Lent: The Rules for the Season

Warning: I'll be talking a lot about sex!

No, that's not what I'm giving up, because there's nothing to give up there, really. But my lenten sacrifice this year is sexual innuendo. I am aiming for a permanent reduction in its prevalence in my conversation, preceded by the period of Lent during which it may not be used.

But what is to qualify as innuendo? For purposes of this lenten sacrifice, innuendo will be defined in the following way, with exceptions listed below. If and only if I remember that I have forgotten an important exemption (i.e., a time when I am allowed under these terms to utilize sexual innuendo) I will add it here and make note that it has been added. It might seem a little legalistic to codify a Lenten sacrifice. I know that. But it's the best way for me to do this stuff.

For the entirety of Lent (up to, but not including, Easter Sunday afternoon), I may not commit:

(1) A deliberate attempt to make a coarse joke that involves sexuality.
(2) A deliberate attempt to make a pun which in some way involves sexuality.
(3) A deliberate attempt to set someone else up for such a joke or pun.
(4) A deliberate attempt to let someone else know that they, myself or anyone else has intentionally or unintentionally created a sexual innuendo.
(5) A failure to avoid modifying my own phrasings so as to avoid such setups.

Notes on the rule and exceptions to the rule:

(5) applies if and only if I have sufficient warning. So if I realize mid-sentence that the statement is open to innuendo, I may finish the sentence as originally planned, barring that a better wording occurs immediately.

I may utilize sexual innuendo in an effort to be more discrete and avoid more awkward discussions of sexuality and related concepts.

One of my housemates and I have a running joke/contest where we give each other quotations from The Office and then see if the other can identify where the quotation is from. If I am engaging in this game, I am allowed to use sexual innuendo if and only if it appears in the quoted statement by the characters. However, this is not an excuse to play the game merely so I have an excuse to use innuendo.

Lent begins, and so does the self and communal enforcement of these rules, next Wednesday, that is, Ash Wednesday, 12:00 AM.