erratio

Do you think you're good at expressing yourself in English? Try this sometime: Being asked by your male Indian coworker to explain some stuff associated with female menstruation. Using explicit sex terms is right out both because we're at work and because I don't think they would make it across the language barrier. It's also somewhat awkward due to me being female and him being male; menstruation is not a normal topic of conversation, so my natural inclination is to use more indirect language. But English is his second language and there's a lot of terms that would require further explanation. So my challenge was to come up with a G-rated and indirect explanation of one of the more intimate aspects of female anatomy, using the simplest language possible.

Coworker: Could I ask you something?
Me: Sure
C: when girls are using this *holds up feminine hygiene product*, do they still have sex?
M: Depends on the guy really. Most of them don't want to.
C: Why not?
M: *Debates trying to come up with a polite way of saying that most guys don't want to go in when there's stuff coming the other way, and gives up*
C: Could I ask you another question?
M: um, sure
C: Why does it happen so often? *is still indicating feminine hygiene products*
M: Well.. a woman's body always thinks that it might get pregnant, so it gets itself ready. But then if it doesn't, it needs to refresh itself.
C: Ah, so it's the egg then?
M: Uhh, not quite.. *thinks* ok I have an example for you. Let's say that you have invited a woman over to your house.
C: ok
M: So then you say "I'd better get ready for her", so you go to your bedroom, and you clean it out, and you put fresh sheets on the bed, and you put cushions around.. that sort of thing yeh?
C: ok..
M: So you've done all that and then the night before she said she would come she rings you, and says that she can't come after all.
C: Ahhhhh *enlightenment*

Of course, a more correct analogy would have been to say that the woman never bothers to show up even though you wait and wait for her, until there's no point in your having gotten the room ready for her. And then just as you're done removing the sheets from the bed etc etc she calls you again and tells you that she's coming over after all. But for a spur of the moment example I don't think I did too badly.

I think 90% of these conversations are spurred by the fact that part of our job is to tidy the shelves containing the condoms and feminine hygiene stuff. The rest being supplied by the woeful lack of sex education my coworkers received in their home countries.