I won’t defend Penn Jillette, but I will defend card tricks.  It would have been better to stick with that.

There are Atheists who are atheists because they don’t believe in a supreme diety or any diety.  Then there are atheists who are atheists because they think that they are God.

Penn Jillette is that kind of prick.

It’s akin to the time when Bill Maher asked Chris Rock if Michael Richards was a racist.  Chris Rock was like, I dunno man, he’s shouting “nigger” at some black guys who were watching his show.  What does it take?

I have no interest in the question of whether Penn Jillette is truly a sexist in his heart, if that’s the way he likes to talk about women.

I’m trying to figure out what part of that article offended Mr. Jillette. Based on prior history, I’m guessing it’s the commentary on the M&M’s commercial. The phrase ‘victim-blaming’ just makes him see red. Or maybe ‘nude candy-parts’.

I guess I just don’t understand how anyone can develop the levels of self-absorption required to think, “I did not find this article about commercials I didn’t even watch to be funny. In fact, I found it offensively non-funny! Alert the fanbase!”

Jillette is the libertarian kind of atheist (they make up most of the jerks in atheism, the rest being liberals who aren’t too clued in on issues like misogyny).

Like ganews, I would also defend card tricks. Even P+T’s card tricks, which I think are really entertaining. But, as I’ve said before, I wouldn’t be surprised if making your living tricking people (and P+T are even quite meta about it, as in they draw great attention to the fact they’re about to trick you, and make fun of you after the fact) would give you the impression that most people are part of a mindless unwashed mass, just begging for manipulation by Galts like magicians, conmen and big businessmen. Discrimination against certain social groups is easy to justify once you’ve accepted that notion.

Bullshit is in and of itself a good indicator of the limits of liberatarian atheism. It’s supposed to be a skeptical programme, and most of the time it is, but it insists on being “skeptical” about global warming and the dangers of smoking. As if those things even approach the rest of the woo they tackle in scientific invalidity. It’s painfully obvious at those points in the show that Penn and Teller’s ideology is getting in the way.

choad 529 up, 189 down

Choad, also spelt chode, is a variant of the word choda (penis) which comes from the Hindi word (chodna). Chodna simply means to fuck. The word choad however is what is known as a neologism. This is a word that is newly acknowledged but has not been in circulation long enough or widely enough for its social status to be determined. As it stands, the word choad has three major definitions.
1) A short, fat penis that is wider than it is longer
2) The area between the scrotum/vagina and the anus.
3) A derogatory term used to insult somebody.
1) Ducas has a fat choad.
2) Last night your mom tongued my choad.
3) Quit being such a choad.

I had to look that one up.

Choad is not a good thing, it appears. Let’s set aside the feminist logic that says men can be insulted hammer and tongs with literally no words barred and that women pretty much can’t be insulted - at least not with any profane words that refer to women specifically.

Penn has always been a crankypants - a ‘libertarian’ atheist. Morally, he’s kind of the worst of all possible worlds and I remember being pretty offended by an interview he did - I think I heard on Fresh Air (?)

I took a look at the article and yeah, it was lame - lame in the same way that Gawker just radiates with that pubescent nervous energy that revels in naughty words and bodily functions but because it’s MSNBC it can’t even do that. Prurient without the curse words is no fun!

This is indeed sandwich eating fare and it’s not alone. In Chicago we have a dead-tree bird cage liner called “RedEye” - It’s for free, and worth every penny. It takes the USA ‘blurb’ as just to cerebral and Harpers-y - and dumbs it down even further with ‘funny’ graphics and the lowest-of-brow conceits.

I avoided the Superbowl just because when everyone is supposed to do something, I like not doing it. I did see the Chevy Silvy ad and liked it (Dad was a Democrat and a Chevrolet man and I get that from him). I think she clearly missed out on the fact that the guys were supposed to be getting choked up at the end because their friend died because he was in a weak and lame Ford - they weren’t ‘celebrating’ his death.

So this ‘journalism’ was wrong on the facts and was trying to be funny and wasn’t. OK, that’s becoming like 95% of ‘journalism’ anyway.

But offensive? Offensive enough to be worth ‘denouncing’?

Nope. 

If choad is equivalent to a taint, then it is gender-neutral. Everyone’s gotta choad.

Lindy West is hysterical. Her Sex and the City 2 review alone is funnier than anything Penn has done

jorge.1991 - what part of this didn’t you understand:

This is why I get a little frustrated with trying to prove sexism or racism on a single word. It has this tendency to narrow the playing field, make it all about “proving” whether this word or that word is an Official Utterance of -Ists, which distracts from the larger issues and encourages -Ists to use coded language for better ass-coverage in the future.

He called a female writer a cunt for the ‘offense’ of not being funny. What does it take?

In addition, the complaints the Jillette are trotting out are very much of the “those in glass houses” variety.

I believe you’ll find that Penn “the cunt does the same fucking joke four times!” Jillette was the DIRECTOR of… “The Aristocrats”.

