On this, as in many things, I find myself of two minds.
On the one hand, I utterly despise political correctness. And so I want to agree with Porforis.
On the other hand, I understand gbpfan's original request and respect it.
I think the difference, or at least part of it, between the two hands lies in the context of the concern. One case is a generalized antagonism toward giving offense. The other is a specific instance of a fellow member of a small community being bothered.
In the second case I have already made a decision that I want to associate more deeply with the members of this community. You people *matter* to me. If one of you expresses a concern with something I do, whatever your ulimate reason, and however I ultimately decide to respond, then I consider it my obligation to pay attention to your concern.
It's not so much a worry about "giving offense", as it is recognizing that community membership brings with it a responsibility for considering additional tradeoffs.
Sometimes these extra tradeoffs will chafe. Anyone who has ever lived in a small town knows that the benefits come with often substantial costs in terms of lost privacy, lost freedom to act in certain ways, etc. But if you want to continue to get those benefits, those are costs you simply have to be willing to bear. (And if the costs become too heavy to bear, then you do as I have done more than once...you move out.)
The difference between this and "political correctness" is in the enforcement of conformity.
In a true community, the respect, the attention to each other's wishes, is self-induced. It's voluntary. It's one person requesting consideration and another person deciding to give it (or not). But political correctness says "thou must". It isn't an individual request. It's a demand vague in origin. It isn't about giving consideration to a specific and acknowledged member of the same community. It's about conforming one's behavior to abstract notions of what "people" or "categories of people" should get.
In my opinion, duties of "respect" and "listening" and all the rest -- these are not duties owed to "people" or to "women" or to "men" or to any abstract categories thereof. My duties are owed to individual members of the communities I wish to be a member of, individuals like "gbpfan" and "4PackGirl" and "Porforis" and "Rourke" and "Shawn."
If one of those individuals asks me to consider something, I think I ought to give it consideration. I may still say "eff off". But I still must listen.
While a community member may not be able to protect himself or herself from language that bothers, that does not mean he or she shouldn't be able to ask fellow community members to pay attention to what bothers him or her.
Does this make any sense?
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)