Reminds me of a family Christmas a couple years ago where a relative was telling racial jokes. Everybody was laughing hysterically, but I was actually feeling offended just because he was going on and on. I'm not saying I'm perfect and didn't chuckle at a few, but I did say point blank that it wasn't right. Of course he then says, "Oh, I'm not racist. There's a difference between [you know what and you know what]".
how do you go about creating non-harmful/offensive archetypes to allow for easy joke creation without being XYZ-ist?
Ogged: "Here is a stick. I will now poke at this hornet's nest again."
Ogged: If I am not constantly discussing feminism, I have nothing to live for.
i just assume ogged is trying to use up all the bandwidth here
Hey look, there's a documentary on turtles.
how do you go about creating non-harmful/offensive archetypes to allow for easy joke creation without being XYZ-ist?
Make jokes at the expense of:
1) Classes which people belong to solely by personal choice (Republicans)
2) Classes which no one actually belongs to (left-handed, purple-haired Pictish dentists)
3) Classes which no one really cares about (lawyers, mimes)
Which reminds me of a joke.
A: "I'm going to be the next Hitler! I'm going to exterminate ALL THE JEWS and ONE MIME!"
B: "A mime? Why a mime?"
A: "SEE? NO ONE CARES IF THE JEWS LIVE OR DIE!"
I actually don't think she's that pretty.
Your friend is insane.
Ogged should arrange a meet-up and then do a post about the relative hotness of the female attendees.
I sure hope those turtles make it to the ocean before the birds get them.
Doesn't Anna Smashnova have the best tennis name ever? She sounds like Bugs Bunny's mixed doubles partner.
Who among you could have resisted posting if this conversation had arisen, unbidden, in the middle of your afternoon?
I sure hope those turtles make it to the ocean before the birds get them.
I'm of two minds about this. As much as I love the turtles, birds are dying, you know?
Maybe birds can eat puppies instead.
My feelings about birds are well-known.
arisen, unbidden, in the middle of your afternoon
I thought that didn't happen anymore.
OK, teo, turtles can eat birds. Puppies can eat Andrea Bocelli (slowly). Seitan for everyone else.
I don't care if the turtles eat the birds, I'd just rather the birds not eat the turtles and stay the fuck away from me.
There was a conversation here a bit ago about favorite comments thread. Stop accepting comments now (and delete ths one) and this could be a thread for the ages.
There's a much better version of the joke butchered in 7.
You know, Yglesias's dad wrote a book and then a movie about this whole phenomenon. Fearless. You should check it out, ogged.
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a seagull swooping down upon the coast and this seagull that was swooping down upon the coast met a yummy little reptile named baby turtle...
Ogged told us that story: ogged looked at us through a blog: he had a hairy ass.
So what do *you* think about the convo?
23: Or, for that matter, Rex Kramer: Danger Seeker!
There's a fine line between sexist and sexy.
Excuse me, I'm gonna go over by the punch bowl and stand with the women.
I seem to be the only one here who actually thinks this is an interesting post to discuss. Huh.
if i learned anything from the last week, its not to answer questions like 26, and change the conversation.
I think curly-haired male grad students have the hottest girlfriends.
Just nod your head and smile, boys. Just nod your head and smile. Every few minutes say "yes", or "uh-huh", or "I agree". We'll get through this relatively unscathed.
After, we drag ogged out back and beat him.
This is all a ruse -- they were really talking about the hotness of male tennis stars.
32 - ok, I'll bite. My reaction to Ogged's post is that obviously he, Ogged, is more "consciously aware" of his own sexism than his friend and, thus, is compelled to question it, whereas his friend is probably strolling along blissfully ignorant to his.
In re 12, the most interesting thing I learned from Michael Berube's new book (aside from the existence of a certain Rick Perstein) is that Bugs was black.
Hey, I figured out that bugs was black a long time ago.
Well, actually PK did. Which is so cool. Screw Berube.
My mom always said Mickey Mouse was black. (As per here I guess.) Here is her explanation of Bugs.
If he were, it might explain this, though.
Kind of an inverted Oedipus complex, huh? Interesting.
I seem to be the only one here who actually thinks this is an interesting post to discuss. Huh.
Not at all. I for one say Ogged's friend is on crack, and Sharapova isn't moon faced at all.
I just want to know how she plays tennis wearing 12 ounces of gold in her ears.
Your friend is insane.
It got even better, because I kept teasing him for saying she wasn't pretty (even though he totally granted that she was pretty), and so he got obstinate, and said that Henin-Hardenne was prettier than Sharapova. So when my mom and his wife came to watch with us, I told them what he'd said, and my mom was all "What?? What's the matter with you, Ogged's friend?" And his wife said, "That doesn't make me feel good, that you like ugly women." Oh lordy, I had a laugh.
