Let’s Get The Sex Out Of Thanksgiving.

Baste your bird, don’t debase it, for crying out loud.

Robert Cormack
6 min readOct 24, 2020
Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash

My cooking was so bad, my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor.” Phyllis Diller

As history describes it, turkeys were first introduced to the Thanksgiving dinner table way back in the early 1600s. No record explains exactly why the Pilgrims chose turkey for this historic feast. They weren’t the plump and juicy turkeys we know today— in fact, they were embarrassingly skinny by comparison. Then again, so were cows and sheep.

No, the choice of wild turkey remains a bit of a mystery, although it might have been because the Pilgrim’s guests were the Wampanoag tribe.

The Wampanoag wore a lot of turkey plumage, and even a proselytizing Pilgrim knew wild turkeys didn’t exactly hand their feathers over. They were obviously a favourite Wampanoag dish, and since the Pilgrims wanted to please their guests, they went out and shot a bunch of wild turkeys.

Thus, the serving of turkey at Thanksgiving began, with many side dishes, and many turkeys wondering why these otherwise solemn people felt the need to shoot the hell out of them on this day in particular.

In fact, he loved it so much, he wanted the wild turkey to be America’s national bird.

Years later, Benjamin Franklin admitted to being a turkey lover—especially with cranberry sauce. He even made a lengthy speech to Congress, recommending the wild turkey as America’s national bird.

Unfortunately, many in Congress felt the bald eagle was more representative of America’s noble spirit, despite the fact that wild turkeys can run 20 miles per hour while a bald eagle runs maybe two.

It should’ve been Franklin’s main argument, but there’s no mention of him bringing it up, so the bald eagle became America’s national emblem, and Franklin turned his attention to diplomacy and inventing the catheter.

As the years went by, turkeys graced many Thanksgiving tables, proving that not all wild turkeys can run 20 miles an hour. Domestic turkeys can barely run at all (so I guess the bald eagle was a good choice afterall).

The reason domestic turkeys can’t run is because we like big breasts, and turkeys today have bigger breasts than, well, Stormy Daniels. Her track time, by the way, is about the same as the bald eagle’s.

If they’re not artificially inseminating the bird, they have to hold the male turkey over the female to have sex. They don’t even provide half decent mood music.

Anyway, in our determined efforts to have more turkey breast at Thanksgiving, farmers have to enhance the bird’s reproduction and weight. If they’re not artificially inseminating the bird, they have to hold the male turkey over the female to have sex. They don’t even provide half decent mood music.

Remember the famous WKRP episode where Mr.Carlson drops free turkeys from a helicopter just before Thanksgiving? Well, they crashed to the ground, creating one of television’s funniest lines of all time: “As God is my witness, Andy,” he exclaimed, “I thought turkeys could fly.”

We all thought that was hysterical. Turkey’s flying? Well, here’s some turkey trivia for you: Turkey’s can fly. Wild turkeys, anyway. Domestic turkeys can’t because they’re too embarrassed about their weight.

Believe me, if you had to be held over your partner to have sex, you wouldn’t be doing any flying, either.

Way back, twenty-one years after the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth, a teen named Thomas Granger was found guilty of having sex with a turkey.

Such is the history of the Thanksgiving turkey. Most of us have fond memories of our mothers basting the bird. Yet people haven’t always been so respectful, something even our Pilgrim fathers had to contend with.

Way back, twenty-one years after the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth, a teen named Thomas Granger was found guilty of having sex with a turkey.

To be fair, he also had sex with a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep and two calves. That was a serious offence back then, and Granger was sentenced to be hanged. What’s worse, before the noose was put around his neck, he had to watch his feathered and furry concubines being killed.

Keep in mind, Plymouth wasn’t exactly rolling in food, so losing this amount of livestock didn’t go over well. Still, violated livestock couldn’t be consumed, and Granger — even after his death — was vilified for “being a real dumbass.”

In any event, the Wampanoag laughed their asses off, and relations soured since the Pilgrims weren’t big on entertainment.

Yet despite the gravity of the situation, sodomy and buggery crimes actually went up. Fortunately, most of this was with humans, leaving the livestock alone. In any event, the Wampanoag laughed their asses off, and relations soured since the Pilgrims weren’t big on laughter—or dumbasses, for that matter.

Anyway, let’s skip ahead to a more modern-day occurrence, this one involving a 27-year-old Ryan Mills. Randy Ryan was supposedly caught having sex with a turkey carcass by his girlfriend, Tiffany Rodriguez.

She allegedly stabbed him multiple times.

This story proved to be untrue, but Emergency units have treated injuries sustained in similar pursuits, one involving a turkey baster found in the same place the victim was aiming for with the turkey. What goes around, comes around, I guess.

Finally, there’s the less weird — but still pretty weird — sexual position known as “The Turkey.” As it’s been described by metro.co.uk, this involves the male partner having sex with his female partner from behind. At the moment of climax, the man lets out a “gobble, gobble,” and smacks the woman’s buttocks, leaving a hand print that looks like a turkey.

Imagine getting up to make your lover a sandwich and he smacks your ass.

This has been described as mutually satisfying by some, a real piss-off by others. Unless the woman is warned, she’ll probably think the “gobble, gobble” means the man wants a snack. Imagine getting up to make your lover a sandwich and he smacks your ass. Some women grab a carving knife or turkey baster. Either way, it’s not a fun evening anymore.

In conclusion, Thanksgiving turkey shouldn’t give you ideas about sex — let alone weird sex. Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble making it plump, so why not stick to eating turkey instead of violating a perfectly good bird just to satisfy your carnal instincts?

Look, maybe Thomas Granger didn’t have many venues, given his Puritan surroundings — but you definitely do. You’ve got porn, inflatable dolls, and video game characters with more curves than a Daytona racetrack. Surely you don’t have to bugger a turkey to get your jollies.

This Thanksgiving, why not enjoy a traditional dinner with loved ones — without the turkey being one of them.

This Thanksgiving, why not just enjoy a traditional dinner with loved ones — without the turkey being one of them? And, whatever you do, don’t engage in the Turkey Position without discussing it with your partner first. Maybe she’ll be thrilled, maybe she won’t. It’s always better to find out before you start gobble-gobbling. Turkeys can pull it off. Unfortunately you can’t.

Neither can most men.

We just don’t have the breasts for it.

Robert Cormack is a satirist, novelist, and former advertising copywriter. His first novel “You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive)” is available online and at most major bookstores. Check out Skyhorse Press or Simon and Schuster for more details.

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Robert Cormack

I did a poor imitation of Don Draper for 40 years before writing my first novel. I'm currently in the final stages of a children's book. Lucky me.