So this was never meant to be a personal blog. I originally just wanted to use it as a place to host my podcast (sorry that I haven't made one in a while, my life has become too busy). But now. like all blogs: Something happened that bothered me and I am going to go and blog about it.
In a secret group on facebook someone had referenced a fictional character and posed the question "what did you all think of her apology?" Reading this helped me to come up with an idea for an absurdist style of joke. It was to attach a physical attribute to the sound of a particular type of statement (example: a speech, an apology, an argument, a promise) So my first two thoughts were "an apology that sounded a little too fat to be true" and "a promise that sound a little too diabetic". i realized that it would sound more funny if it were "that promise MADE them sound pretty diabetic". I decided that seeing as I had a new funny thought in my head I would immediately make it into a facebook status update. I chose to do the apology/fat one first. As soon as I sat down on the bus this is what I entered as my status update:
"I want to forgive her, but to be honest, that whole apology sounded like she was pretty fat".
The best part about this absurd sentence was that it stays completely normal until the end; then it hits you. One person clicked the "like" button quickly. Then, much to my surprise, a friend whom I don't know very well (we both spoke at the same conference) suggested that the reason I found this funny was because I was a "shameless misogynist" and asked me to remove myself from his friends list because his mobile phone wouldn't allow him to do so. I explained that I was also on a mobile phone. 20 minutes later he commented “It’s cool I got it”. And sure enough when I checked later he had deleted me.
So first of all, the fact that the sentence uses “her” and “she” has nothing to do with the funny part of this joke. It is the same joke if you replace it with “him” and “he”. There is nothing in this joke that is directed at women as a whole. The only reason I made it a ‘she’ was because I was thinking about the post from the secret group. It also was not directed at the fictional character either; I just really found the structure of this absurd sentence funny.
It is possible that this friend of mine was thinking of the way in which women are portrayed in beauty magazines as slim and thought that I was ascribing to this belief. That seems like the conclusion that he jumped to. I can assure you all that that was not my intention when I made the post. It is also likely that he recently watched a documentary, read an article, or had something happen in his life that involved the mistreatment of women, and then saw my post and mistook it for what is was because he was already in an emotional state.
In case you don’t know what a “misogynist” is, it essentially means someone who hates women. Obviously if you know me well enough you know that this is not the case at all (in fact, as a side note: for the most part I tend prefer the company of women and feel more comfortable being myself around them). (second side note: if I were a misogynist I would tell you. Not only that, but I would have to have the best scientific proof to demonstrate that I was right. I typically do my best not to believe in things without a good reason). Let me actually repeat that: If I were a misogynist I would tell you. I am not one because I do not believe things without reason.
So why am I bothered by what one guy whom I don’t know that well thinks about me?
1. Because he seems like a good guy. He might have been awkward and a little shy when I met him but I can’t think of anything negative about him. As far as I know we both agree on most of the same things including women’s rights. He doesn’t know me well enough to understand my style of humour and in this case he mistook what I said. But he did so with the best of intentions which is why I still think that he is a good person.
2. Well, we do share about 10 friends and because of where I live he probably gets to see them more often than I do. So obviously I don’t like the idea of him giving me the negative label “misogynist” to 10 of my friends when I am not around to defend myself. All of these friends of mine are pretty smart but I know just how easy it is to get caught up in this kind of thing.
3. I want to clear up a few other things loosely related to this topic:
There are things that I say and do that nobody else I know of does.
I scrolled down past this post in question to see the previous 30 posts. There was a silly picture of Kermit the frog bent over with his legs and buttocks spread open. This may have been seen as sexist because my title read: “When Miss Piggy bought the strap-on, Kermit knew where he stood in their relationship”. So I guess you could twist that around into saying that I was pro-female dominance (which I suppose would actually be the opposite of misogyny) but I can assure you it was meant just for laughs.
Aside from this there were no sexist posts HOWEVER there were a few ‘sexual’ posts. And I have come to find that sometimes people make the mistake of thinking that if anything sexual is said by a man in the presence of a woman he is for some reason therefore a sexist. I came to realize that there is something that I do that none of my male friends practice. And that is: I NEVER censor myself around women. I NEVER down-play the gross parts of a story. And I rarely shy from telling a joke or story that contains explicit sexual content. While it may be true that there are certain styles of humour that I never do around certain people: if you are a woman, and I have told you a dirty joke, it is the same joke word-for-word that I told to my male friends. I have sometimes heard from them “I can’t believe you told her that joke”. I will say “why not? She has a sense of humour. She was laughing hysterically at part about his ejaculation looking like marbles rolling underneath the skin of his cock”. I feel that it would be insulting and dishonest to restrict yourself from telling someone a joke because of their gender. I think that this is something that everyone has backwards. Many of my male friends act differently around women. To hold the belief that someone can’t handle a joke because of their sex or gender I believe that IS looking down on someone. That that IS devaluing someone. I don’t exclude women from sexual humour because I feel that THAT is what would be sexist. But maybe this is a topic for another time.
My point is that if I say something sexual in the presence of a woman, it is not the same as saying something sexist. If I use sexism in a joke it does not mean that I actually believe it to be true, quite the opposite. If I use it, it is because I like taboo comedy (which means that I believe it to be wrong). Example: dead baby jokes are funny to me because it is so morally wrong to torture a baby to death that the shock value has the same euphoric effect as a cleaver punch line.
Most of the people who will read this know me pretty well and know that I like offensive humour and weird Monty Python-esque humour. But for those of you that don’t know me that well I hope you don’t make the same mistake that my now ex-friend made. I hope that when you hear the podcast and it has a skit about domestic abuse you don’t think that I actually agree with it. If I rant about something it is usually over-exaggerated because that is how good comedy stays interesting. I don’t actually find children to be so annoying that I wish there were a poisonous spray for them. And I certainly don’t think that if you are religious then that means that you are stupid. (I just think that some aspects of religion are a tad absurd and a good source of comedy).
This post is really long and I hate that I had to write it, but I felt I needed to remind you that I am for the most part “for entertainment purposes only”. I say sexual things to both sexes. I have made shocking jokes that contain sexism. You may find something sexist that I have said but I doubt that I ever meant it. If for whatever reason I did, then it was likely from a long while ago and I am deeply ashamed of it.
