Shame? Have Any?

When I was younger I was embarrassed pretty much all the time. I was embarrassed of my too-big feet, of my having parents, of the 75,203 things I was afraid of, a list that included speed boats and water parks, and of my own embarrassment, and the way it kept me from being one of those awesome kids who were just cool with everything.

None of you would have liked me. I didn't either. 

Seriously, it was awful in there.

But while most people shed some of the cringing awkwardness of being a teenager as they grow up, I feel like most also retain SOME boundary lines. 

I still have embarrassment issues in person, for sure. Standing up on buses on a hot day is always shame roulette for me: "Just how sweaty ARE the backs of my legs? Will they have left sweat marks on my clothing? AND WILL IT LOOK LIKE PEE?" is an internal conversation I have with myself somewhere towards the "unconscious actions such as blinking" end of the frequency scale. 

But on paper, at least, I seem to have lost the ability to feel embarrassment. I will say pretty much anything. Tell jokes that cross almost any line (as long as they're GOOD jokes, that is). Center an entire essay around a recent, horrific episode of diarrhea and its aftermath. 

Bear in mind that as recently as 10 years ago I probably wouldn't have admitted that I had ever, even once, pooped. Which begs the question: did I think I was somehow making myself more appealing by pretending my body used some other waste-elimination system? Like what, my pores? 

I know a huge amount of this is just growing up; there's something eternally Victorian about adolescence that's just far too uncomfortable to endure for long. 

But it's not ONLY that. Otherwise my twitter feed wouldn't be hilariously, amazingly scatological from the men, and rarely more line-crossing than "wry and/or clever insight" from the women. Because let's be honest, everyone has things that embarrass them, but I'm pretty sure an extended poop joke wouldn't get the comment that it was "brave to share this" if the story came from a guy. 

Are there lines in the sand--in your writing or in your life--that you just won't cross (not lines of cruelty, I should note, just embarrassment)? Should there be? Is shame an occasionally good thing that keeps us from becoming a society of only Marquises de Sade, airing only our filthiest laundry? Or is it something we need to just get over, already?