Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Feeling old? Maybe this'll help.

Always nice to encounter someone worse off than you, amirite?


(h/t: FS, via email)

7 comments:

Jack said...

Heh. This reminds me when I was a kid, maybe about 5th grade, I overheard my grandma and her sister talking in the kitchen. They didn't realize I could hear them. My aunt said to my grandma, suddenly whispering, "did you hear about this new kind of sex they have now? Oral sex!" She sounded more perplexed than anything, like she thought it was another way to get pregnant.

My aunt was well into her 60s by the time. I honestly am still amazed she had never heard the term, but these were devout Catholic women who were raised in the Church and never strayed far from it. I have to assume they were familiar with the act itself, and that it was just the term "oral sex" that was unfamiliar to them.

bjkeefe said...

Sure she wasn't just being ironic?

Jack said...

I honestly have no idea. I was pretty young. Between that and how long ago it was, I might have missed something. Plus, I was in the next room, so I couldn't see body language. But she said it all hush-hush, whispering.

My grandma was non-committal and didn't say much of anything; she just moved on. I think she might have been just as thrown by the comment as I was.

Still, is it possible a women in her 60s in the mid-1970s could have never heard the term "oral sex?" I think probably. Like I said before, I think it was the *term* that was new to her, not the act itself. And when she first encountered the term, she thought it was some new way to get pregnant.

Ocean said...

Come on, Jack, not even Bill knew that "oral" was sex. Don't you remember?

;)

Jack said...

LOL!

I do find myself doubting my perceptions, as I reflect back on them now. Maybe it *was* some kind of wry joke.

Which reminds me of another childish misunderstanding of mine. When Nixon was being impeached, I asked my mom what all the fuss was about. (I was five years old at the time.) She told me that Nixon "refused to turn over the tapes." I immediately formed a mental picture of Nixon only allowing one side of the tapes to be played, and refusing to "turn them over" so we could hear what was on the other side. :-)

It wasn't until years later that it dawned on me what she really meant.

bjkeefe said...

That "turn over the tapes" thing is just awesome. I love stories about little kids' literalism.

Ocean said...

Yes, I liked the "turn over the tapes" misunderstanding. I'm sure I had similar misunderstandings from when I was little, I just can't remember any right now.

Yes, there was a time when I was little... ;)

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