I’m so impressionable. A few weeks ago, I saw an excellent Australian comedian called Steve Hughes supporting the just as excellent American comic Reginald D Hunter. They share an edgy approach to contentious material about race, sex, and gender that was liberating to hear, both voicing thoughts that challenged my flabby thinking — revealed under scrutiny to be little more than the received wisdom accrued by an essentially liberal reader.

I was challenged, provoked, excited. And took particular delight in the contention proposed by Mr Hughes that ‘no one has the right not to be offended’. Damn straight, I thought, and filed the thought away along with other half-digested nuggets. And, you know, Steve has a point. When it comes down to it, what’s the difference between someone offended by obscene language, and me taking offence at Oasis for aping The Beatles without the bits that made the Fab Four fab in the first place?

More than that, Steve has a follow-up to his free speech stance…taking offence doesn’t damage your liver, or cause anyone to lose money, so exactly what is it that’s at stake? And I parroted that too, as an impressionable full grown man does when taken with a comedian who seems to have the answers to life. I should have spotted the mancrush for what it was — a recognition that someone is doing something cool that I’d like to do, but frankly lack the nuts for.

Just as Reginald D Hunter doesn’t go through life dealing with bullshit in a pithy baritone without encountering some resistance, nor can I reasonably expect to conduct my business in a frank and vulgar manner without getting feedback that my directness is unwarranted. There are consequences for everything we do, and saying that speaking freely has no side-effects is disingenuous. I choose not to remind my size-conscious female friends about that, knowing that the bad feelings they will experience are as real as the ones suffered by the mother of a Downs’ Syndrome child when Frankie Boyle made jokes about same. Where Mr Boyle is concerned, I feel nothing but contempt: humour used against worthy targets is a fine thing. Kids with Downs’ are pretty much at the bottom of society’s ladder — exactly what is achieved by making them the butt of crude humour?

And yet…and yet…I admire the work of William Burroughs for breaking boundaries in its depiction of sexuality and drugs, and for fucking with language itself. I salute Chris Rock for the bravery and honesty of some of his race-based humour. I can see the beauty in the Serrano photo Piss Christ.

Years ago, I came across a gentleman who called himself Rodney Orpheus. He was in a band called The Cassandra Complex, and one of their songs was called — honest — ‘Pagans are the Niggers of the World’. Which just seemed to me to be trying too hard. The title alludes, as you may be aware, to a John Lennon song where women are ascribed that status…and where women are concerned there’s something to consider when the comparison is made. But pagans? Who the fuck even knows what a pagan is in the modern era? Aspiring to being denigrated on the level that black people have been — on the basis of something they have no control over — when paganism is a lifestyle choice…well, it’s a very special kind of ridiculous.

There’s little more I can say, and there is no one clear point to get across where these matters are concerned. Sorry, but that’s how it is with some things. I find myself caught in a dance between poles, one captured in this clip which splices together performances from Richard Pryor and George Carlin, where both are talking about Mr Orpheus’s favourite N word.