Is “sex” a dirty word?

And if it isn’t, what about “insects?”


Kids all over the world have certain words they find funny. Maybe they’re “dirty” words, or ones that just sound silly or “dirty.” The problem can get compounded when you bring a second language into the mix. Then you get words that sound bad, but aren’t, or one’s that are translated so poorly the the meaning, while similar, is much stronger in one language than another.

I think kids everywhere laugh at the word “sex,” but Korean kids really seem to go overboard with it. They act as though it’s the filthiest word in the English language. Native speakers know it isn’t, and that it can be quite benign, like when using it to mean “gender.” I think this may be another case of bad translation, similar to the “shut up” issue mentioned previously.

Their dictionary probably has the English “sex” meaning the same as the Korean “fuck somebody raw eight ways to Sunday.”

And to be sure, sex can mean that, but it usually doesn’t. (Well, maybe if you’re doing something right it does.)

It’s so bad with my students that anything that even sounds like “sex” brings on a fit of the giggles. “Insects” in particular. That one will set ’em off for a good minute or two, mostly because it’s not bad, but sounds like it is – to them, anyways.

(Side note: “Insect” and “incest” are made up of the same letters. Maybe the kids know something I don’t?)

I think it’s also a cultural issue. Sex is one of those things that “just isn’t discussed” here, so the mere word must seem bad to them. This, from the same bunch of kids who have no problem saying, “Teacher! He ‘fuck you’ to me!” when one of them flips another one off.

If they only knew…. ^.^