Heard on Springer: "Sex?" "No."

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:37 PM -0400 5/25/11, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>He did not have sex with that woman.
>
>I think we've discussed this before.  There seems to be a growing norm in
>America that "oral sex" is not "sex."

Well, a growing (post-Clintonian) *heterosexual* norm perhaps.  There
have been a number of empirical studies (not as much fun as that
makes it sounds--I'm talking questionnaires) that find an
unsurprising major effect of sexual orientation on this.  And here's
a take from a high school guidance counselor in a recent novel:
==============
And when a girl like Jen Heplauer came into Leanne's office during
the school day and said, "Dr. Banerjee, a blow job isn't sex at all,
it's just a blow job", Leanne might tilt her head in that
bird-on-a-branch way, but she really hoped to be able to say, "Well,
it depends on the blower and the blowee."

-Meg Wolitzer (2011), _The Uncoupling_, p. 256


>  There was an article about it in
>Harper's or the Atlantic at least five years ago.
>
>Even during the impeachment I knew people who believed that while Clinton
>hadn't told the whole truth, he hadn't outright lied either. In fact, I
>wasn't sure whether I was one of those people or not. And I was born long
>before ca1985.
>
>Different strokes for different folks.
>
>JL
>
>
>On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 1:24 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>  Subject:      Heard on Springer: "Sex?" "No."
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  Mid-twenty-ish black, male speaker:
>>
>>  "She comes over to me, Jerry. She unbottons my shirt and starts
>>  rubbing my chest. Then, Jerry, she unzips my pants!"
>>
>>  Jerry:
>>
>>  "And then you had sex."
>>
>>  Guest:
>>
>>  "No, Jerry. I got a blowjob."
>>  -----------------------------------------
>>  Extra, added attraction
>>
>>  Jerry:
>>
>>  "Do you have any feelings for him?"
>>
>>  Twenty-ish, white, female speaker:
>>
>>  "No."
>>
>>  Jerry:
>>
>>  "So, it was just a one-time thing."
>>
>>  Guest:
>>
>>  "No. It was a few-times thing."
>>
>>
>>  Nothing to see, here, folks. I just thought it was cute. :-)
>>
>>  --
>>  -Wilson
>>  -----
>>  All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
>>  to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>  -Mark Twain
>>
>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org