Sex!
Of all the words in the English language that can be used in a number of confusing ways it’s Sex. Is it any wonder that the children of the world (and quite a number of adults too for that matter) find it so amusing? No three consecutive letters—apart from a man named Bob I once knew who was a bit of a megalomaniac—have ever been granted such power! So many meanings…so many conversational boxes ticked.
For example, just off the top of my head I can think of a slew of ways in which Sex can be used and is used on a daily-basis. It really is mind-boggling, and enough to drive a human to distraction (which, incidentally, is what I am doing as I type this, in a very successfull effort to shirk my work responsibilities). Now for the usages, of which you probably have already compiled a small list. If you are the lazy type who expects the writer to feed your mind so you don’t have to think about it, here is what I have come up with: For example, you can do the opposite of not have Sex (this opposite, for many people above a certain age, apparently leads to a less stressful existence, which is understandable), or you can Sex a chicken: something which is less rude than it sounds, but probably feels awfully rude—not to mention disturbing—to a small-minded chicken. There again, you can also Sex-up politics, documents, and really boring things, and you can also determine whether someone is of male or female standing on a boring legal form. More? Well, you can integrate the word in to Sextuplets, Sexy, or even Cyber. With so many uses for the word, it’s not surprising that Sex can lead to all kinds of trouble, is it?
For all of you that forgot, last week was my birthday, and my friend Moriah gave me a chemical peel as a gift. To start with, I have no idea what she was trying to tell me; but after I got over the relative disturbance of how unusual the present was, I went and realized that it was actually quite lovely. I would speak well of it to anyone, and really think all my female mates should give it a try!