How Gross Can We Get?

Internet ad for adult diapers.

An internet ad shows an extreme closeup of a woman's wet, denim-clad crotch, accompanied by a voice asking, "Struggling with incontinence?" 

An elected official responds to a reporter's televised question by saying, "Fuck off."

Movies and TV shows regularly shock viewers with people sitting on the toilet wiping their butts, or having oral sex, or writhing naked in strip clubs, or conducting nauseating and gory surgeries, both actual and pretend. 

When did private life become so indelicate, indiscreet, uncivil, and worst of all, public? And why? I have no answers, only questions. As someone old enough to remember when the word "cancer" was always whispered, and then only to a few close family members of the stricken, I can only shake my head in disbelief and wonder what's coming next.