrote a book about sex and the lack of. It was my first book. There’s nothing that I’m secretive about. I talk about my kids and my husband, and they don’t care.
On Catholics and humor:
We have a great sense of humor about everything. I think sometimes people are surprised. I said, “You know, Catholics drink, we joke, you can make a lot of jokes about it.” It’s so different from conservative Christians. I joke about it in my act.
On her kids’ own formation:
My [younger] kids go to the same Catholic school I went to. They go to St. Mel in Woodland Hills. My stepdaughter’s at [Catholic girls’ college-prep school) Louisville High School, which is where I went, too. It’s interesting, it’s the same thing, picking them up and everything, and I bought the house next door to my parents. So, I have this very traditional life, like I was in the middle of Texas or something, yet I’m in the entertainment business, and I have edgy jobs. It’s very different.
On her attitudes about sex:
My parents were very funny and very honest. My mom definitely wanted us to stay virgins by saying, “The minute a guy has sex with you, he’ll never call you again.” Little did I know it’s now the opposite. If they don’t have sex with you, they were kind of like, “See ya.”
I had some pride in that. I didn’t really mean to be a virgin until the age of 27. I just wanted it to be a boyfriend, but once you get to a certain age in your 20s, the boyfriend comes after the sex. You don’t really become a couple before you have sex.
Then it was like, if I shared it with a guy and was honest, they were so freaked out, because I never looked like a virgin. I drank, and I partied, and I dressed sexy. They probably thought I was pretty promiscuous, and then the fact that I wasn’t sleeping with them after a few dates, they were like, “Oh, this girl doesn’t like me,” and blow off. That was my story.
What was great, because I wasn’t sleeping with anyone, I never had a boyfriend. So, I did go on all these interesting dates, which I wrote about in my book, which was just interesting. You are actually meeting different types of guys and having dinner and hanging out, which I wouldn’t have had, because I probably would have had a boyfriend for a couple of years in there if we were living together or something.
There were some times where I would curse my virginity and be pissed about it, because I’d be invited to Hawaii, and I knew I couldn’t go, because, obviously, if someone’s paying for your trip, they expect to have sex. There were times I was like, “Oh, why couldn’t I just be a little bit more of a slutty golddigger, I could have a much nicer life,” but I just couldn’t do that.
For guys today, they can get sex so easily, it’s crazy. I would suggest that someone hold back a little bit, because they would stand out.
(Theology of the Body folks, feel free to unpack this in the comments. Can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with.)
On her family’s reaction to being talked about on TV:
My husband’s fine with everything. Certainly we’re not going to let the kids watch, but he’s been great about me talking about him my whole life and throughout my career. I always just say it’s provided us with a nice life. I tell the kids, “I may talk about you, too. Some parents make you get up at 4 a.m. to pick corn on the farm, to provide the home and the food and the cow. This provides you with an X-Box and a pool, so just shut up and deal with it.”
On the reaction of the other parents at St. Mel’s:
The parents are cool enough, but yeah, I did try to donate my books and stuff, and they turned it down. They turned down the donation. At first, I was really pissed, and then I was like, “OK. All right.” I’m not going to be asked to do career day, even though I’m clearly one of the most successful people from the school. They’re going to have some boring architect lady, but that’s probably best.
On Pope Francis:
He’s a cool pope, and he becomes cooler and cooler with each thing. I follow him on Twitter, and I think it’s great. He’s more liberal and open-minded and not about the pomp and circumstance, more about living a more humble life.
So, while McDonald’s hardly a poster girl for orthodox Catholicism, she is raising her children in the Faith, and she’s probably way more typical of American Catholics than we’d always like to admit.
But the idea of talking honestly about sensitive subjects, and our own failings, is a very Catholic thing, and if we wait for a perfect representative to enter the conversation, we’ll never get a word in edgewise.
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