{"id":6427,"date":"2026-04-14T06:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6427"},"modified":"2026-04-14T06:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:50:16","slug":"on-the-worlds-apparent-lack-of-orgasms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6427","title":{"rendered":"On the World’s Apparent Lack of Orgasms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday (as always), I look the bus home from school. Buses are sort of the kneecaps of Prague\u2019s public transport system. Trams and metros have space to stand and sit. Buses, on the other hand, appear to have both, but in fact can only seat about 4 people while rendering all standing people in the discomfort of a Roman torture device. And so, yesterday, thirty people waited to see which 4 of us would be comfortable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazingly, I was one of those people. (I threw an elbow at a woman distracted by the pram she was hoisting.) I tucked myself into a corner and pulled out my book for 12 minutes of bliss. Nobody needs me, I can\u2019t be asked any questions, and it\u2019s just me and 12 minutes of Ancient Celtic Europe. What more perfection could there be for a man after a long day of Englishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something is pulling me away from Celtic Europe. But what? My eyes wander. There\u2019s a gaggle of girls in the four-seat area ahead of me. They\u2019re young and lithe and thus incapable of discomfort. They lounge upon each other like ferrets and speak with the confidence of those who think they know everything but don\u2019t know shit (i.e. teens).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s a sweatshirt that catches my eye. The back of a girl\u2019s shirt reads: Few orgasms would probably fix everything!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I pride myself on not being a Grammar Nazi. As a matter of fact, in the last few years, I also pride myself on not being an actual Nazi. But that\u2019s a different post. Having long been in the English teaching game, I am in the camp which places more emphasis on understanding than on grammatical perfection. Yes, I die inside when I see a native speaker write that \u2018there dad isn\u2019t being cool\u2019 or \u2018I could of done this hours ago!\u2019 But I summon the strength to not involve myself, and after a few drinks of whatever brown liquor is nearby, move on with my life with a kick in my step and tears in my eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here is a case in which a person very clearly has made her opinion public: let\u2019s all have orgasms, it\u2019ll help things! A concept which is difficult to not agree with. However, and it\u2019s a pretty big however, the grammar of the pithy little quote renders the opinion to its opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018A few orgasms would probably fix things\u2019 means very obviously that if more people had orgasms things wouldn\u2019t be so bad. A few means \u2018some\u2019 or \u2018a number of\u2019. Rather \u2018Few\u2019 instead of \u2018A few\u2019 makes the quantity negative and small. So she has exclaimed to the world \u2018almost no orgasms would probably fix things\u2019. I am guessing \u2013 nay, hoping \u2013 that this is the wrong message and that she does not intend to say this. On the other hand, she might be part of a fundamental religious group which hates joy and thinks we should be punished for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a black sharpie in my bag and I toy with just writing \u2018A\u2019 write before \u2018few\u2019 and fixing the whole thing. I stop toying with this idea, when I realize that I am also trying to explain in my stretched-out B1 Czech why I just invaded the space of a 16-year-old and damaged her sweatshirt. The sharpie remains at home. I go back to my book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not an isolated incident. There are people in this country making money producing shirts with \u2018almost English\u2019 quotes on them. \u2018Be better, Be Biggest\u2019 or \u2018Sexe man!\u2019 Worse still are the ones that get through; I once spied on a young girl walking through the mall: \u2018Warning Gives Great Head\u2019. She can\u2019t possibly know, I thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, there\u2019s something worse afoot. English has joined the ranks of Japanese and Chinese to become a preferred language of the tattoo. I was worried about a student\u2019s performance in her test when I noticed her forearm motto\u201d \u2018Only the Strong Survive\u2019. Well, I stopped worrying after that. My last hair dresser\u2019s ribcage told me that she has \u2018No regrets\u2019, a sentiment I wish I could have concurred with after the cut. And \u2018Live, Laugh, Love\u2019 was wonderfully ironic on the chest of the cashier who wanted to slice my throat after my avocado wouldn\u2019t ring up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time my bus drops me off at my stop, I have come to terms with things. It\u2019s all just words. What does it matter? The girl with the sweatshirt seems OK, happy even, and this despite the world\u2019s apparent lack of orgasms. But if she can get over it, then so can I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will servive.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday (as always), I look the bus home from school. Buses are sort of the kneecaps of Prague\u2019s public transport system. Trams and metros have space to stand and sit. Buses, on the other hand, appear to have both, but in fact can only seat about 4 people while rendering all standing people in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/no-ragrets.jpg?fit=500%2C500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1FF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6429,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427\/revisions\/6429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}