Tag Archives: NSFW

The Rise of the Asterisk

books, etc., funny things, humor, language, literature, , , , , ,

It’s well-known (by people who know me) that I love punctuation. I read books about punctuation. I have two punctuation tattoos. My favorite mark of punctuation is the semicolon (which is one of the tattoos I have). But lately, when it comes to punctuation, the asterisk is in the ascendancy. And that’s because an increasing number of books have swear words in their titles. Punctuation is how we address the problem delicately.

The first example of the trend and at the time most shocking was Go the F**k to Sleep, a book that purported to be a read-to-kids goodnight book, but was really an expression of parental frustration. It caused quite a buzz.

After that came The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (and the more daintily titled The Subtle Art of Not Caring About People’s Opinion), I Used to Be a Miserable F*ck, Unfu*k Yourself, The French Art of Not Giving a Sh*t, and F*ck Feelings. For those who prefer hashtags, there’s Unf#ck Your Brain. The winner for the longest title is The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don’t Have with People You Don’t Like Doing Things You Don’t Want to Do (A No F*cks Given Guide). And Everything is #@%!ed! uses a whole string of punctuation. Fucking This shit Show: A Gratitude Journal for Tired Women dispenses with the veil of punctuation altogether. (I can’t help that inconsistent capitalization. That’s the way it’s written. Maybe shit is supposed to look less threatening in lowercase? But I digress.)

(When marks of punctuation are used as stand-ins for letters or words, they’re called “grawlix,” an almost completely useless word, but one I’m quite fond of. Most people have seen grawlix only in comic books when Popeye, for example, wants to cuss. But I continue digressing.)

What’s the reason for all the daintily disguised sweary titles? It’s not like we don’t know what the asterisks stand for. It’s not fooling anyone. Go the F**k to Sleep was obviously meant to be shocking, though it also expressed humor and frustration. After that, it looks like a bandwagon was jumped on. The book even jumped on its own bandwagon. Now it’s a trilogy, including You Have to F**king Eat and F**k, Now There Are Two of You.

(I note that most of the sweary titles go with self-help books. Does this indicate a certain irreverence regarding the concept of self-help? Frustration with the concepts in the books? I know I’ve wanted to swear at self-help books during various periods of my life. Now I write them, though (so far) none have titles that require grawlix. But I digress some more.)

Personally, I have no objection to swearing. For a long time, I couldn’t do it, but after working as a waitress, I made up for lost time. Now I swear like a sailor, though with better enunciation. Sometimes, a curse word is just the right one. And of course, when I use a swear word in writing, I punctuate it properly. No grawlix here.

My favorite unexpected use of punctuation, however, comes in this brief verse:

Mary’s little lamb / Upon the grass did frisk. / But Mary was afraid / Her little * .

Now that’s creative punctuation!

Dancing and Sex

etc., fun and games, funny things, humor, language, music, NSFW, , , , , , , ,

Everyone’s heard the joke about the fundamentalist who won’t have sex standing up because it looks too much like dancing. In fact sex and dancing have long been linked.

Remember Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show? Well, neither do I,(1) but his appearance was famously broadcast with a picture showing him only from the waist up. His dancing and pelvic gyrations, along with the lustful rhythms of pop music, were sure, it was thought, to lead directly and immediately to teenage pregnancy.(2)

But there’s another connection between shaking your booty and doing the horizontal mambo. In popular songs, the word “dance” is often a code word for sex.(3) Or rather, the sex act.

That’s right. You can take almost any pop song that talks about dancing and substitute your favorite word for coitus.(4) I have here a modest list.

screw, boink, boff, shag, bonk, bang, fornicate with, do it, eff, copulate, hook up, get laid, get it on, bed, sleep with,(5) score, bone, nail, and the good old f-bomb (6)

Let’s try it, shall we?

“I Wanna Dance With Somebody Who Loves Me”(7) becomes “I Want to Screw With Somebody Who Loves Me.” “Dancing in the Dark” translates to “Fornicating in the Dark.”(8)

Some translations seem perfectly natural. for example, “Come Dancing” shifts easily and appropriately to “Come Boinking.” “All She Wants to Do Is Dance” becomes, quite understandably, “All She Wants to Do is Shag.”

Other combinations get a little weirder. “Boffing on the Ceiling” sounds strange and difficult, yet somehow tantalizing.(9) And “Save the Last Copulation for Me” is neither romantic nor sexy.

Of course the theory breaks down after a while. I’m pretty sure that “Dancing in the Streets” is surely not code for “Getting Laid in the Streets.” And “Land of 1000 Hookups” can’t possibly be right.

On the other hand, “Flashfuck: What a Feeling!” adds a whole new dimension to the song.

Here are a few more choice specimens:(10)

“Scoring With Myself”
“Safety Bonk”(11)
“I Can’t Stop Screwing”
“Private Boinker”
“Your Mama Don’t Fuck”(12)

On the other hand, I suppose the Beatles song would become “Why Don’t We Dance in the Road?” and Jimmy Buffett’s, “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Dance?” I doubt if either would have been a big hit, but I could be wrong. At least they could be played on Top 40 radio.

(1) Oh, come on. I’m not that old.
(2) Ah, the good ol’ days, when a set of earplugs was considered a prophylactic.
(3) A little code word game: thug = _______, Hitler = _______, gun = _______, haggis = _______.
(4) A shout-out to The Big Bang Theory. Nobody else says “coitus” anymore, not even sex researchers.
(5) Which shouldn’t even be on the list. If you’re sleeping, you’re doing it wrong. (See “do it,” above.)
(6) For those of cleanly mind, just replace all these words with “freak.” There is an app that “cleans up” sexy novels. One problem: Every reference to the sex act becomes “freak.” Men’s genitals are “groin” and women’s, “bottom.” This leads to some fascinating dialogue:
“Where shall I [freak] you, Victoria? Where do you want my [groin]?”
“I want it in . . . my [bottom].”
You can read more about it here: http://www.romancenovelnews.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1167:my-clean-reader-app-experience&Itemid=53,
(7) This was an early hit for Whitney Houston, back when she’d sing things like, “No matter what they take from me/they can’t take away my dignity.” Boy, was she ever wrong on that one.
(8) Please. “This gun’s for hire”? See #3, above.
(9) “Banging on the Ceiling” could go either way, as it were.
(10) Feel free to play along at home. Send me any really good ones. Or really bad ones.
(11) Should be the theme song for Planned Parenthood.
(12) Realistically, she had to have, at least once. Unless you’re adopted. Or cloned.