Gore Vidal: 'I was too polite to ask'
anecdote · personal/autobiographical ·
retold in 9 talks
Asked in a TV interview whether his first sexual experience was with a man or a woman, bisexual Gore Vidal replied: 'I was too polite to ask.' Žižek calls this the perfect response, neither conservative nor liberal, it defends the domain of civility against intrusive self-disclosure.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 6
“i was too polite to ask”
“He said, I was too polite to ask”
“I was too polite to ask. That's that's that's the way.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Gore Vidal6Jimmy Swaggart3Slavoj Žižek2Golda Meir2Marshall McLuhan2Wilhelm Reich2Leopold II of Belgium1Stéphane Courtois1
alongside works
Every retelling 6
Asked in a TV interview whether his first sexual experience was with a man or a woman, bisexual Gore Vidal replied: 'I was too polite to ask.' Žižek calls this the perfect response, neither conservative nor liberal, it defends the domain of civility against intrusive self-disclosure., illustrating politeness and civility,political correctness,implicit rules
Asked in a TV interview whether his first sexual partner was a man or a woman, Gore Vidal replied 'I was too polite to ask.' Žižek uses this as the formula for true universality that transcends identity-disclosure culture., illustrating sexual identity politics,universality vs. identity,permissive cynical fetishism
When asked by a vulgar journalist about his first sexual partner, Gore Vidal replied, 'I was too polite to ask.' Žižek uses this to advocate for a 'code of discretion' against the intrusive proximity demanded by modern harassment culture., illustrating decaffeinated other,tolerance
Gore Vidal’s witty response to a journalist asking about his first sexual encounter: 'I was too polite to ask,' exemplifying the 'logic of discretion' and polite ignorance., illustrating logic of discretion
Gore Vidal, asked in a TV interview whether his first sexual experience was with a man or a woman, answers 'I was too polite to ask.' Žižek holds this up as the ideal formula of proper discretion., illustrating meta-rule,sincere fake,ideology
When asked in an interview whether his first sexual partner was male or female, Gore Vidal replied 'I was too polite to ask', a model of refined distance that Žižek holds up as the ideal attitude toward the neighbor., illustrating keeping the neighbor at a distance,politeness as ethical stance