Huh.  Thanks for the education, if nothing else, Kingelvis.  I’d only ever heard the “chunky load” variant, which is much further down the page on Urbandictionary, and apparently much less commonly used.

jorge—and what women saying is that yes, it is.

And considering “twat” is another term for female genitalia, it’s also sexist. Check yourself.

And a medal goes jorge for completely missing the point!

Good sir, please read the entire post before coming in with your comment. It maight save you future embarrassment from coming across as a total and complete moron who shouldn’t be allowed near a computer until he learns basic reading skills. The argument was that the comment in total was sexist, “cunt” or no “cunt”. If someone has to reiterate the basic thesis of the post to you in comments, congratulations, you are the Idiot of the Day. Enjoy and please refrain from competing again.

This is someone trying to hate people and be superior and having to work really hard at it.

Hmm, seems like it’s exactly what he’s doing in his critique. 

Agreed his post (must be Facebook) is oversized.  It makes me wonder if he has a history with this particular woman. 

Nevertheless, if you substitute “asshole” for “cunt” you get a screed that just seems out of proportion to the offense rather than sexist, unless he has a history with this woman or women in general.  Maybe he does, I’ve seen parts of his act and heard some of his radio material but don’t know a lot about him.  He seems more wedded to vulgar as humor than misogyny. 

The “C” word is another example of investing a word with much more power than any word deserves.  It has now become the taboo word for women (feminist or not), like the “N” word or the “F” word.  Only members of the group to which the words describe can use them. I don’t miss them but giving words such power to hurt gives too much power to people who would hurt you.

I get it.  I don’t use those words.  There are perfectly good vulgar pejoratives for individuals I find reprehensible which are gender, race and sex-preference neutral, like asshole and shithead. 

you get a screed that just seems out of proportion to the offense

Why do you think Jillette reacted out of proportion to the offense? Marcotte’s thesis is that he reacted out of proportion because the writer is a woman and Jillette is sexist (she bases this on the fact that Jillette has a history of derogatory remarks towards and about women). Which you would know if you actually read Marcotte’s post.

“Who does this bitch think she is with her weather predictions? Just because you have a map and a meterology report doesn’t make you the queen of the fucking weather, sweetheart.”

Sorry. I do have to shamefully admit that I (literally) LOL’d at this version of a “Jillette comment”. Until I remembered that the local southern CA stations appear to be having a “hottest weather gal” competition and I have actually heard comments similiar to that one before from my super enlightened co-workers.

I don’t miss them but giving words such power to hurt gives too much power to people who would hurt you.

Give me a fucking break. When you’ve had that word used against you, with barely suppressed violence in the speaker’s voice, for the sin of not smiling at a man who yelled at you in the street, then you can talk about who gives power to words. The problem is NOT in my head, in the power that *I* give that word. It’s not women or feminists who made that word one of the strongest things you can say in American English. It has not “now become” taboo.

mansplainers! Git the raid, Lois ... we gots ourselves an infestation of mansplainers!

lemme guess - she turned him down for a date?

Wow, how pissed in Jillette’s cheerios?

MiddleageLiberal said: The “C” word is another example of investing a word with much more power than any word deserves.  It has now become the taboo word for women (feminist or not), like the “N” word or the “F” word.  Only members of the group to which the words describe can use them. I don’t miss them but giving words such power to hurt gives too much power to people who would hurt you.

To borrow a phrase from Shakesville, I am not hurt.  I am contemptuous. 

When I point out that throwing words like “cunt” at someone is sexist I am not taking on the mantle of the PC police to censor you nor am I giving up any “power” over myself to the person who uttered it.  I do not collapse into a ball and cry if I hear it.

I simply think that anyone who is too lazy to come up with another word or who is so in love with that word that they refuse to use another one, despite its history, most likely has in their “heart” (or whatever) the intent to cause harm.  And that is what matters.  I am not playing the victim because I am not actually harmed.  I am a big girl, and I cannot be shamed on account of being female.  But I reserve the right to point out that you are an ignorant asshole if you TRY to shame me for that reason.

(And I feel sorry for girls and women who don’t have access to feminist role models who can teach them that there is nothing shameful about being a woman.  Because if they are awash in language like this all the time and never hear otherwise, then they ARE harmed.  And THAT is the real tragedy.  I am contemptuous.  On their behalf, I am furious.)

I don’t buy that twat means female genitalia.

You don’t have to buy it, but regardless it’s true. Seriously, I knew twat meant female genitalia when I was in middle school.

why would changing an I to an A make an insult “way harder hitting”??

I don’t buy that twat means female genitalia. Even if it does I doubt anyone much knows it does. I think it’s just twit with the I changed to an A because that way it’s harder hitting.

You don’t buy it? Do you also not buy that leg means the appendage on which you walk? Or that asshole refers to the orifice from which you shit? No! It just means jerk but harder-hitting. Why it’s harder-hitting, I have no idea.

