The Big Bang!

Today, thanks to my Pastor, via the church yard sale (which I couldn't attend for I ripped a stitch out and was committed to bedrest for the weekend), for a mere $5, I became the proud new owner of this game, which he set aside for me upon me exclaiming that I absolutely HAD to have it, because (I didn't tell him this), it's got to be the most innocently, unintentionally obscene item offered at any Lutheran yard sale in the History of the Inappropriate, NOT that I plan on ever PLAYING it, but it's kitsch value is worth more than anything:

According to the box, it's the:

And what are you supposed to do with it at your party, pray tell?

This HAD to be something sitting in some innocent Lutheran's basement for the last 40+ years. (My friend, Jenny, who's in her early 50's, told me she received the same game for her 8th grade graduation, which causes me to scratch my head and wonder who on EARTH would give this to a bunch of KIDS.) Either that, or, dare I say, it's been around the block. Come on, "swinging" is so, well, my age. Great, now I'm wondering if my parents are my real parents or if they got a little carried away with Hip Flip at a party in 1972. (Nah, I'm too much like my Dad, plus my folks weren't swingers.)

I looked it up on eBay, and BAM! The same game in the same condition is going for upwards of $50. But you'd have to rip this out of my cold, dead hands. It's campier than "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls."

Pastor posted a picture of it online, captioning that perhaps the Youth Group should play it. UH, that'd be a NO. Either he was being cheeky or facetious or he honest to Christ had no idea, being brought up properly, unlike me, what "swinging swingers" did back in the day. I don't fault him one bit; he's several years younger than I am and probably not as well versed in pop culture perversity as yours truly.

I'm surprised that toy-manufacturing censors in 1968 didn't catch the innuendo in the game description on the box, which if you read it verbatim, is ridiculously, hilariously scandalous. "The wooden rod." "A set of lady's hands and set of gentleman's hands." (Read: Not "boy's hands" or "girl's hands," implying it's not for children.) Then there's the "30 inch flipper with a real ding dong bell at the end." "It's great fun to watch." I'M SURE IT IS.

I opened the box, and the game looks like it's never been played. Everything was in pristine condition. I just wanted to see what the 4 body positions were, and they get more torrid as the game goes on. And everything is heart-shaped, implying the game is, well, a romantic game to play, to be polite.  The instructions flat out tell you to try the game with "husband and wife," or "single couples," but to switch partners up, or do a "Girl's Choice," etc. Suffice it to say, there's abdomen action, hip action, and I'm sure you could maneuver the grabby hands it comes with to do more sinister flips.

Have a few martinis and watch out! Swinging may be out of style and medically unsafe in this day and age, not to mention frowned upon by the general public, but it's place in pop culture is undeniable, and thus this chunk of history is now in my possession. Not that I have anyone to play it with, being the cloistered nun that I am. ;)