If unequal in age or positions of authority, you might want to hold back a little, and let spending some time in the company of the boss or underling (as the may be) legitimise the informality. Getting it wrong can easily look like bad social judgment in a professional environment. And having your granny tell you the riddle about why they call it a Pap smear will leave you icked out for weeks.
If equals, observe the distinction between risque (which tends to be about allusional indirectness and the communication of knowingness) and crude.
Be aware of the image you project - if well-dressed and proper, the occasional left-field stunner is, indeed, delighfully stunning because of the violation of expectations. If your image is very casual and informal, there is a risk of overcooking the informality with a shocker that can cross the line into skanky. But as with all humour, there are exceptions to every rule.
And less is more. The occasional one-liner, or even participation in a session of increasingly crude jokes after a few drinks in which a girl can hold her own is fine, but as observed by posters above, if it dominates her conversational repertoire, it can leave a bad taste in the mouth (so to speak).
Australian (where the cliche of beaut sheilas and bonzer blokes constantly using colourfully obscene similes is as much a myth as it would be anywhere else).
- Do you mind if a woman lets on (mostly through joking/word play) that her mind makes trips into the gutter on occasion, just like you men?
I wouldn’t think so, but it would be a little unsettling if I’m unsure of just what the relationship between myself and the woman is. If I’m just meeting her, I think I’d get the assumption that she was trying to hit on me. I wouldn’t mind, really, but I’d wonder if she assumes that I’d be the kind of person who makes those kinds of jokes (I am - just not in public).
- Does it matter if the woman is a gf or just a friend?
No, but it might bother me if my gf was being filthy with everyone. - Is there a specific age range for which you’d find such behavior acceptable, outside of which it seems creepy or inappropriate?
I’m 26, and while I can wholly appreciate that a woman of any age can and will make dirty jokes, it starts to get a little weird when a girl of, say, under 20 starts making those kinds of statements to me. On the other side of the scale, my neighbor is a 50±year-old Irish woman with a filthy mind and a tongue to match, so we’re both cracking jokes right and left with impugnity whenever little ears aren’t around.
- What geographic region are you from?
Southern California
Well, this has been interesting. For whatever it’s worth, the specific circumstances I had in mind were with men I already knew pretty well - certainly not someone I barely knew, since, as so many have pointed out, it might not be appropriate around a given person. And I only get really down and dirty with someone I *know *will appreciate it.
This thread was inspired more by the reactions of a good friend/colleague of mine. (He hails from the Midwest; I’m from New York. We are both in our early-mid 40s.) He made some slightly off-color comment one day as a joke (I don’t remember what, but it was really quite tame), and I dished back. He clearly didn’t expect that, thought it was funny but turned beet red.
Since then he’s gotten progressively bolder, and I always give better than I get, usually without missing a beat. He laughs like hell, but I often get the feeling that he’s fascinated and testing me to see how far I’ll go, because he just isn’t used to a woman being at all risqué. It’s a bit odd to me, because I’ve been around quite a few people who are that way all the time, so it’s nothing unusual.
I have run into people though - usually women - who express clear disapproval at any comment that has so much as a hint of double entendre, regardless of the informality of the situation. To me, it’s a way of being playful with friends; I can’t imagine being so serious all the time.
I think it’s all dependent on the quality of the joke in question.
For example, my wife can bust out with good raunchy quips and double-entendres with the best of them.
Another female friend of ours isn’t so much funny as just kind of inappropriate and sometimes shocking, and I’m usually a bit uncomfortable, because I don’t know if she’s seriously saying that she likes being tied up and done with a bat, or whether she’s just unsuccessfully trying to deadpan a joke. (with her, you really don’t know!)
I often make my husband blush, too, while he’s laughing his head off. And this from a man with no shame.
I do have a good sense of where and when, though. I’ll try a warning shot with someone new, and if they respond well, all bets are off.
ETA: There’s definitely a difference between raunchy/funny and just plain crude. We have a casual friend who is just plain crude, and I rarely find him funny. I just mostly wish he would shut his hole when he’s being crude (and thinks he’s being funny). We always see him in a group, and you can tell that most of the group don’t think he’s funny, either.
Sometimes the unexpectedness of a foul remark is extremely funny.
My then gf and I were just leaving a play when an older couple elbowed us out of the way to go through the door. My demure, petite, well-dressed friend looked the woman dead in the eye and remarked, “Fuckin’ ol’ twat.”
This from a woman that wouldn’t even say “boobs.” They were “breasts.”
She later claimed it was the wine.
I haven’t seen her in probably 25 years. I’d love to, though, because I know how I’d greet her.