The ‘new avenues of discussion’ are quite boring.

Jillette used the word ‘cunt’ as the insult (and not ‘asshole’ or ‘idiot’ or even ‘prick’) for a specific reason. I don’t have to ‘give it power’ - Jillette already has.

jorge.1001 you are just being ridiculous now. I knew twat was a word for vagina when I was like 13 years old and google confirms this definition. The first 4 hits define the word as female genetalia and 3 out of 4 do so without having to click the link and go to their website. The reason you hear twat used as an insult for men is the exact same reason you hear pussy used as an insult for men. Hope this helps.

Also, is anyone surprised that some dudes need everyone know they will continue saying cunt and anyone who has a problem with that is oversensitive?

The problem that “cunt” has, as an insult that “dick” doesn’t, is that it uses femaleness as an insult. It says “You’re bad, and explicitly bad in a stereotypically female way, which is worse”. It’s like using “pussy” for “wimp”  in that it draws on cultural sexism and negative comparisons to women. “Dick” doesn’t carry quite the comparison to maleness; like “asshole”, it’s just scatological.

Fundamentally, it’s punching down, not up.

Also, you don’t have to believe that “twat” means “female genitalia”, but everyone else does, and that’s the way language works so you might as well get on board.

jorge.1991, does the “1991” refer to the year of your birth?

My 70-something-year-old father heard and used the word “twat” to refer to the human vulva when he was a teenager.  And I’m sure it was already in use long before that.  I’m sure the ‘C Word’ has been around for a long time, and most likely has had a rude meaning for a very long time too.

Next, are you going to tell us that M.I.A. invented the Middle-Finger-Salute?  And that it doesn’t refer to the male member?...

why would changing an I to an A make an insult “way harder hitting”??

It just does. You know, like in the extremely hard-hitting and not at all ridiculous “batch,” “dackhead,” “shat,” “jazz,” “lack my balls,” etc.

(Left out “prack.”)

Seriously, Penn Jillette give us awkward social outsiders who had problems in high school a bad name.  Why couldn’t he have just become a science researcher, or a computer programmer, or an engineer and lead a quiet life like the rest of us (while keeping his misogyny to himself)?...

I’d be much happier to talk about atheism with other people if libertarians weren’t giving the rest of us a bad name.  For libertarians it’s just another cudgel they use to show everyone around them how smart and superior they are.

Also don’t assume I am a man, thanks.

Dude, you pretty much come into this thread waving your cock around. You don’t get to play the “hurrr you make gendered assumptions too” card anymore.

Like ganews, I would also defend card tricks. Even P+T’s card tricks, which I think are really entertaining. But, as I’ve said before, I wouldn’t be surprised if making your living tricking people (and P+T are even quite meta about it, as in they draw great attention to the fact they’re about to trick you, and make fun of you after the fact) would give you the impression that most people are part of a mindless unwashed mass, just begging for manipulation by Galts like magicians, conmen and big businessmen. Discrimination against certain social groups is easy to justify once you’ve accepted that notion.

Hmmm. Maybe TREEFINGER is on to something. It’s sort of like action hero stars who take political stances that correspond to the reactionary characters they play. Like Chuck Norris wants a kickass President who can kill 20 armed Mexicans with his bare hands! They portray a ridiculous fantasy and then transform it into some kind of blood and iron realpolitick.

Penn’s knowledge of sleight of hand somehow informs his dismissive attitude toward basic moral fiber because the world is full of credulous fools.

Oh, Penn Jillette, why. When Penn does good skepticism, he does pretty good skepticism. So we know he’s capable of using his brain. When “Bullshit” is at its best, it’s mixing vulgarity and unnecessarily loud yelling with compassion and decency.

But as Treefinger said @5, he’s also convinced that his global warming denialism and libertarianism count as skepticism. The vulgarity and unnecessarily loud yelling aren’t as charming when he’s shouting about how YOU’RE TELLING ME THE GUBBAMINT WANTS TO TELL BUSINESS OWNERS WHAT KIND OF DOORKNOBS AND PARKING SPACES THEY CAN USE ON THEIR OWN FUCKING PROPERTY?!

Given the attitude there, this rant of his doesn’t even surprise me. It sucks, though. He could be a good feminist if, like all libertarians, he weren’t so wrapped up in his own privilege. Good skepticism and feminism go quite well together.

Let’s set aside the feminist logic that says men can be insulted hammer and tongs with literally no words barred and that women pretty much can’t be insulted - at least not with any profane words that refer to women specifically.

Let’s set aside the KingElvis logic that says KingElvis has anything of value to contribute to this conversation.

Of course “twat” means female genitals. It’s not as loaded as the C word, but still pretty loaded and I try to avoid it. Which is sad, because it’s a funny sounding word, like “mukluk” or “titmouse”.

“And I think that the middle finger is a homeophobic insult because it suggests one is sitting on a penis.”

Wow. I’m pretty sure that that one is a gender neutral “fuck you”.

