Two anecdotes:
Me: somewhere in mid-elementary school, I'm guessing 3rd or 4th grade, with just a few days left in the school year, my mom asked me if I had any specific plans or goals for the summer (in hindsight, a good job from my mom to get me thinking at that age beyond the next day). My response was to use a phrase I'd heard my friends use, but which I didn't understand (or so I rapidly realized): "Naw, I'm just going to beat off." My mom chuckled and said I should look up the word "masturbation" in the dictionary. I knew I had mis-stepped and was felt awkward, but I turned bright red when I read the definition. Sexuality and your mom? Much less autoeroticism? I was so mortified. It was only in hindsight that I realized she had accidentally done me a huge favor, but rooting out that particular one. Its elucidation could have come in much worse circumstances.
Somebody else (head second hand from about 3 different sources, who all agreed): About seven years ago, a job candidate in Biochemistry was about to give the standard job seminar in front of the department, after a day (or two) of sequential grilling interviews with faculty. He was a post-doctoral fellow on the job market. Apparently there were maybe 10-15 people in the big seminar room when he came in to set up. He plugged a flash drive into another person's laptop that was attached to the video projector, with the goal of dragging his talk powerpoint to the desktop and launching it. However, one occasionally comes across a computer that is set to automatically open pictures on a flash drive. Well. Apparently scads of hard core porn images proceeded to pop up, projected on the large screen. HARD core, I'm told. Apparently he frantically tried pulling out the flash drive and then just slammed the computer shut. He turned stammered, turned bright red, and left the room. He came in about ten minutes later with another laptop, the talk already loaded, and gave his seminar.
He didn't get the job, but apparently he got a faculty position elsewhere. Still strikes me as a horribly humiliating scene. But he was fortunate that he came in early, and it was witnessed only by a few people, unlike the 100 or so typical for a full job talk.
As an aside, has anybody ever noticed that the spelling of the word "embarrass" could be considered "to make oneself bare-assed?"