Male/Female

During my kitchen renovation, I pulled out my existing electric stove during demolition. To my surprise, I found a capped gas connection behind it. I knew there was gas present in the house since the house had been converted from oil to gas at some point in time. I didn’t surmise that a gas line had been run for future accommodation of a gas stove. Unfortunately, I had been well beyond the planning stages at the time that I discovered this. I had already demolished most of the kitchen and had spent weeks designing the whole kitchen. My plan was to retain the existing electric stove.

I know that all foodies will be shocked at the horror of cooking with electric heat. The truth is, I had known only electric heat for most of my adult cooking life. We had electric heat in our Brooklyn kitchen. So in the school of thought being “you can’t miss what you don’t know”, I briefly considered but quickly dismissed scrapping my kitchen design and converting to gas heat. The biggest change would have been that I would probably have to raise the clearance above the stove if I switched to gas, and this may have nixed my plan to have the microwave above the stove. Getting the microwave off the countertop and onto the wall was a big goal of mine in the kitchen project, so this was no palatable to me.

I decided to cap the gas line with something more permanent from what was existing, a shutoff. Since I had no plans to convert to gas heat in the foreseeable future (being 10-15 years), I didn’t see a compelling need to retain the shut off. I went in search of a threaded cap to more securely and permanently close the gas line.

At Lowes, the sales person helping me find the right cap asked me if I needed a male or a female cap. Having no expertise in plumbing nomenclature, it took me a few moments to surmise what I was looking for. I gathered that the way the parts fit together was being compared to the sexual anatomy (or further, sexual intercourse) of a male/female. Is it just me, or is this mildly obscene way to describe and communicate plumbing fittings? What if the person in question were a sexual novice, that is to say, a virgin? Is it necessary to subject this nomenclature to the general public? I am not proposing an equally clear but less sexual system of plumbing connection nomenclature myself, but to a novice this does take some getting used to. And for the record, I needed a ½” female, black iron fitting.