@41, you’re verging on troll territory, but I’ll answer:  Just because women engage in a particular behavior doesn’t mean that behavior isn’t sexist and misogynous.  Nobody is denying women’s agency.  Their agency isn’t the point.  Another thing that doesn’t matter is whether they are confused. 

For decades, defenders of the status quo have tried your little rhetorical move: if a subordinated group doesn’t seem to mind, then everything must be hunky-dory.  The term used to be “false consciousness.”  As in, what are you saying, they’re addled with false consciousness?  Google to learn more if you want.

KingElvis: I always thought choad came from a horror movie and meant a radiation-caused mutant of some kind.

Jorge.1991: In what sense is “bastard” specific to men? Last time I checked a woman can be born out of wedlock, too.

In the X-Men movie, produced by men, written by men, and in this scene acted by men, aimed at a market mostly of 18-24 year old men but also teenagers, there’s a scene where Scott Summers needs Logan to prove whether he is in fact Logan or Mystique. Logan responds, “You’re a dick.” Scott accepts this as proof. There is nowhere in the world that a movie made by women, aimed at an audience of young women and teenagers, would have one woman call another woman who is an ally and comrade a “cunt” to prove her identity and have it laughed off as mild humor; a movie that did that would be trying to be edgy and do dark comedy, not a relatively inoffensive superhero movie. You can say all you want that “dick” is just as bad as “cunt”, but given the proven fact that men use it when writing stories for public consumption (including consumption by young people) that are not supposed to be taken as offensive or even boundary-transgressing, to demonstrate that allies find each other mildly irritating, and that this isn’t true of “cunt” even in Britain where it *is* more commonly used than in the US… it’s just not true.

“Dick” is considered equivalent to “jerk.” “Cunt” is equivalent to “you stupid fucking bitch, just die already.” They are of such incredibly different levels of perceived offensiveness, you’d really have to be trying very, very hard not to notice. And “pussy”, which is not nearly as offensive as “cunt”, is used to mean “weakling”, “doormat”, “someone who won’t stand up for themselves”, which… simply doesn’t logically follow from the behavior of vaginas, which are pretty demanding. I mean, if dick and pussy meant the same thing, and you’d call a woman a pussy to mean that she’s being kind of a jerkass, I’d have no objection. But “dick” means “self-centered jerk”, which pretty much describes any genitalia; “schmuck” means “stupid person”, which also describes anyone who thinks with their genitalia; “cock” means “arrogant jerk”, which, when you recall that it’s derived from “rooster” as much as it is “penis”, makes sense; “pussy” means “weakling”, which does not accurately describe genitalia, and “cunt” means “utterly disgusting thing that should die.” Um. Which of these things is not like the others?

In a world where “dick”, “pussy” and “asshole” were all basically synonyms, I’d be all on board with saying either they’re all good or none are. But “pussy” isn’t used to mean the same category of thing that “dick” and “asshole” are… and while “cunt” *is*, it’s also such a much more extreme and strong version of the concept that it really carries the idea that the person being called a cunt is irredeemably awful. So, in reality, while you can say all you want “it’s not fair to insult people with male genitals either!”, in fact all the male genital insults are mild and are considered acceptable for PG movies, whereas all the female genital insults are dire. Start using “vajayjay” to mean “kind of a jerk” and then you can have a female-genital insult that’s equal in power and meaning to “dick”, and stop acting like “dick” is treated as being as anywhere near as offensive as “pussy” and “cunt” by either the people who own one, or the people who use the insult, which are sets by the way that carry a huge overlap.

UGH jorge, I think ‘as Earth progresses’ people like you will stop looking for ways to type and defend horrible slurs. If you’re really interested, go read some feminism 101, dude.

But back to actually scheduled programming, the thing with Penn is that he’s, you know, not very funny. So the misogyny stuff is both a reflection of his, you know, misogyny, and a formula for humor that he can repeat without having to be funny or come up with actual jokes. I bet you at some point he will claim that all the misogynistic jokes/remarks are meant as, HUMOR, STUPID LADEEZ, god, he’s making FUN of the misogyny, he’s totally on YOUR SIDE, you dumb twats.

Alara—fantastic bit of smackdown, in future versions, you might want to compare the “You’re a dick” scene in X-Men to the scene in Bridesmaids where Kristin Wiig’s character calls the teenage customer a cunt.

clearly written for an audience looking to pass some time while they’re eating a sandwich at their desks

Gasp!  How did you know I read that (and this) while eating at my desk?  Amanda has super powers!

Jillett’s comment is rather outsized given the clearly fluffy nature of the piece.  Oh and I thought it was quite funny and did a great job of pointing out how callous people are in advertising.

Of course “twat” means female genitals.

Which is a pity - the Brits also use it as a term for hitting someone, which has a nice onomatopoetic ring to it.

“Dick” is considered equivalent to “jerk.” “Cunt” is equivalent to “you stupid fucking bitch, just die already.”

