Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site oddjob.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!gargoyle!oddjob!apak From: apak@oddjob.UUCP (Adrian Kent) Newsgroups: net.jokes.d Subject: Re: traditional values Message-ID: <1142@oddjob.UUCP> Date: Sun, 26-Jan-86 02:20:25 EST Article-I.D.: oddjob.1142 Posted: Sun Jan 26 02:20:25 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 26-Jan-86 20:27:06 EST References: <263@galbp.UUCP> <418@cisden.UUCP> <1124@oddjob.UUCP> <451@cisden.UUCP> Reply-To: apak@oddjob.UUCP (Adrian Kent) Distribution: net Organization: U. Chicago, Astronomy & Astrophysics Lines: 109 Summary: In article <451@cisden.UUCP> john@cisden.UUCP (John Woolley) writes: a reply to my protest about a posting of his in net.jokes. Roughly, he says he doesn't understand what I'm protesting about. I've tried and failed to reach him by mail, so I'll post the letter I would have sent. Dear Fr. Woolley, Your recent contribution to net.jokes was, to me, repugnant. It was misogynist propaganda, pure and simple: the point of the punchline is that prostitutes use the term rape to describe situations where they feel inadequately compensated for providing sex. The subtext suggests that claims of rape are generally unreliable. My best guess would be that you didn't intend the posting as propaganda - somehow you've attained a state of mind in which you believe that this phenomenon is generally recognised and humorous. It is neither. Anyone who's looked into the issue will tell you that rape normally involves deliberate humiliation of the victim and violent assault; they will also tell you that most rapes go unreported because victims fear they won't be believed. Prostitutes are particularly vulnerable in this regard. I am *not* saying that it is impossible to produce a joke about rape, but what you produced had absolutely no claim to humor. (It reminds me of a collection of deliberately racist 'jokes' appearing in a student magazine infiltrated by the (neo-fascist) British National Front. Sample: (THIS IS EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE TO ALMOST ANYONE, ESPECIALLY PAKISTANIS OR VICTIMS OF RACIST ASSAULT.) "Jun'f genafcnerag naq yvrf va n thggre" "N Cnxvfgnav jvgu gur fuvg xvpxrq bhg bs uvz." My reaction to this differs only in intensity from my reaction to yours.) I seriously suggest that you ought to consider how you can have found your posting funny. In the process, you need to think about your and your church's attitudes towards women, and exactly where your prized traditional values have led you. Incidentally, an appropriate Subject: line would have been Mindless sexism: offensive to non-misogynists (ROT 13). ak P.S. I have just received your posting. To reply to some of your points: >I recently posted (to net.jokes) what still strikes me as a very funny >joke that depended for its effect on a sudden realization of the previous >history of one of the characters, i.e. that she'd obtained the money she >was depositing by prostitution. That *isn't* the point of the 'joke': if you think it is then you don't understand what you wrote. Somehow the rape reference in the punchline has been lost in your interpretation. Try making the 'joke' work without it: I suggest that you won't succeed without producing a recognisably different 'joke' (or perhaps even joke). >"Propaganda" means writing or talk designed to try to persuade somebody >to do something or believe something. Two questions: > 1. Is it even vaguely possible that anyone's opinions on > women, or banks, or prostitution, or rape, or Life-the- > Universe-and-Everything were changed by my joke? > 2. What is it you thought I was trying to persuade people to > do or believe? 1. Yes. Jokes are an excellent medium for transmitting unpleasant images. Do you dispute the fact that Polish jokes affect people's ideas about Poles? 2. I've explained the message of the 'joke'. Perhaps you weren't consciously trying to transmit that message, but at the very least it doesn't jar enough with your worldview for you to filter it out. > >"Sexist" as I understand it means something like "characterised by a >belief that women are in some way inferior to men". I was using the word in the wider sense of "reinforcing a world-view which sustains the unequal treatment of men and women". Sorry if that was too loose. >You know, there are a lot of things that show up in net.jokes that various >sorts of people find offensive in various ways. There are a lot of jokes >posted there that I find offensive, some of them because they're degrading >to women. It strikes me as really perverse to take a joke that isn't the >least bit "anatomical" and post it to net.women as the epitome of evil. >Why was my joke so horribly offensive, but out-and-out sexual humour is >acceptable? Your posting was the most offensive I recall since the Rock Hudson/AIDS/ homophobe spate. In addition, I thought (and still think) that it illustrated an ugly side to the cluster of sexual values and mores which you have propounded elsewhere. I don't understand why you regard "anatomical" jokes as necessarily offensive. >Are you trying to say I dislike women? > >I like most people (including women), some people (including women) like me, >and lots and lots and lots of women hold what I'd call "traditional values". >You're being awfully sexist, no?, implying that all women and all men who >like women have similar and non-traditional values. > >What "values" are you talking about? What "values" are so horribly revealed >in the joke? I'm trying to say (and I didn't put it very well in my initial anger) that the trivialisation of rape, and the suggestion that rape claims by non-virgins tend to be unfounded, are harmful to women. I'm also trying to suggest that these ideas tend to be associated with the traditional religious view of women and sexuality. It's the rape-views which are so horribly revealed in the 'joke', and which I was directly attacking. >Is a sense of humour incompatible with a respect for women? Absolutely. It is well known that all feminists (and especially male feminists) are dour, humourless puritans. (:-)) > Fr. John Woolley ak