Guilty Pleasures vs. Dirty Litte Secret

One of the pleasures of blogging is passing along little nuggets of wisdom that I pick up along life's path and helping you, my dear reader, avoid some of life's pitfalls in the process.  Here's a little wisdom I picked up at a dinner party last night.  It was a dinner party at a friend of a friend's.  None of the guests really knew each other all that well and so, once we were all seated for dinner, the host started trying to stimulate conversation amongst the strangers.  She hit upon the idea to get everyone to confess a guilty pleasure.  I like to think of myself as the life of the party and, as no one was really chomping at the bit, I volunteered to get the ball rolling.  I then proceeded to tell the assemblage about a Hustler Magazine that I keep down at the bottom of my sock drawer and what I like to do with it when the wife and kids are out of the house.  To me, this seemed to be a perfect example of a guilty pleasure.  It certainly gives me pleasure but I must admit I feel kind of guilty about it, especially right after the pleasure part. 

Although my example certainly seemed to fit the literal definition of the phrase "guilty pleasure," I could tell by the reaction of the dinner guests that, when it comes to the common understanding of the phrase, my example may have missed the mark.  Pretty soon, though, someone else jumped in to my rescue and told about some t.v. show she enjoys.  Next, a gentleman admitted that he likes 80's hair metal bands.  Another woman confessed she enjoys reading cheesy romance novels.  In spite of the fact that these people didn't seem to feel all that guilty about these things at all, the reaction from the guests seemed to indicate that these are much closer to what are commonly understood to be guilty pleasures. 

After the ice breaker session was over and everyone was engaged in conversations with their neighbors at the table, the nice lady sitting next to me cleared things up a little.  It turns out that, if it is something you kind of enjoy, like a hobby, but that you feel a little sheepish about for some reason - that's a guilty pleasure.  But if you get an inordinate amount of pleasure out of it and/or if you feel really, really sheepish about it or even wonder about its legality, well, that's what's called a "dirty little secret."  Those are best kept to yourself.  Recognizing that this was an excellent topic for a blog post, I ran a couple more examples from my life past this lady to ensure I had the distinction clear.  Picking your nose and eating it is also a dirty little secret, as is scratching your bum and then sniffing your fingers.  After that, the lady insisted that I seemed to have the distinction clear in my mind and that no further illustrations were necessary.

So, there you have it.  The next time I am asked about a guilty pleasure, I am not going to mention that thing I do with my toenail clippings.  That's a dirty little secret.