Exactly. It’s not the word, it’s the anger and the threat of violence behind it. Even if you’re not planning to punch that particular woman in the face, you’re reminding her that you totally could and you’d have every right to in a sane society. Because she’s a woman, she sucks, everyone knows it, and she should never, ever forget it.

I wish all of you stupid sexist assholes could feel that kind of pain just once in your lives, before you start crying about chivalry and infantilization and men can be insulted and women can’t wah. You’re children, and you’ll always be children. It’s embarrassing and shameful that you can think of yourself as adults.

I just have to say bravo, Amanda Marcotte, bravo. Those were funny.

@ Mark

To be fair, he’s sort of onto something- it was definitely supposed to represent a phallus, originally:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16916263

jorge.1991 is proving he’s a candidate for stick rule again.  If you have no clue what you are talking about, you really should shut up unless you like showing yourself to be a dumb ass.  Dumb ass, by the way, is gender neutral as well, though I’m certain to about 99% I could you were proving yourself a dumb jackass and be accurate.
If choad = taint, it is gender neutral.
Twat is slang for the vulva.  Calling a male a twat is calling him a girl.  Calling someone a girl as an insult is sort of the definition of sexist insults.
Bastard is also gender neutral, but based on the fact that your paents were not married, which as far as anyone reasonable can see is nothing to insult someone about.
ad infinitum (or as everyone else is telling you)
See especially Alara as she is, as is pretty consistent, spot on.
Once again, studying math gives you no insight into history or sociology.  Let’s add language and language history to that now, why don’t we?

I was irratated, as usual, that the writer of a general piece (West) writes to her audience as if we are all male (or male and married lesbian).  Go kiss your wife while she still has lips.  Right.  Because everyone reading has a wife?  Damn, swimming in the patriarchy even when obliquely calling it out.

jorg@21:  you’d be wrong about “twat”.  It definitely refers to female genitalia, no matter how you personally may contort yourself to deny it.

That it has connotations and nuances as an insult isn’t denied:  as calling a guy a ‘prick’ has different connotations from calling a guy a ‘dick’, (‘prick’ has overtones of pettiness), so ‘twat’ versus ‘cunt’ has nuances (‘twat’ implies haplessness).  But they are ALL terms for genitalia.
++
And I second the kudos for AM’s examples at the end of the post.

sidenote: if penn’s own word about his life is to be trusted, he said on marc maron’s podcast that he got laid plenty in high school. he said he basically pursued the smart girls who were viewed as nerds by most of his classmates.

Why couldn’t he have just become a science researcher, or a computer programmer, or an engineer and lead a quiet life like the rest of us (while keeping his misogyny to himself)?...

The universe didn’t compensate him for his ugliness with brains, unfortunately.

he got laid plenty in high school. he said he basically pursued the smart girls who were viewed as nerds by most of his classmates.

So he couldn’t get the hot chicks. Plenty of reason to be bitter and hate women.

“So he couldn’t get the hot chicks. Plenty of reason to be bitter and hate women.”

i mean maybe. there are other reasons for misogyny aside from not getting laid by women. don’t know why we need to speculate about penn’s adolescence. he sure didn’t seem like he wanted the other girls when he talked about it. seemed like he liked the smart girls. again: this is all taken with a bit of a grain of salt because we can’t be sure he wasn’t sugar-coating his HS years.

To clarify that last comment, I don’t know or care if Jillette was fucking cheerleaders six at a time in high school. Many sexist pieces of shit get laid a lot. I don’t know why he hates women, and I’m not that interested in psychoanalyzing him.

cool. me either. i just happened to remember that little detail from his interview with marc maron a few months ago. but he went into this long bit about his libertarianism that rubbed me the wrong way. i will give him this though, he said something to effect of “as much as i hate the idea of universal health care, i’ll take that any day of the week if we could reduce the size of our military and end the ongoing wars in afgh/iraq/etc”

“Cunt” has an extra punch to it that “dick” and “asshole” do not.  I’ll make a longer (as opposed to a shorter) of the definition offered:
“you stupid fucking bitch, [you are good for nothing but getting some dude’s dick wet, but you won’t, so] just die already.”

That adds in the hate-sex connotation the word has for me.

Bravo mr_subjective! Or Brivo, if that’s too harsh.

Gee Amanda, you’re far more generous than I in giving him the .1% chance of not being a misogynistic prick. Good post. By the way: Hi trolls! Have you enjoyed your visit today?

And I think that the middle finger is a homeophobic insult because it suggests one is sitting on a penis.

Both men and women can sit on a penis, you know.

Let’s set aside the feminist logic that says men can be insulted hammer and tongs with literally no words barred and that women pretty much can’t be insulted - at least not with any profane words that refer to women specifically.

Let’s set aside the KingElvis logic that says KingElvis has anything of value to contribute to this conversation.
Comment #39: Triplanetary

I do see the arguments about the ‘punching down’ and about how since women are considered ‘bad’ calling a man a woman is insulting but calling a woman a man is - I guess not *as* insulting…?

