I like to say stuff. This has been the case since I learned to turn infantile noises into fully formed words and phrases. However, this burgeoning new skill was sometimes a source of embarrassment for my parents, coming as it did without any of the checks and balances provided by the complementary skills of tact and diplomacy. Over time I learned to temper my tendency to shoot from the lip, though I remain someone who is largely predisposed towards ‘telling it as it is’.
At this juncture, I feel compelled to add that my desire to commentate on the world at large, or indeed my small corner of it, is not driven by any particular ideology or political persuasion. I am, however, becoming increasingly bemused by the limits imposed not only on my choice of language as I do so, but also on the thought process behind those expressed views.
As I became aware of the rise in a culture of political correctness back in the 1970’s I regarded it as something largely comical rather than sinister. I never imagined back then that this faintly ridiculous tendency to second-guess our every word and phrase was, in fact, the precursor to the ‘woke’ ideology which requires us to police all our thoughts and deeds.
If I say ‘shit’ on Facebook for instance meaning faeces and not as a description of the contents of my post though this might well also be an appropriate heading, I am likely to be sent to Facebook jail for breaching community standards. This is, however, unlike any other place of incarceration in that you might reasonably expect to find your fellow inmates are also guilty of serious breaches. It is far more likely, however, that your cell mates have been convicted for the most innocuous reasons. A fellow author was recently taken to task for posting a picture of a dog with a hat on! You also may be of the opinion ‘that when in Rome etc?’ But it is difficult to apply this logic when, without any real effort, it is possible to access content on this and other platforms of the kind that extends way beyond the bounds of common decency.
It is also worrying to note that our privacy is gradually being eroded too. A recent example of this was when I whispered to my husband in the privacy of our own Alexa and Siri-free living room that I wanted to buy a penis enlarger from Amazon. I had hardly got the word phallus out of my mouth before the algorithms, somewhat appropriately, rose to the challenge. In a matter of seconds both the feeds on our phones were swollen with all manner of dangerous and probably illegal paraphernalia aimed at turning a quick buck.
Now that I have been officially classed as a woman according to a judgement handed down by the supreme court which says that a woman is defined by their biological sex it should follow that I have no legitimate need of a penis enlarger for myself. My censor aka my husband has also asked me to point out that neither is he and that this was an item chosen specifically to demonstrate a point about the reach of Big Brother.
Putting yourself out here on the internet is always going to bring with it some negative attention. Recently a lady who has read both my books in The Funny Thing About Being a Widow? series reacted in a way I had not expected on learning that my next book is about Widows who go on to marry again as I have myself. She said that now I was no longer technically a widow I should not continue to ‘make money out of misery’ and that by continuing to include the word widow in the title of my books this could be offensive to ‘real widows’.
I argued that my books contained accounts of behaviours whilst I was a ‘real’ widow who frequented four dating sites that had far greater potential to cause offence. Revealing my underwear to a bus full of people whilst drunk and swivelling round the boarding stanchion of a bus during a date being one such pertinent example. As for the notion that I am living high on the hog as a result of my own, or other people’s misery is frankly amusing. Unless you are lucky enough to have spawned a best seller from the tip of your quill, writing for a living is not a particularly lucrative method of making money. In any event plotting to monetize the demise of my husband of 36 years was not a career choice on my part.
I chose not to be offended by this woman’s lack of understanding concerning my reversion back to Mrs from widow of the parish. The fact that she assumed I am no longer affected by the experience of widowhood by reason of remarriage and as such am no longer qualified to provide commentary concerning it, is about as short sighted as it gets. I was never designed to be a stereotypical widow or wife, just ask my husband who is still inspecting his nether regions with a tape measure and pleading with me to consider using an alternative example to the the nob stretcher. His distress is palpable and I think I might have offended him maybe the promise of a hammer drill ordered from Screw Fix will make amends.
Despite the many mechanisms which exist so that we can avoid being offended by anything either online (scroll on by) or in person (walk away) it seems that the career ‘offended’ are increasing in number by the minute. God save us from the effects of mixing up our pronouns, laughing at something that is no longer considered to be appropriate or for having an opinion not commensurate with woke ideology. Oooops! sorry my God is not necessarily your God and all that and on and on it goes.
My position remains as it always was ‘If you can learn to laugh again, so can you learn to live again’ – Sandra E Manning.
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