I was actually thinking something similar, but she's a little too mannish (at least, as she looks on TV right now.) I do prefer more athletic to moon-faced voluptuous.
So basically the hot or not discussion is/was really about everyone in the room giving shit to your friend.
Yesterday my neighbor's wife and I played that same game, only we were teasing the neighbor about his insane survivalist fantasies instead. Later in the conversation (he was pretty drunk) we started talking about scars, and he went on a rant about how women should have the same attitude towards scars that men do. "You should flaunt your scars! Let those bellies hang out and say, A HUMAN BEING CAME OUT OF THAT! Women are so weird!"
You can see why I like the neighbor.
Is the insipid, ad-borne "going" euphemism for urination designed to be insipid, in order to provoke discussions like this one, to aid brand recall?
It's a hard world where Maria Sharapova isn't athletic.
This is Henin-Hardenne gussied up: http://www.henin-hardenne.be/bin/specials/ogalery.asp?Number=26
By "this one", I mean the hundreds of comments to be made in response to 51.
The discussion happened in two parts. The part I posted happened a couple of hours before the second part. It had no larger meaning, and I have no idea what any of you are talkng about.
How about those Hawkeyes?
Don't be fooled, people, Doug Flutie is an Arab.
As is Jeff George.
The TV stations punish us losers for being home on evenings during the weekend by playing only the shittiest commercials. You start to think, "Wow, I am in the same demographic as people afflicted with erectile dysfunction, uncontrollable debt, constant struggles over mattresses, gullibility about life insurance, dead-end job situations that can be remedied with the help of a two-year technical degree, etc., etc."
Is anyone else surprised that Adam (apparently) owns a TV?
50: See, it is a male bonding thing. (But with wives and mothers.)
Feed the weed to the turtles and save it from the raccoons.
I sort of miss seeing Bad Boys Bail Bonds ads. They must have been local to where I was living.
57: do you have tape-delayed tv from weekday mornings?
I'm watching a Lexus ad right now, Adam. I think it knows it's you.
Erectile dysfunction treatments can be competitors for the "going" drugs.
Sharapova's double arm pump-hip thrust when she won was rather disturbing.
Jeff George is a tool. And now, a lesson in a manly sport.
Exhibit A: The awesomeness that is Todd Jarrett.
so he got obstinate
Oh, I forgot the best part of that.
Me: I suppose Dick Enberg is also better looking than Sharapova?
Friend: What, now? In his younger days, sure.
Ok, this is disturbing- I just saw Enberg during the awards ceremony and was again going to make the exact same joke. Except I forgot his name and didn't think it would be quite the same calling him "that wrinkly bald jowly sports announcer guy."
Seriously, people, this discussion is silly. 55 gets it exactly right.
Yves-Pierre Hardenne appears to be flemish for "Federline"
So awesome, baa. I was thinking "I don't like the look of that young man," but couldn't put my finger on why.
I was thinking "I don't like the look of that young man," but couldn't put my finger on why.
Because you're in your 60s?
What Adam is watching are Chicago Broadcast stations. There are a lot of them, but they are punishing. He will probably not watch the Richmond night race on Fox, though many back in Bourbonais would. Another possibility, on right now in the next room, is Monarch of the Glen a BBC soap opera shown on our second PBS station, featuring Tom Baker of Dr. Who fame grown old and fat.
"Patty Duke Show," B & W, starting now on Ch 23.
It is actually Pierre-Yves Hardenne. And from the pictures here, he looks more like the exact opposite of what 70 implies (think Prince William).
And he is of course a Walloon rather than a Fleming.
Are there usage rules for Walloon vs. Wallonian?
Does anyone else think that Nadal is seriously ugly? And that there hasn't been an attractive male star since Rafter?
78: Not that I know of, but then I've never heard anyone use the latter.
Note that when referring to inhabitants of Wallonia with the meaning of citizen of Wallonia, the word Wallonian is more commonly used.
I have found that, while Sharapova is beautiful in repose, in the heat of passion her face becomes distorted and ugly. The truth comes out.
This is not true of Kournikova.
So far I have had no contact with Smashnova, but frankly, I'm getting sick of Maria. You can only take so much.
I remember noting that Leon DeGrelle lived comfortably in Malaga when I visited there in 1991.
But does not the truth come out in repose (aka "contemplation") while in passion one is ruled by an element we have in common wiht the animals?
Hence the origin of the phrase, 'hold your horses.'
In repose, Maria doesn't seem very contemplative to me now. She reminds me more of a sleepy, contented python digesting its prey.
