A male friend and I were having a conversation about a mutual friend and his new relationship. Nothing too crazy, or out of the ordinary, until my friend said this:

“…Yeah and he went over to her house and laid some serious pipe.”

I gasped. I’m no prude. I don’t usually sigh and clutch my chest at the thought of people dropping sex-bombs, but there are some euphemisms for sex that seriously turn me off. Here’s the top 5.

5: Doing The Nasty
Religion, our parents, and old-school sex ed videos did a great job drilling some hard-core shame into our psyches regarding sex. The last thing I need to think about before I do the deed is how what I’m doing is often described as nasty. Nasty is word reserved for boogers, vomit, blood or a combination of the three.

4: Anything Related To Deli Meats
I get it; I get it. A penis looks a lot like a sausage. That’s not something that warrants hundreds of euphemisms though is it? When I hear unfortunate phrases like “porking,” “hide the salami,” or “parking the beef bus in tuna town,” I want to make myself a sandwich, not have sex with you. Read More »

Growing up, I always had a very large and disproportionate sense of my own dignity. I was not to be troubled by these impurities of the flesh; I buried my nose in books and ignored the swirling talk of the girls around me. When I hit puberty, I felt violated somehow, as if my body had betrayed me by being real after all, and being a major pain.

While other girls in my class talked easily about their experiences and commiserated about cramps, I was mortified by the whole experience and didn’t want to talk about it to anyone — not to parents, doctors, or friends. The whole business was just embarrassing and shouldn’t be mentioned except when absolutely necessary, I thought.

Only after years of getting older and wiser have I lost some of my adolescent self-consciousness and become comfortable telling someone when I have cramps (in case they haven’t guessed from me being doubled up on the floor). I still don’t have much tolerance for discussing sex, though. I don’t mind it when others talk, but I’d blush like mad to speak about it myself. So am I just a Puritan, or is there a place in the world for the bashful as well? Read More »