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

Wed May 25 20:01:20 UTC 2011

If you look below you will see that I said "a" norm, not "the" norm. But
that is not the point. Point is whether Clinton was technically lying. He
wasn't. But it didn't matter in the court of public opinion because he
certainly misbehaved, and that was what the folks didn't like - misbehaving,
whatever the extent might have been. If you recall, he fessed only to having
an inappropriate relationship, which he did, and told his inquisitors "the
way the law is written, she was having sex and I wasn't." Further point is,
of course, if you liked him you wanted him off the hook, and if you didn't
like him you wanted him on the hook, no matter what he had actually
said/done. But linguistically and legally he was right. Which is moot, of
course. If I told my wife that I wasn't having sex with the woman next door
- she was just giving me blow jobs - I might be in slightly less trouble
than if it had been sex, but only slightly and only maybe. Being technically
right only goes so far...
DAD

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 4:13 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Heard on Springer: "Sex?" "No."

Subject:      Re: Heard on Springer: "Sex?" "No."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---

"A" norm. Not "the" norm.

In other words, a subnorm.

Had it been the norm, Clinton would have had less of a problem.

JL

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 2:49 PM, David A. Daniel <dad at pokerwiz.com> wrote:

> Poster:       "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Heard on Springer: "Sex?" "No."
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
>
> This concept goes back to the sixties at least, whereby hand sex and oral
> sex are not sex. Any high school kid in those days (of which I was one)
> knew
> that you had not had sex until penis had entered vagina - and not just
> knocked at the door, either, had to be the real thing. (Frankly I don't
> remember the status of anal sex - I'm not sure that anybody outside
>  British
> boarding schools did that in those days... ;) Anyway, I was firmly one of
> those who believed that Clinton had sidestepped the issue but had not
> actually lied. I remember clearly having an argument with a conservative
> friend, a few years older than I, about this topic and he insisted that
> Clinton had lied. I said, "Now, Bill, think back to when you were a kid.
> You
> know very well that you haven't done it until you've done it. We were
> getting hand jobs and blow jobs at the drop of a hat, but you had not had
> sex until it was 'all the way'. He nodded his head and said he had to
agree
> about that, but still didn't want that detail to be valid for Clinton
> (natch). So, to the point: This is not a new concept at all, or a 'growing
> norm' - it's just a norm. It is certainly not just post-Clinton.
> DAD
>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 2:37 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Heard on Springer: "Sex?" "No."
>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---
>
> 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."  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:
>
> >
> >
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  ---
> >
> > 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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

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