The magic seems to have been lost.
there hasn't been an attractive male star since Rafter
I'd go even further and say not since Sampras.
Does anyone else think that Nadal is seriously ugly?
To those for whom he has animal appeal, this might not be a bad thing.
Since this thread can't decide what it wants to be, can I hijack it to ask if anyone has seen Dot the i? I want to talk about it.
No, it's more important for me to develop my Russoporn fantasies.
I think I liked it because it was refreshingly flawed, in a different way from the last half-dozen mainstream movies I've seen. The flaws were pretty serious, but at least it tried. I think there's something really appealing about naked effort, even if it's kind of off-puttingly ambitious.
Several reviewers commented on the filmmaker's twist-upon-plot-twist mentality, not to mention his own obvious ambition. I dunno. It's a movie. I want it to have some internal coherence, some engaging stories or people or ideas (ideally all three), and something to feast my eyes on. Beyond that...well, if nobody's willing to fail, then we're stuck with watching 14th generation knockoffs for all infinity.
Maybe I should mention Gael Garcia Bernal. Consider him mentioned.
my Russoporn fantasies.
You have fantasies about me doing porn?
if nobody's willing to fail
I'm listening to an interview with Ben Lee at the moment, and he talked about how he's not afraid to take chances, he's not afraid to suck. Now they're playing a song of his which, funnily enough, kind of sucks.
Now that you mention "Dot the i" is a movie, the name sounds familiar, but I couldn't tell you anything about it. I felt kinda the same way about He Got Game, it had obvious flaws but it was interesting. Might've felt different if I'd been watching a bunch of other Spike Lee movies instead of a bunch of non-Spike Lee movies.
The only Ben Lee song I can remember hearing is "Catch My Disease," which I vaguely recall has a catchy hook and not much else going for it. But I'm no musiphile.*
*This mangling of the English language brought to you for the express purpose of twitting w-lfs-n.
I've not heard it, but maybe "Catch My Disease" had going for it the ripping off of the idea behind The The's "Infection" (and, no doubt, roughly ten trillion other things)?
I decided your friend was right, and that the convo, as convo, wasn't sexist as long as it was just the two of you in the room.
Now, posting it on teh internets, otoh....
(Also: drunk.)
I refrained from posting in the whole 'truth and beauty' thread other than to say that, mostly, my male friends didn't spend much time discussing which women were hot with the exception of a couple of guys who are total letches. Although, fwiw, I was largely in agreement with LB, Tia and BPhD.
Anyway, 100 and the whole 'private' conversation versus 'public' conversation thing, reminds of an incident with one of these particular guys ...
He and I are standing in a telephone box at a busy crossroads in Glasgow, telephoning our landlord. Across the street, a girl begins to cross the street towards us.
S: 'Look at her'Me: [looks]
S: 'Amazing tits'
Me: [holding phone] [nod of agreement]'Yeah'
At which point the girl keeps coming closer and closer, and finally opens the door of our telephone box ... at which point it becomes obvious to us both that it is T, a good friend (and future flatmate) of S's.
T: 'What are you two chuckling about?'S: 'Matt was just saying how amazing your tits are...'
you don't have to cut out the snogging bit on our account, ttam. we're all adults here.
84- Evidence for this is the middle link in 69, you can see how pissed she is when she's down 5-love.
re: 103
The whole episode was cringe-worthy and definitely no snogging -- although I'm sure S would have happily snogged me if he thought it'd get a laugh. S gets away with that sort of stuff because most of his filthy sexual anecdotes or ostentatiously lecherous comments are self-deprecating and he's almost always the butt of his own jokes. However, for his friends, who don't have his iron-strong ability to weather any embarrassment, it's a nightmare.
Your friend S sounds like my friend R. That's a brilliant story, I'm completely in love with S now.
with the exception of a couple of guys who are total letches
In short, the solution to the "is it or isn't it sexist" thing is that Ogged is a total lech.
re: 106
I have hundreds of these S stories....
When S met my wife for the first time he spent half an hour telling her about the time he was in Estonia, and in bed with this girl he knows there. The punchline to the story involving among other things the moment when i) she was squeezing his head really tightly between her thighs while screaming in Estonian, ii) he really wanted to hear what orgasmic swearing in Estonian sounded like, so iii) a comedy tug of war results in which he's trying to prise her legs apart so he can hear while she, on the other hand, is squeezing the opposite way.
My wife had met him about 10 minutes earlier and he was standing up in the pub acting the whole story out with hand movements and fake-Estonian swearing, voices, the lot.
