"Profanity"
Here's the thing about 'Profanity': It's an arbitrary description of what offends certain people, but not all people.
I was raised in a working-class household, and from time to time, I would hear things like, 'Y'know, my boss is an asshole...' or, 'What the fuck is that about?!' and let me tell you, it didn't warp my mind of make me think of fucking sheep or diddling a nun.
What it did do was inform me of how adults talk, and how adults talk is honestly.
If I use an expletive, there's typically a reason for it, and I assume that the same holds for most of my readers. I view what many people that call themselves 'Good Christians' in this country refer to as 'Profanity' as the way that honest adults talk to each other.
We're grown-ups, right?! Or am I living in a fucking alternate universe where the lamest of the lame that did nothing but bore the shit out of their fellow classmates by extolling the virtues of Jesus in High School are running shit?!
Apparently, the US is run by Jesus-freaks, and the rest of us can't be honest in our speech, because we might offend the less than 1% fraction of our society that might shit their Underoos about the way the world is outside of their own tiny town speaks.
Now, I can tell a rancid joke, but for the most part I rein it in a bit. Eryc and I would have long conversations about the standards of morality while I worked at Edwards Air Force Base, and we talked at great length about why we were confused by the petty nonsense that this country allows because of the people that were raised in Bumblefuck, (fill in any State name here).
Think of it this way: If you were raised in a relatively large city, your cultural views are vastly different than someone that lives in a rural environment. The main reason being that there's nothing to do in the small towns in comparison to the bigger ones. All you can hope for is the Homecoming Game at your shitty little local High School, and the lame parade that precedes it.
I've lived in both small towns and the city that many would consider small, with a population of over 150,000 (Lancaster, CA) and a small town of less than 6,000 (Sturgis, SD) and can tell you that they both have their charms. Sturgis is a small town, yes, but it has a huge heart, and everyone cares about each other. Lancaster, on the other hand, is on the Northern border of L.A. County, and most -if not all- of it's residents are from major cities, and they carry with them a city-minded mentality. 'Look out for yourself and watch your own back' is the ideology that pervades the unconscious of most people here.
That's not a bad thing, but it can be a detriment if you go from one to another. I often found myself flinching when people across the street would yell, 'Hey, how you doin'?!' when I lived in Sturgis, because when someone said something like that in Lancaster, it typically meant that you were about to be physically attacked... I imagine that the opposite is true if you're from a small town and someone shouted 'Hey, what set you from?!' to an out-of-towner, only in this case, you'll get your ass beat regardless of what you say.
To me, I like it when I'm in a conversation with someone that uses profanity, as it's an honest expression of how they feel. I view people that use soft language as pussies, and I treat them as such.
If you think a 'Curse Word', and you consider yourself a religious person, you might as well say it, since that's what you're really thinking, you know?!
Sure, you shouldn't cuss around the clock around your kid, but you shouldn't shelter your kids from the realities of life, either. If adults cuss, your kids should know why... stop trying to baby your fucking kids when it comes to the complexities of life, all right? People swear, period... don't sugar-coat shit for kids, because if you do, they grow up soft; lacking the ability to flex and adapt to the reality that surrounds them.
I know that many people complain about the filth on network television, but these people forget that such shows as 'Bussom Buddies' and 'Three's Company' were on the TV when I was a kid. Sure, they were funny, but they were far more risque than many people like to think. With Tom Hanks and his buddy dressing up in drag every episode, and John Ritter pretending to be Gay in order to live in an apartment with two reasonably good-looking chicks is a lot harder to get your head around as a kid than 'Martin' or 'Party of Five'.
This country was founded by Puritan asswipes that were kicked out of Europe for being too up-tight in the 1600's... now if you know how up-tight the Euros were at that time, that says a lot about who the douche-bags that first colonized were. If Europe kicks you out... you're a real ass.
This is the same area that includes Amsterdam, for fuck's sake!
We have surges of leadership in this country, and some of them are cool, when others aren't. We're back on the asshole gravy-train at the moment, but hopefully we'll get back on course in the next couple of years... and the censors in this country will take a much-needed nap for four-to eight-years, but until then, we'll have to self-censor ourselves.
Profanity is the realization of being an adult, folks, and we all have monents where a 'Goddamn it!' or a, 'Jesus-Fucking-Christ!!!' applies... we need to loosen up, here...
I do have a couple of jokes that I came up with, if you'd like to hear them...
'I once was in a three-way, but all I got out of it was two sore wrists.'
'My sex life has been so pathetic lately that I got a dozen roses and a card that said, 'Missing You...' from my orgasms.'
'I was recently watching TV, and a commercial came on for Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing, showing a family in a beautiful forest glen sitting at a picnic bench serving salad to each other, and a female voice came over, asking, 'You know what would make this better? Hidden Valley Ranch.' And I though to myself, 'Does that work for everything? Let's say that you're in a Prison shower being violently sodomized by a bunch of inmates... are you honestly going to think to yourself, 'You know what would make this better? Some Hidden Valley Ranch... Ow, Hey!!! Watch it with the biting, alright?!'
