What’s with all the crude talk?
Freshman and sophomore year, I could barely handle “That’s what she said” jokes. I felt uncomfortable around fellatio banter, couldn’t even imagine what a vibrator looked like, and a curse word rarely, if ever, exited my mouth. Two years later I’m the one writing articles informing college students on safe oral sex practices and recently received a vibrator as a birthday gift from my best friend. Sex jokes still go over my head, but at least they don’t leave me squirmy and uncomfortable. And I’m not proud to admit it, but I may have developed a bit of a potty mouth.
According to writer Emma Rosemblum’s recent article “She Said What?!” for Glamour Magazine, airing out our seemingly disgusting bodily function issues, discussing our vaginas for all to hear, and spitting out immodest curse words is a relatively new phenomenon. Back in 2009 when Snooki entered mass media, so did her crude talk. And just as this outrageous Jersey Shore character became a household name, raw and coarse language began to become household appropriate.
Just two years prior to Snooki announcing to national television that her vagina was “killing” her, the word for the female sex organ was rarely muttered in full. That also includes crude words that describe the vagina. If anything, the terms “va-jay-jay,” “it,” and “down there” were used to reference the female body part. Anything else was inappropriate or just plain uncomfortable to use. Chelsea Hander is also one to get laughs from use of crass language on late night television and confesses that she may have played a role in the latest trend.
Sitcom creator Whitney Cummings (2 Broke Girls) admits to frequently talking tasteless with vagina jokes. “I think our tolerance for what is edgy is changing…We’re getting a little desensitized, so sometimes you have to be more and more shocking because now you have YouTube and the Internet.”
So what does that mean for us college students who will be entering the real world sometime in the near future? Boundaries have definitely become blurred. You may question whether something that was once completely inappropriate and off-limits to mention to a co-worker could now be apart of your regular coffee break chitchat. Who would this language shock and who expects it to come from the mouths of most of their peers?
A Feminist’s Perspective Feminist theory professor Dr. Regina Barreca points out that this isn’t anything new. Women have always pushed boundaries (for example, shortening their skirts). We even see it in the hit 90s show Ally McBeal when Calista Flockhart’s character gets scolded for unconventionally wearing a shorter skirt in the courtroom. Rosenblum’s article offers one of many explanations for the sour talk: some women do it to impress men. In fact, Justin Timberlake was even recently quoted stating “There’s nothing better than a pretty girl with a nasty mouth. It’s every guy’s fantasy.” But take note of his word choice “pretty;” crass talk is only really received well by guys when it is coming out of the mouths of the utmost attractive women. From this we see that spewing out crude terminology like men does not mean equality.
At The End of the Day I should probably spend some time evaluating my crude talk and why I do it. Is it to impress men? For the feeling of liberation? Rebellion against how I was raised being scolded for using such language? For shock value? For the new year, I vow to reconsider my unfiltered comments in hopes of developing a deeper understanding of the meaning I give them and the image I am portraying of myself to the world.