Obviously, the general reaction of women to this guy is either to think he's a complete ass, or to think he's fabulous. My money's on the latter.
re: 108
Oh it's definitely the latter. He's genuinely self-deprecating, and totally not an ass. He just has no brain/mouth filter and see no reason not to tell any story or say anything, particularly if he can get a laugh out of it. He has more platonic female friends that just about anyone else I know. People do get a bit of a fright when they first meet him, though.
Well, it's also that there's so much deliciously complex social interaction going on when people do things like that. It's not just tactless guy telling story to woman he just met, it's also best friend who likes woman being mortified at what she must think of his friend, and what that might do to what she thinks of him, plus you just don't tell stories like that in front of people you've just met or women, and then there's your wife laughing at the story and also a bit at your mortification... he's playing you up, but just a little bit, and oddly in a way that actually redounds to your benefit.
There's a real skill at handling people in stories like that, which is just immensely attractive.
re: 110
Yeah, all of that.
Although re: 'plus you just don't tell stories like that in front of people you've just met or women'
I think S would be genuinely offended at the idea that he ought to talk differently in front of women.
Actually, while I wouldn't want to make an absolute generalisation, that notion of 'decorum' and 'things you don't say in front of women', isn't really as big here as it seems to be in the US.
110: I really don't want to restart prior arguments, but that is why some men are mildly suspicious of some variants of feminism: actual practices seem to indicate that, for many women, interpretation of male behaviors will depend on a whole series of other factors often not included in feminist* explanations. I don't particularly think this is a failing of feminism. Everyone does it, and iis able to do it because we don't really understand what's going on. But feminism focuses on things everyone actually cares about, and so gets more attention, critical and otherwise.
* I'm thinking of the sort of explanations we give here, not serious works.
112 is an astute comment, and one that often occurs to me when B is "appreciating," even liking some comment that even she calls "assholeish." My first reaction is resentment, as in "one rule for thee and another for me." I've worked through it, and am in a position to be relaxed, happy to be learning and so on. Life is complicated, and some of us feel the smoke of our offerings curls back toward the ground. Probably verbal appreciation, the confidence that comes from women liking you and saying so, is the only thing that frees us from this. I'm lucky that way.
"I'm lucky that way."
Yeah, so is Hugh Hefner. I imagine you now in your smoking jacket with 3 or 4 gorgeous babes slinking around in skimpy outfits.
No envy here, no sirree!
110, 113: This is a really complicated issue, and one that I've thought about. There is completely a double standard of decorum (in the US, urban-liberal whatever you call my demographic, anyway) for men and for women -- a woman being raunchy might come off as a slut, but she's not doing anything aggressively unpleasant to her listeners. A man being raunchy, unless he picks his audience (only men, women he knows well enough to be certain of what won't offend them) is being an asshole. (This is descriptive, not normative -- I don't approve, but I think it's the way people feel.)
If I understand why this works, it's a secondary effect of the other double standard -- that men are supposed to like and be interested in sex, but women who do are sluts; decent women are sexless in public (oh, sexually attractive, but they don't talk about it).
A woman being raunchy, then, is rejecting that standard on her own behalf -- 'Think what you like of me, I'll say what I want.' A man being raunchy is ambiguous. He might be simply ignoring or rejecting the standard (and dude, for all the male readers I know here, I am entirely certain that this describes you). But if he buys into it, he's putting female listeners into a position where if they're decent women, they object to hearing that kind of thing, and if they don't object, they're sluts -- it's an expression of contempt either way.
So for women, listening to raunch from a man we don't know well enough to know where he stands on the whole sexual double standard thing, there's a real possibility that he's intending to express contempt and hostility. Which is a piss-off even if we don't in fact mind the raunch. This is entirely unfair to decent yet foul-mouthed men who get judged as assholes despite the fact that they aren't trying to be -- it's a dynamic that needs to get fixed. But that's, I think, how it works.
115 sounds mostly right (putting to one side agreeing about the frequency with which men hold women in contempt or are hostile to them).
I think S would be genuinely offended at the idea that he ought to talk differently in front of women.
Oh, of course--I don't actually subscribe to the "you don't say such things in front of ladies" argument. I'm just saying it exists. And I think it exists in the UK, too, and that this somehow hovers behind the fact that in the UK men *do* say such things in front of men and women both--it's like part of marking oneself as not sexist is doing that.
LB is mostly right, but there is definitely a difference of tone that's easy to distinguish. Some guys say raunchy shit with half an eye on you in a way that makes it clear they're doing it on purpose to try to make you uncomfortable. But men who do it more or less frankly (like McG's friend S) or who keep an eye on you with a little twinkle like they're teasing you just a bit, that's cool.
