Editor’s Note: The following piece contains explicit language and content. The view expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of theDIHEDRAL.
I remember having dinner with my grandparents at a local café when I was in college, and some guy walked into the diner with a shirt that read “Fuck your Morals”. As a philosophy student, this thought was appealing to me. As a grandson out to eat with my devoutly religious grandma, I was a little uncomfortable.
Language and etiquette come up regularly in most shared spaces, and of course climbing is no different.
Climbing gyms and crags often come with try-hards who can’t help but drop a series of f-bombs when they can’t make it through the crux. It can be so frustrating to work so hard at something and then fail. In this situation colorful language seems both acceptable and appropriate. On the flip side of that, there are frequently, young children, and religious grandmothers (like mine) around as well, and in those situations releasing a verbal onslaught of expletives makes things a little uncomfortable.
You run into similar issues with route names, such as Anal Tongue Dart, Pumped Full of Semen, and Daily Dick Dose. I don’t personally find anything “wrong” with these names, but if I imagine a father telling his young climbing children to find a few good routes in the Hueco Tanks Guidebook, and they come back and say “papa, Daily Dick Dose seems like a fun route to work this afternoon” I feel a little awkward. It could get worse at show-and-tell when the teacher asks if anyone had a fun experience to report, and little Norbert comes back with “I went climbing and got Pumped Full of Semen on my third try”. Not good!
When I was younger, my sister was a big fan of Eazy-E and 2 Live Crew, we would roll up to school with some classics like She Swallowed it, Me So Horny, and Face Down Ass Up. I remember clear as day, when she left an Eazy-E tape in our dad’s car, and he found it. I thought that might be the end of my sister. But she was savvy and turned what could have been an execution into a conversation.
She brought up a little song called Louie Louie by the Kingsmen. An innocent enough song with very poor recording quality that led many teenagers of the 1960’s to sing some questionable lyrics over the original track.
Check out these lyrics at the 1-minute mark of this video.
“At night at ten, I lay her again. Fuck you girl, oh, all the way.”
Vs. the actual lyrics…
“Three nights and days I sailed the sea. Me think of girl (oh) constantly.”
Based on the conversation between my sister and dad, it would seem like my dad was not aware of the actual lyrics to Louie Louie and thus recognized that words in music can be just that, words in music. Stay of execution granted, sentence commuted!
I tend to think of colorful language in climbing the same way; words can be just that, words. However, I also think intent and context matters. No one gets offended with words like “bitch” or “ass” when used in certain contexts, but put those words together, and it’s a very different story.
Ultimately, I recommend using any words you feel comfortable using while in shared spaces. Provided those words aren’t generally hurtful, derogatory, or bigoted. I tend to avoid language that would make my grandma blush, but every-once-in-a-while you just have to say _______ it, climb-on!
thedihedral.com 