I’m seeing a thread that is devolving into some kind of profane graduate school seminar on insult-ology.

I’m an adherent of what might be called “KISS” feminism.

Keep
It
Simple
Sister

If the ship of feminism can’t be kept afloat while bearing the heavy load of the golden rule, something is wrong, not with the golden rule, but with feminism. And what’s wrong? It’s too complicated because of a baroque bible full rules and exceptions to those rules. 

And when you have to throw the golden rule overboard - You get into these childish and really absurd arguments about the difference between dick and prick and twat and bitch and cunt.

When you throw away the golden rule, you are letting the ‘jerks’ win.  You just open yourselves up for the ‘bad guys’ to roll their eyes and dismiss you out of hand.

So there you go - my contribution to feminism.

Go kiss your wife while she still has lips.  Right.  Because everyone reading has a wife?  Damn, swimming in the patriarchy even when obliquely calling it out.

Yeah, I noticed that too. Would’ve been just as easy to say “spouse” or (even better) “partner” or “SO.” But then, I don’t go to MSNBC for progressive social assumptions.

A woman hating libertarian. Imagine that.

jorge—dance harder, you might actually set fire to your shoes.

It is not insulting for a woman to be called a man. I’ve been mistaken for a man several times and I was never more than mildly annoyed at it. Y’see, for women, it’s okay to walk around in pants, and sometimes we can get away with not wearing makeup (like, actually not wearing any makeup, not the natural makeup that most men think means she’s not wearing makeup), and sometimes we don’t do crazy shit with our hair and might have it hidden under a bandana or a hat. If you’re flat-chested or wear a heavy enough jacket, it’s amazing how quickly a woman can pass for a man. And yet women still wear pants, and heavy jackets, and some of us dare to show our faces without makeup in public and don’t have our hair done up with braids and scrunchies. So clearly, the fear of being called a man, whether by mistake or not, is not something that women generally fear. In fact, being mistaken for a man could have it’s bennies. Not worrying so much about rape, for example.

Not a lot of guys are running around in skirts, though. This is because dudes actually fear being mistaken for a weak, stupid woman. Being a woman means vulnerability, and men don’t want to be vulnerable. One of the most prominent criticisms of the hippies was that “the men looked like women,” that they dared to let their hair grow long like a girl.

“Jocks being upset at being called brains.” LOL now I get it. Your entire understanding of human culture comes from Revenge of the Nerds. Believe it or not, the character of Kevin from the TV show Daria was not a real-life person. One hint was that he was a cartoon. Having actual intelligence hasn’t counted against a jock in my lifetime, and I’m betting I’m older than you.

You need to get out more. Your little thought experiments are little more than mental masturbation.

Actually, it is often a compliment for a woman to be compared to a man—“she took it like a man,” “she’s got balls,” “she’s a good man,” etc.  Women are sometimes compared to men to demonstrate how strong, brave, and admirable they are.  Being compared to a man is an insult when it comes to appearance, but not when it comes to character.  A man, however, who is compared to a woman is having his character impugned—he is weak, emotional, irrational, or childish. 

But honestly, I don’t know why anyone is seriously responding to a troll who doesn’t actually know the meaning of the words he is opining about.

Kit-Kat, it’s also considered sexy for a woman to be “like a man” if she’s also hot. If she isn’t hot, she can get “honorary guy status” which is a lot more complimentary than a man being told he’s “one of the girls.”

I think that calling a woman a man and a man a woman are both insulting.

This doesn’t really add much to what Mighty Ponygirl said @69*, but let’s try a little thought experiment based on a classic schoolyard insult.

SAID TO BOY: “You play ball like a girl!”
SAID TO GIRL: “You play ball like a boy!”

Are these statements both equally insulting? No, no they are not. In 99% of contexts, the latter statement isn’t insulting at all.

*lol 69

Re: cunt v. “asshole,” dickhead,” and/or “bastard”

The difference is that if a gentleman had written the article that for some ineffable reason pissed off a giant magician, saying, “this dickhead wrote a crappy article,” would not have the effect of isolating “maleness” as the source of the problem.  Calling out the writer as a “cunt” carries the suggestion that if she just hadn’t been a woman, it wouldn’t have been so bad.  The reverse is not true of words criticizing males.

It’s one of those historical asymmetries that we just have to live with.  Just like “nigger” isn’t the same as “honky,” criticizing someone as a “bastard” just isn’t the same as calling them a “cunt.”  Making fun of a white guy in our culture means isolating a single, crappy white dude.  “White dude-ness” isn’t at fault.

Maybe years from now those words will lose their sting, like a lot of ethnic slurs for various Europeans have dulled over time, but Gilette was saying, “this WOMAN wrote a shitty article, and her cunti-ness is the reason.”  It’s pretty obvious what he was doing.  It was pretty obviously sexist.  What’s there to defend?

