Misunderstanding the English Language
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Childhood Story: Navigating Societal Norms & Language Confusion
In this episode I talk about my childhood. When I was a small child people thought that my curly hair was cute. As I grew older my mother viewed it as a problem. Desperate to fix what she perceived as an issue, my mother sought various remedies, but none succeeded.
I visited a stylist named Captain Bud, known for cutting curly hair. During the visit, an unintentional misunderstanding occurred when my mother described my hair as "kinky," leading to a humorous clarification by Captain Bud about the term's sexual connotations.
My story touches on societal expectations, the subjective nature of normalcy, and the potential misinterpretation of terms like "kinky" depending on the context and relationship with the person using them.
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When I was much younger, I had curly hair. I had lots of curly hair. I wonder where it went. I think it’s called age.
When I was a small child people thought that my curly hair was cute.
As I got older, I started letting my hair grow longer. Also, as I got older, my mother started hating my curly hair. She saw my curly hair as a problem. Because my mother hated my curly hair, she did everything she could to try to fix the problem. To make my hair no longer curly. She asked friends if they knew a way to fix the problem. She talked to the woman that cut her hair about it. She read articles in women’s magazines on how to fix problem hair. Everything she tried failed.
I have an older sister who told my mother that the guy that cut her hair knew how to cut curly hair. She said he could fix my hair. The guy who cut my sister’s hair called himself Captain Bud. My sister took me to see Captain Bud. He was going to cut my hair. Captain Bud was going to fix my curly hair.
What does it mean when someone says he's kinky?
[01:05]
My mother came along to explain to Captain Bud the problem that I had with my hair. She grabbed my hair and held it out and said “See, he's kinky.” Captain Bud responded, “We call his hair curly. Kinky is something completely different. Your son may be kinky, but it has nothing to do with his hair.”
What is an adjective and a noun?
[01:40]
The word kinky is an adjective. An adjective is a word that describes a noun. A noun is a word used to name a specific thing or object, such as people, places, things, or ideas.
What does kinky mean?
[01:54]
My mother could have said that my hair was kinky, and that would have been understood by Captain Bud. That would have meant that my hair had kinks or twists in it.
Unfortunately, my mother had said that I was kinky. When you describe a person as kinky you are saying that the person you are talking about enjoys sexual behaviors that you think are unusual, or maybe even disturbing to you. Since I was fifteen years old at the time we went to see Captain Bud, and since my parents had never talked about sex with me there was no way that my mother could have known if I was kinky or not.
The difference between curly and straight hair?
[02:30]
Captain Bud explained to my mother that the difference between curly hair and straight hair is its structure. The shape of the individual strands of hair. Curly hairs are flat. Straight hairs are round.
Lots of people use chemicals and appliances to make their hair look curly, and lots of people use chemicals and appliances to make their curly hair look straight. But since it is impossible to change the structure of each strand of hair, you can only temporarily change whether your hair looks curly or straight. My mother was not impressed but gave up trying to straighten my hair.
Captain Bud cut my hair. My hair still looked curly, but looked much better because it was cut by someone who knew how to cut curly hair. You see, Captain Bud’s hair was as curly as mine.
The funny thing is that my mother also had curly hair. My mother had always said that I was not normal. In her eyes, my curly hair was not normal. She had spent years trying to make me normal. Did she think that she was also abnormal? Who was she trying to fix?
If someone calls you kinky, it might be an insult, or it might not, depending on how well you know the person and what kind of relationship you have with them. Sometimes if people have a very close relationship, it can be meant as a joke, or even a compliment.
If you are out in public and a complete stranger calls you kinky, you probably need to change your behavior. In my opinion, people you have never met should not know that much about your private life and personal desires.
As you can probably tell, what little hair I have left is no longer curly. It is straight. Does that mean that I am more normal now than I was when I was younger?
Don’t count on it!
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