I miss forums

I mean, I'm not making this up. Read this. Friends from Usenet days will recognise the types.

Seriously, the A+ crew take a poster to pieces for posting a limerick that juxtaposed the opening "There was a young lady" and the word "wanker" in the same poem.

Apparently, he should have been aware that this is highly sexualised. I mean, "wanker", that's to do with sex right. Same word sort of thing. Alluding to it.

But here's the thing. Limericks are not subtle. They don't allude. They are bawdy. They say it out loud. They are all about saying the things people think but mostly pass through a filter.

They recognise and respect women's sexuality. Often, the twist, whatever Legman had to say about women as victims or villains, often turns the woman from victim to hero. That's the point. Limericks set up a scenario, often representing an ideology of the day, part of the mores that it wishes to mock, then turns it on its head.

They overturn expectations. That's why they are funny.

Men, indeed, are portrayed as venal beings driven only by their lusts. They are often seen as sliding into moral turpitude, and often the twist is to confront them with a painful or embarrassing outcome that thwarts their horrid desires.

So he is hounded and "denounced" as a sexual harasser. I am not shitting you. Having been bullied relentlessly by three or four very angry people -- who have that very special redhot anger that you can only reach if  you've decided something will make you angry; you guys know what I mean -- you will have faked it yourself often enough -- he is admonished that he must back the train into the station. This by the dude who told him he was "confrontational".

The poor sod has no idea what he is meant to have done. How could he though? No matter how well or ill you think of women, it's hard to imagine that any of them would actually be so upset by seeing the word wanker in print that they would harangue you for longer than a "shaddap sexist".

He is like, fuck, are these people trolling me? Because these fine "liberals", progressives even, have resurrected Bowdler. They are like your fucking maiden aunt getting the vapours any time she sees the word "cock" and would probably ascend to the good lord on the spot if she heard it or, omg, it doesn't bear thinking about, saw it.

BTW, we're not banning sex. Not even atheists. You can forget that. People are rarely recruited to cults by the promise they can become a nun.

Anyway, blah blah, my favourite bit is when he's given an hour off to "think about his reply" (iow, figure out why his maiden aunt has become a shrieking mess on the floor, and figure out what fine words will get her to stop shrieking at least) but the Heathers continue to berate him.

But they top even that.

It's even worse, she said, that you are targetting your limerick at a minority. The person he was posting with is from South Africa. Gasp. They might not get the "nuance". Although the bishop does allow that the poor picked-on saffa has "excellent writing skills".

So this poor dude is being told he's a racist for not being sensitive to what is most likely a native English speaker's inability to understand English nuance by someone whose racism is so deep they cannot conceive that a South African could have excellent writing skills on account of in fact being an English speaker (although only 10% of saffas have English as their home language, for obvious reasons they are going to be disproportionately represented online)

I am beginning to miss a good common-or-garden religious bigot!

One person nails it and of course is silenced. I'm not kidding. The mod drew a veil over his comment. You literally have to ask to be shown it, it is so offensive.

Of course it's offensive. Truth is the enemy of religion. Isn't that what us atheists say?

Cheapening the definition of harassment to such a degree should be a source of shame and this kind of hyper-offence is Portlandia style feminist bookstore feminism.

This kind of thing is supportive of patriarchal culture by way of contributing to the stereotype of feminist issues as nothing more than bowing to the desires of the hyper-sensitive for the power to silence anyone at will.

to which the moderator replies:

Psst, you're on a moderated web forum. Mods already have the power to silence anyone at will, so your argument is a nice shiny red herring.

Dude, you just did exactly what he said the stereotype is.

posted by Dr Zen @ 10:35 pm