That is a fuck of a lot of rage for something so innocuous. It feels personal. Like Lindy West refused to go the prom with him or laughed at his penis or something.

I’ve seen lots of seriously not funny humor on the intertubes, and I’ve not felt compelled to do more than stop reading and maybe decide not to visit that site again. I can’t imagine what it would take for me to rage out like that.

@74

My theory is that he did so much shouting on “Bullshit” that his voice got stuck in that tone and he can’t stop. Now he’s cursed to walk the earth interacting with people in the manner of, “GIVE ME A GODDAMN FUCKING BIG MAC AND A MEDIUM COKE! AND THEN THERE’S THIS ASSHOLE. HE WANTS A FOUR-PIECE ORDER OF CHICKEN FUCKING NUGGETS!”

Not that that explains away the c-word or anything. He said the sexist shit because he’s a sexist douche. The anger over such a fluff article is, like you said, the part that’s confusing.

Are idiots still arguing about the letters “C-U-N-T” in a row? Oh man, that’s so embarrassing! You have to be so stupid to reduce this all to one word when I explained, with a lot of clear language, why it’s not just the one word.

Keep trying to dig yourself out of that hole, jorge. Dig up, stupid!

jorge.1991 is proving he’s a candidate for stick rule again.  If you have no clue what you are talking about, you really should shut up unless you like showing yourself to be a dumb ass.

I’m reminded of the scene from The Return of the King when Gandalf is telling Pippin what things he should not say to Denethor, and then finally ends with “In fact, it’s better if you don’t speak at all, Peregrin Took.”

I think he’s on to something. If the raised middle finger is pointed at someone who swears water remembers medicine, it could well be a homeophobic gesture.

Amanda, it’s not that you didn’t use clear language that a toddler could understand, it’s just he was distracted when he saw a term for a woman’s genitals, and then he started getting more distracted, and it’s just so hard to type up a coherent reply with only one hand.

Jesus Christ, if I had a nickle for every time I had to explain that “cunt” and “dick” are not equivalent insults (that, indeed, there is no male equivalent to “cunt” in American English,) I’m pretty sure I could at least buy these trolls a dictionary with the proceeds.

Where did you trolls learn to derail, anyway?  Seriously, who taught you that it’s a good idea to weasel out of misogynistic slurs by PRETENDING YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW LANGUAGE WORKS?  To pretend that you can’t comprehend how certain words carry baggage and weight and offense and a long history of hatred along with them?  Little kids just learning to talk understand that shit.

I mean it.  You’re pathetic.  My 6-year-old nephew could derail a thread better than this.

I sort of feel like this thread is a wordier version of the third comic.

I once had a boss who tried to act like we were friends all the time, not boss and employee. One time she got furious at me for something personal, so she reminded me that I was her employee (thus “beneath” her), and I couldn’t say anything back because the rest of the company would back her up if she wanted to fire me or whatever, since she had more power.

Similarly calling a woman cunt, twat, pussy, etc. is reminding her that she’s no more than a sex object, and the rest of society will basically back him up on that. It’s not so much an insult as a reminder that the woman being called “cunt” has experienced, and will continue to experience being dismissed as nothing but a fuck-object, and there’s nothing she can do about it. It has nothing to do with women not being able to handle an insult or being “infantilized” (I see what you were trying to do there jorge, cut it out) or choosing to be “a victim.” Sexism is a reality the woman cannot wish away or ignore.

That’s why it’s not the for men. When are men reduced to sex object? Occasionally. It happens sometimes. But it’s not a defining atmosphere that haunts the majority of men from cradle till death. That’s why calling a man a dick—reducing him to a sex object—doesn’t hurt: the objecthood ends when the insult is over, and he can walk away free to be a human being in the eyes of the world.

Oh, and KingElvis: we’ve all heard that feminism is the radical notion that women are people. If you can “put aside feminist logic,” I find that disturbing. PS: I’m not your “sister.”

Now he’s cursed to walk the earth interacting with people in the manner of, “GIVE ME A GODDAMN FUCKING BIG MAC AND A MEDIUM COKE! AND THEN THERE’S THIS ASSHOLE. HE WANTS A FOUR-PIECE ORDER OF CHICKEN FUCKING NUGGETS!”

Christ, actually imagining him strolling into a MacDonalds with Teller (“this asshole”) standing behind him making mime faces as he screams this gave me a stitch in my side.

Jillette’s wife, Emily, has apparently taken to Twitter and Blag Hag to explain why its not sexist when her husband says that. And his middle name is Nigel, apparently.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/2012/02/the-justifications-for-saying-cunt-bingo-card/#respond

If you don’t want to be called a sexist or racist, I dunno, don’t coop their language and look like them.

Howcome it can’t be that simple?

When are men reduced to sex object? Occasionally. It happens sometimes. But it’s not a defining atmosphere that haunts the majority of men from cradle till death. That’s why calling a man a dick—reducing him to a sex object—doesn’t hurt: the objecthood ends when the insult is over, and he can walk away free to be a human being in the eyes of the world.

