Not obscene – not allowed then. Steve Allen took a risk with Lenny then. But later, with anti-Vietnam War protests thru the 60s, obscenity was very allowed.

George Carlin’s main humor was obscenity and the 7 dirty words:
The seven dirty words are seven English-language words that American comedian George Carlin first listed in 1972 in his monologue “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television”. The words are: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. — wiki

Interesting that Pussy Cat theaters were around then, and pussy was not one of these 7.

I recall being a High School Boy Scout and a bit repelled at Nixon’s uses of [expletive deleted] words in the parts of his taped transcripts that I read, while Watergate was going on. My Nixon-loving grandparents were also not happy, but didn’t really talk about it. Nor use vulgar words. My sisters used them, seemingly to be cool. Me, not so much, except shit, which I still use (too much?).

Part of the Nixon tape issue was also the silliness in censoring a few words, while accepting so many other things.

My kids are learning to curse only thru friends and internet, and movies and music, not in our house.

It’s likely that young adults use a lot more vulgar words when they are single and childless – and many more of the college’ed folk, women especially, are not married.

I believe some psychologists claim (Margaret Singer was one) that people’s speech patterns congeal fairly early in life. If that’s true you were looking at cohort effects. My parents did not curse around the house. My mother’s peers did not speak that way in any setting and my father’s peers did so in stag settings only. My adolescent sister introduced that sort of talk into our house ca. 1971. (I think most people teach themselves to dial it back when they have children hearing them).

Of course they changed their minds about the value of truthiness.

Culture is upstream of politics, and laws are usually further downstream.

–“300” (2006) – This Is Sparta!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyIhxxvvy1Y

SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!
SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!

SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME! OR KISS THE GLOVE!

THIS ISN’T BEAN BAG!!!
THIS
IS
SPARTA!!!!!

Thank you, neo.

I was moved to write something to the effect, “c’mon, good people, I know we-all can do better than this cat-n-mouse stuff” . . . but I declined, very largely because the whole tempest-in-a-teapot had gotten so insignificant.

We-all *can* do better, and we-all *do* do better, 99.99 percent of the time: “we-all” are a leading reason I frequent neo’s blog, and have done so for at least ten years now.

Carry on, good people . . .