Prepare for the unexpected when you speak at women’s conferences on the topic of sexuality! This weekend, I spoke on “Understanding and Enhancing Your God-Given Sexuality within Marriage” at the Iron Sharpens Iron Conference for Women in Hartford, CT. It was an adventure, starting with when I got to my 100-seat classroom, and we couldn’t find the printed 16-page outlines to pass out to the women. Oh well, we will have to make do without them (and I offered to email the outline to the women if they sent me a request email to jennifer@www.jenniferdegler.com).

Ten minutes before the seminar begins, the room is full, and women continue to pour in. Soon they are seated on the floor around my feet (I feel like a preschool teacher during story time, only today’s story will be “You and Your Clitoris.” Oh my….) We are jammed in like sardines, and it is getting hotter and hotter in that room (and it isn’t because of my topic!). I start teaching on female genitalia and more women keep trying to squeeze into a packed room.

Fortunately, one of the other speakers, Mary Kassian, shows up unexpectedly and graciously offers to switch rooms with me (she was in the sanctuary), so we all troop over to the large sanctuary. Ah, blessed air conditioning! And lots of room for the 250 – 300 women in the audience.

But wait, there’s a problem. I wasn’t expecting to be in a large room so I don’t have PowerPoint slides with me. Instead, I brought transparencies–just fine for a classroom, but now we are in a large sanctuary with a deep stage. The men on the tech crew bring in the overhead projector and have to put it up on a raised platform near the choir loft. Then they ask me for a transparency so they can make sure it’s bright enough. Uh oh, all I have are transparencies of anatomical drawings of female genitalia. The audience knows this and starts laughing. I hand over the transparency and, since we are now behind schedule, start teaching while those men are still behind me setting things up. Awkward, but funny. 😳

So now the overhead projector is working fine, and there on the sanctuary wall is projected the world’s largest vagina. I’m quite sure this was a first for this church. I walk over to the overhead projector to write on the transparency, and I realize that the platform on which it is sitting is three feet off the ground, and there don’t seem to be any steps to get up to it. So, I hike up my leg (while wearing four inch stilettos) and climb up on the platform. I had to do this four more times during my presentation (I am still sweating from the previous classroom’s heat and now I have to do step aerobics?!?!) Again, awkward but funny. (The audience was amazing, by the way. They were good sports about everything).

I am so discombobulated by this point that I’m not quite sure what I said during my presentation; however, the audience laughed a lot and wanted me to go an extra 15 minutes at the end. Hopefully I didn’t embarrass God and country. I’m pleased that I had time to tell the audience about CWIVES, the Dare of the Month, and the 324 Club.

Now it’s over, I’m wringing wet, and two more funny things happen: 1) This sweet lady tells me that there are steps up to the platform on the side (I just didn’t see them), and 2) all the men from the tech crew ask me for CWIVES business cards to give to their wives. And they asked for extras to give to the guys in the sound booth. Priceless.

Thanks to the women of the Northeast and the superb ISI staff for a great conference!