Have a great week, everyone.
I was raised in a working-class household, and from time to time, I would hear things like, 'Y'know, my boss is an asshole...' or, 'What the fuck is that about?!' and let me tell you, it didn't warp my mind of make me think of fucking sheep or diddling a nun.
What it did do was inform me of how adults talk, and how adults talk is honestly.
If I use an expletive, there's typically a reason for it, and I assume that the same holds for most of my readers. I view what many people that call themselves 'Good Christians' in this country refer to as 'Profanity' as the way that honest adults talk to each other.
We're grown-ups, right?! Or am I living in a fucking alternate universe where the lamest of the lame that did nothing but bore the shit out of their fellow classmates by extolling the virtues of Jesus in High School are running shit?!
Apparently, the US is run by Jesus-freaks, and the rest of us can't be honest in our speech, because we might offend the less than 1% fraction of our society that might shit their Underoos about the way the world is outside of their own tiny town speaks.
Now, I can tell a rancid joke, but for the most part I rein it in a bit. Eryc and I would have long conversations about the standards of morality while I worked at Edwards Air Force Base, and we talked at great length about why we were confused by the petty nonsense that this country allows because of the people that were raised in Bumblefuck, (fill in any State name here).
Think of it this way: If you were raised in a relatively large city, your cultural views are vastly different than someone that lives in a rural environment. The main reason being that there's nothing to do in the small towns in comparison to the bigger ones. All you can hope for is the Homecoming Game at your shitty little local High School, and the lame parade that precedes it.
I've lived in both small towns and the city that many would consider small, with a population of over 150,000 (Lancaster, CA) and a small town of less than 6,000 (Sturgis, SD) and can tell you that they both have their charms. Sturgis is a small town, yes, but it has a huge heart, and everyone cares about each other. Lancaster, on the other hand, is on the Northern border of L.A. County, and most -if not all- of it's residents are from major cities, and they carry with them a city-minded mentality. 'Look out for yourself and watch your own back' is the ideology that pervades the unconscious of most people here.
That's not a bad thing, but it can be a detriment if you go from one to another. I often found myself flinching when people across the street would yell, 'Hey, how you doin'?!' when I lived in Sturgis, because when someone said something like that in Lancaster, it typically meant that you were about to be physically attacked... I imagine that the opposite is true if you're from a small town and someone shouted 'Hey, what set you from?!' to an out-of-towner, only in this case, you'll get your ass beat regardless of what you say.
To me, I like it when I'm in a conversation with someone that uses profanity, as it's an honest expression of how they feel. I view people that use soft language as pussies, and I treat them as such.
If you think a 'Curse Word', and you consider yourself a religious person, you might as well say it, since that's what you're really thinking, you know?!
Sure, you shouldn't cuss around the clock around your kid, but you shouldn't shelter your kids from the realities of life, either. If adults cuss, your kids should know why... stop trying to baby your fucking kids when it comes to the complexities of life, all right? People swear, period... don't sugar-coat shit for kids, because if you do, they grow up soft; lacking the ability to flex and adapt to the reality that surrounds them.
I know that many people complain about the filth on network television, but these people forget that such shows as 'Bussom Buddies' and 'Three's Company' were on the TV when I was a kid. Sure, they were funny, but they were far more risque than many people like to think. With Tom Hanks and his buddy dressing up in drag every episode, and John Ritter pretending to be Gay in order to live in an apartment with two reasonably good-looking chicks is a lot harder to get your head around as a kid than 'Martin' or 'Party of Five'.
This country was founded by Puritan asswipes that were kicked out of Europe for being too up-tight in the 1600's... now if you know how up-tight the Euros were at that time, that says a lot about who the douche-bags that first colonized were. If Europe kicks you out... you're a real ass.
This is the same area that includes Amsterdam, for fuck's sake!
We have surges of leadership in this country, and some of them are cool, when others aren't. We're back on the asshole gravy-train at the moment, but hopefully we'll get back on course in the next couple of years... and the censors in this country will take a much-needed nap for four-to eight-years, but until then, we'll have to self-censor ourselves.
Profanity is the realization of being an adult, folks, and we all have monents where a 'Goddamn it!' or a, 'Jesus-Fucking-Christ!!!' applies... we need to loosen up, here...
I do have a couple of jokes that I came up with, if you'd like to hear them...
'I once was in a three-way, but all I got out of it was two sore wrists.'
'My sex life has been so pathetic lately that I got a dozen roses and a card that said, 'Missing You...' from my orgasms.'
'I was recently watching TV, and a commercial came on for Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing, showing a family in a beautiful forest glen sitting at a picnic bench serving salad to each other, and a female voice came over, asking, 'You know what would make this better? Hidden Valley Ranch.' And I though to myself, 'Does that work for everything? Let's say that you're in a Prison shower being violently sodomized by a bunch of inmates... are you honestly going to think to yourself, 'You know what would make this better? Some Hidden Valley Ranch... Ow, Hey!!! Watch it with the biting, alright?!'
Have a great week, everyone.
posted by Todd Tobin at 2:13 AM
2 comments
