“Watch Your Language, Young Lady!” Part II

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
By Yanran Lu

Yanran asks that you read the article with a British accent: “I am not British by any means, but since the article might otherwise lack ‘propriety,’ reading it with a British accent might just add some ‘legitimacy.’”

So I am a woman talking about sex. To be specific, I am an Asian woman, a species that has been sexualized because of our “submission,” talking about sex. I am not sure how this particular status contributes to my voice as I approach this rather tantalizing subject. In addition, I am not sure whether people take offense to the fact that the silent, obedient Asian woman is speaking, or the vulgar language I used to express my “disobedience” or my lack of English abilities – to which I am hanging on for dear life as I try to express sexuality, since I was never taught about it in my native language.

As I search for a new, more “appropriate” language to talk about sex, I am lost for words. Somehow “cunnilingus” or “fellatio” does not quite have the same ring to it. Besides not knowing their meanings, they sound like some obscure kinky sexual act when they come up on the college “Purity Test.” Therefore, I want to ask, is it not appropriate to use the “everyday” language when we are approaching an “everyday” subject? We have no problem in introducing “technical” terms such as “isomorphism,” “confirmation bias” or “diminishing marginal utility” into our conversation. In fact we are quite proud when we do that and laugh, “we are such Stanford students.” Yet how are we so uncomfortable introducing “everyday” language into “elevated” media such as the school newspaper? Would it potentially “dumb” us down? Or are we carrying the same mentality as the high school guy who swore off pink shirts because it might “diminish his masculinity”?

Would “everyday” sex language in public media make us vulgar and break down the economic and social barriers we so desperately build all the time? What I mean by it is when we imagine a respected person (such as a CEO or the president) in the middle of a sexual act – without clothes, imperfections unabashedly displayed, drenched in sweat while making faces only made in agony yet claiming the most divine pleasure – the person’s presence is almost silly. In a weird way, sex becomes something that breaks boundaries: no matter if we wear Gucci or No Boundaries (a Wal-Mart brand) in public, we still perform the same primal act. Nothing about the act preserves “manners,” “propriety” or other distinctions among humans. A king making love is just as obscure as a peasant making love.

Of course, people argue, we are not prude people and we talk about sex. We just need to talk about it using “appropriate” language in “appropriate” settings. We have to address it in a scholarly and intellectual way. We can examine the velocity of semen in projectile motion or the numbers of chemicals lighting up in our brain, but talking “dirty” is something we are not capable of or allowed to do in public. This is not just for sex – when we talk about anything, it is not enough that we arrive at the same result. We have to agree on the means in which we derive the result, too. My critics and I have argued like Catholics and Protestants though our intentions are the same, as if there is only one (correct) way to reach G-d (of course, let us not forget the Muslims and the Jews, too).
In that light, perhaps my claim that sex breaks down economic and social barriers is not true. Certainly a yoga practitioner is capable of a more dynamic range of sexual positions; an open-minded and rich person will have surgical-grade silicon or even gold toys; and a religious person has Jesus or G-d in the bedroom while they are doing the deed. When we carry social markers to a place that supposedly exposes us to our utmost basic selves, it is only reasonable to ask: is the social and economic structure an innate part of the human makeup, or is it something so ingrained into our brain that we feel uncomfortable letting go of it – the lack of it making us feel naked? Are we not yet comfortable in just our own skin? Do we have to look at our bodies and imperfections through a veil of “propriety?” What would be left of us when we are stripped away of the decorative feathers of social and economic markers? I certainly hope I would not look like your Thanksgiving dinner.

To defend her opinion that social pretense is a ridiculous idea, you will never, ironically, catch yanran@stanford.edu “naked” without her words.