5870 wroteY’know, I used to feel a lot of animosity toward Chelsea Handler, but I’m kind of past it now. Whether that’s her real opinion or not, it’s just jokes. I find it sadly ironic that so many men complain that feminists (and I am a feminist) can’t take a joke, then get frighteningly pissed when a woman starts to make fun of the way some guy’s willy looks.
Then someone critiques a facet of the male body for purely superficial reasons, and suddenly you get high-rated comments like “You fat ugly cunts meh meh meeehhrr” (I can give you links if you want actual evidence of this, it’s not hard to find) I’m like, whoooa, stop right there! I’m not of the camp that believes using “bitch” and “cunt” in your vocabulary automatically makes you an oppressive supporter of the patriarchy, but you are kind of proving the people who say that completely right when you use them to abuse, threaten, or otherwise shut down a woman who is simply speaking her mind.
Now, I realize no one has said anything yet in this thread, but I’m getting this out there before it starts. I’ve seen it on YouTube, and I’ve seen it here; I’m tired of guys getting all insecure and defensive anytime a woman speaks up about something they dislike or misunderstand. It isn’t helping intactivism (many supporters of which are feminists, FYI).
The thing you should understand though, is that sometimes you need to tentatively adopt someone else's standards in order to expose them. I'm not nearly as sensitive or offended as one might imagine based on how much I complain about certain things people say, but I do it for the sake of exposing double standards. Sometimes you have to play their game if you want to cause them cognitive dissonance over their inconsistencies. I often see the same people who complain about words like "bitch" and "cunt" as being "misogynistic," use gender-specific insults towards men like "dick" "prick" "neckbeard," and throw in the accusation of "living in your parent's basement." I don't mind gender-specific insults, but I'll sometimes play their game in order to expose their double standard. Either gender-specific insults are sexist in both directions, or neither are sexist. You can't say you're about equality, but then there's always some convenient excuse for why it's okay in one direction but not okay in another.
Does stuff like this bother me? Yeah, especially when these attitudes they espouse can be shown to be the actual reasons parents get their kids circumcised. These attitudes led to my genital mutilation. However, I definitely give more leeway when it's in a joke context, because I accept that a lot of the comedians I like base some jokes off of claims about reality that aren't really factual. I don't think it's a big tenet of comedy to fact-check, so I try to let it go, even if it bothers me.
What's more important than all of this though is that people be consistent, if it's cool to joke about how ugly penises are and that they need parts cut off of them to look better, then it's cool to joke about how ugly vulvas are and that they need parts cut off of them to look better. If it's cool to joke about heinous things like genital mutilation, murder, genocide, torture, terrorism, war, maiming, then it should be cool to joke about rape as well.
BTW, youtube comment threads are the bottom of the barrel dude, it's not really good evidence of anything meaningful.
