What I really want to say is that the sting of the truth can be good. We generally mentally flee from ideas that are difficult to sync with our current ones, but we should accept new ideas and consistently revise our current ones. Hearing things which cut us to the quick tempts us to marginalize the speaker, idea, or background from which it comes. The human species must fight this temptation and learn flexibility in our mentalities, conceptions, beliefs, and attitudes. Unlike on our human bodies which is scarred from a cut, a piercing comment to our souls can cause us to improve ourselves. One who is promiscuous will naturally react with offense when he/she is said to be sexually indiscriminate. The best reaction for them is unnatural, to take the comment as a possible truth, analyze their actions and outlooks, and amend them according to how they wish to live their lives in light of this new insight.
"He who takes offense when no offense was intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense was intended is usually a fool." -Brigham Young. The offense reaction is an unfortunate one in human nature. It is generally the opposite of constructive and at best leads to festering anger, a grudge against some group or person. Perhaps we as human beings should learn to take the comment, "That offends me," as a comment more about the speaker than the subject. Let he who says it be commenting on his own lack of self-control and hot-headed reaction rather on the heinous nature of whatever the that referred to is. People are wrong sometimes, even then we should seek to understand their thinking, and perhaps change their mind through reason and debate. What we must realize, however, is that change is always hard, especially when dealing with personalities, mentalities, ideas, etcetera. If we are to expect others to do this difficult task with theirs we must be willing to do the same with ours.
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And yet to argue that offense is only the responsibility to the one taking offense removes responsibility from the speaker. Your post focuses a lot on language and "political correctness" – I can't deny that it's been taken to an unnecessary extreme, but you miss some of the important reasons that political correctness exists. While it may be a bit much to demand we call someone developmentally challenged, I certainly hope you are not calling for the return to acceptance of retard, because regardless of its original intent, it has gained a connotation for rudeness. Most languages code for levels of politeness (some more than others) because it's an important part of a social culture. Yes, it does give rise to the ever-frustrating euphemism treadmill, but that causes our language to become a richer, fuller language. I for one am glad of the ability to choose between idiot, moron, imbecile, and retard when I am deciding to insult my friends. Those words have changed their meaning and (except for retard) lost their original one.
And his or her. You are perfectly able to say things like "his life's work" and will be understood to mean any person's life work without the need for convoluted language. However, it is now largely considered incorrect. The average English speaker, by merit of the language, on hearing "Someone left his pencil here," will think only of men on the list of possible pencil-losers. This was not true in the past. Language changes, and the truth is that in Modern English "they/their" is the normal 3rd person singular neuter (despite grammarians' objections regarding "his and her"). Really, it's not even that modern, and it's not the first time we've bumped our plurals in to double duty either. You was originally the 2nd person plural (accusative form to the nominative ye, if we want to get down to it), but became singular as it was determined to be more polite. Why grasp at increasingly archaic forms of a changing language?
On to the promiscuous person comment. If someone is promiscuous, and you call them out as such, you are probably not attempting to correct them from their (in your opinion) misguided ways. You are passing judgment on them. This is, of course, your prerogative, but to then suggest that the person taking offense to such a remark is wrong to be offended seems like you are attempting to remove the speaker from reproach. When a person takes offense, it's often not because they don't see any merit in the statement – rather, they feel that the person making the statement is not in a position to pass such judgment on them. Taking offense is an important part of social structure.
If your grandmother calls you promiscuous, you will likely not be offended (assuming, of course, a good relationship with your grandparents). You may disagree, but you will take it as a comment intended to mean well. A friend with whom you are not extremely close calling you that will be taken as offensive, because presumably this person has not taken the time (or received the permission) to know of their opinions or details of their actions in the sexual realm. This is even stronger if it's coming from a man to a woman for reasons of gender relations and societal opinions on promiscuity, which has its own implications, but to uniformly dismiss offense as a negative neglects the important role it plays in delimiting social networks. How would you know if you are making someone uncomfortable if they do not take offense? We call such people "doormats".
A reasoned response is of course ideal, but in saying "that offends me" you are concisely stating that the object mentioned is one which you find wholly unacceptable. Let the statement not be a cause for judgment against the speaker, rather a start for an informed discourse on the matter. Those three words often convey more information about the speaker's feelings on any given subject than would an hour's debate. Sometimes, no further debate is needed. "That offends me" in such an instance rather conveniently codes "I find this line of discussion to be upsetting and inappropriate, and feel that it is not your place to be making such comments. Accordingly, I am going to remove myself from this discussion so as to prevent any further problems." You may wish to know why they were offended, but if they are not willing to discuss it with you the onus is on you to determine whether that refusal offends you. And your post suggests it just might.
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