If you have worked in a field, where it's all men, you'll know that sometimes guys can get pretty filthy in their conversations. It usually starts with insulting each other and who can make the best insult over the other guy. I found that after a while that line of thinking bleeds into your everyday life away from work and sometimes it's hard to hold your tongue.
It becomes a particularly hard problem when you enter a group of people that have never had these types of thoughts and don't swear on a regular basis or never at all.
I was at a party last weekend and the group of people there were all parents with little children and new babies. They joked and laughed but every joke and laugh was clean, meaning there was no sexual innuendo or crass lingo. Every once in a while I would hear a phrase like "How do you like your meat?" Someone would answer "Thick and pink" If you look at both of those statements how can you not let your mind wander into the dirtiness of it?
It took all my power to not say "Just like you like your women" or "You must have married your husband for a different reason." I am always on the lookout for a phrase that will cut someone down or for a jab at their personality but in fun not hostility. I didn't say anything and instead held my tongue and listened.
This went on all evening, there were so many opportunities that I passed by, mostly because I didn't feel like these people would respond well to the crass nature of it.
On the way home my wife and I were talking about getting a new vacuum cleaner for our little studio, the one we had was from her youth and she had a sentimental attachment to it, because it lasted so long and was a good machine. She agreed that it was time for a new one, a sad look in her eye. I looked over at her, smiled and said "At least you know how I feel now" and she replied "What do you mean?" I said "It's a sad day when you realize that something that used to suck so good doesn't suck so much anymore, and will probably never suck anything again."
She looked at me with a blank stare for a second and then we both burst out laughing, she said "You sick bastard!" and we continued to laugh for a while after.
Scott Goerz
