I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.

This quip is widely attributed to Mae West as part of the sexually frank, double-entendre-laced persona she cultivated in her stage and film work during the early-to-mid 20th century. It reflects the kind of wisecracking, self-aware “bad girl” humor that made her both controversial and commercially successful, especially in the pre-Code Hollywood era when her lines pushed against prevailing moral expectations. However, the precise occasion—whether it first appeared in a specific interview, screenplay, or stage script—is not reliably pinned down in standard reference citations, and it often circulates as a standalone aphorism in quotation collections.

The joke turns on a mock-moral posture: the speaker claims prudence (“avoid temptation”) but immediately undercuts it with an admission of desire (“unless I can’t resist it”). West’s humor often works by exposing the gap between public virtue and private appetite, while framing female desire as witty, unapologetic, and self-directed. The line also satirizes moralistic language—“temptation” and “resist”—by treating it as a game of wordplay rather than a solemn ethical struggle. Its enduring appeal lies in how it converts a potential confession of weakness into a punchline of confidence and agency.

I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.