"Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often"
About this Quote
Mae West’s line is a dare disguised as a public service announcement. “Those who are easily shocked” isn’t a neutral description; it’s a portrait of people who treat surprise as a moral injury. West, a performer who made a career out of innuendo and brazen self-possession, flips the power dynamic: the scandalized are no longer guardians of decency, they’re fragile subjects in need of exposure therapy.
The intent is equal parts provocation and permission. West isn’t just defending risqué humor; she’s arguing that shock is a muscle, not a verdict. If you exercise it, you stop mistaking your own discomfort for a universal standard. That’s the subtext: prudishness often masquerades as principle, but it’s frequently just unfamiliarity, fear, or a craving for control. By prescribing “more often,” she suggests that the problem isn’t the world’s vulgarity; it’s the audience’s underdeveloped tolerance for human complexity.
Context matters because West was policed by literal censors. In the 1920s and 30s, her plays and films drew raids, bans, and constant scrutiny under morality codes that treated female sexual agency as a contagious threat. The quote functions as a performer’s clapback to institutionalized pearl-clutching: if you’re scandalized by a woman who knows what she wants, that’s not evidence of societal decay. It’s evidence you’ve been trained to confuse repression with virtue.
West turns shock into a diagnostic tool. What rattles you reveals what’s been fenced off in your culture - and in you.
The intent is equal parts provocation and permission. West isn’t just defending risqué humor; she’s arguing that shock is a muscle, not a verdict. If you exercise it, you stop mistaking your own discomfort for a universal standard. That’s the subtext: prudishness often masquerades as principle, but it’s frequently just unfamiliarity, fear, or a craving for control. By prescribing “more often,” she suggests that the problem isn’t the world’s vulgarity; it’s the audience’s underdeveloped tolerance for human complexity.
Context matters because West was policed by literal censors. In the 1920s and 30s, her plays and films drew raids, bans, and constant scrutiny under morality codes that treated female sexual agency as a contagious threat. The quote functions as a performer’s clapback to institutionalized pearl-clutching: if you’re scandalized by a woman who knows what she wants, that’s not evidence of societal decay. It’s evidence you’ve been trained to confuse repression with virtue.
West turns shock into a diagnostic tool. What rattles you reveals what’s been fenced off in your culture - and in you.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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