Ja seriously. This is what many guys can’t grasp. I’m flattered when a woman looks at me and is unable to see past my sexiness*. But that’s because if that happened once or even on a regular basis, it would have zero effect on how seriously I’m taken at work, on my ability to acquire police protection when necessary, on my ability to go about my day without being harassed on the street, etc., etc.

A woman could walk up to me and say, “Wow, you’re a hot hunk of meat”* and this is not degrading to me because it is not intended as a reminder/reinforcement of where my social worth or human value comes from. Whereas if I walk up to a woman and say, “Damn, you have some nice tits,” - well, in the absence of any social context whatsoever, this could potentially be flattering (likely not, it’s pretty rude), but here in the real world it has way too much social force behind it that essentially says “those nice tits are the only reason I even give a shit about you as a human being.”

*Note: this does not happen to me

Well, wording matters in that last example. In the absence of social context, a statement like, “You have lovely breasts,” could be reasonably perceived as flattering, but like I said, here in the real world there’s absolutely no excuse for saying that to a woman you’re not intimate with, because everybody knows what it means when you point out a woman’s sexual features, no matter how much privileged doods try to mansplain it away.

christ, Witless Chum, I hate bingo cards so damn much. Mostly because whenever there is such a card, it’s just proof that this conversation is so common and people just WILL. NOT. LEARN. It’s infuriating.

Also, I do wish we had a non-gendered, non-racial word of equal contempt. Because while I am cool with conveying that contempt, I am not cool with the baggage. So I just end up saying entire sentences explaining my hatred. So I end up saying “Do not speak to me. You’re an awful human being. I wish you would die. The world would be a better place.” or words to the effect. A single word that conveys all of that would be delightful. Much more effective than an extemporaneous paraphrasing of TMBG’s When Will You Die? But there isn’t.

And every time I say this, someone offers one of two options. 1: “we should invent a new word that means that!” and admittedly, the phrases “human garbage” or “human toilet” are somewhat gratifying, but most attempts to invent something involve not quite getting how memes work; namely “you can’t just make one up and expect it to work.” or 2: “we should reclaim ____ and just deny it’s use by racists” which is usually predicated on Chris Rock’s “Niggas and Black People” distinction (AKA “that excuse stupid, crypto-bigots give for why they can use the word”) or South Park’s “Fag just means “bad person.” See, like those biker guys!”

Fortunately, since I graduated college, I am no longer forced to interact with people who find those arguments persuasive.

Trip—Also, there is no underlying threat. If a woman hits on you and says “wow you’re a hot hunk of meat” you probably don’t have to spend a lot of time determining if it was a harmless compliment, or if the woman is going to violate you at a later date in order to get some of that hot meatiness even if you’re not onboard.

Karpad, anyone who uses South Park as a justification for what is and is not offensive is just a privileged asshole grasping at straws.

“...if there were cash prizes for correctly guessing which celebrities are still bitter about not getting laid in high school,”

...hmm…

“The feminist movement was created to allow ugly women access to the mainstream of society”

...thought that sounded familiar…

Elpathos, not really. Ugly men have always had access to the mainstream of society, because their value was never solely determined by their efficacy as fucktoys for those in power. The latter quote bemoans the fact we don’t still live in an era where the inferior sex dolls were simply seen as invalid beings.

Making fun of Jillette’s appearance is kind of a low blow, but not as low as an actual slur.

Pony, I’d go farther and say anyone who uses South Park for anything political is probably a privileged asshole grasping at straws.

The difference is that if a gentleman had written the article that for some ineffable reason pissed off a giant magician, saying, “this dickhead wrote a crappy article,” would not have the effect of isolating “maleness” as the source of the problem.  Calling out the writer as a “cunt” carries the suggestion that if she just hadn’t been a woman, it wouldn’t have been so bad.  The reverse is not true of words criticizing males.

It’s one of those historical asymmetries that we just have to live with.  Just like “nigger” isn’t the same as “honky,” criticizing someone as a “bastard” just isn’t the same as calling them a “cunt.”  Making fun of a white guy in our culture means isolating a single, crappy white dude.  “White dude-ness” isn’t at fault.

Maybe years from now those words will lose their sting, like a lot of ethnic slurs for various Europeans have dulled over time, but Gilette was saying, “this WOMAN wrote a shitty article, and her cunti-ness is the reason.”  It’s pretty obvious what he was doing.  It was pretty obviously sexist.  What’s there to defend?
Comment #73: doubtthat

Part of the ‘outrage’ of Penn was that the woman writing the article was basically saying that the ads prove that men, yes *men* are cruel because the ads indicate that they would rejoice at feeding their friends to a leopard or rejoice at the apocalypse. So she’s saying the ads are bad (jokingly of course) they appeal to men, who like terrible things.

I don’t deny the ‘nuance’ of the argument about historical oppression. But the point it is this: take that out into the real world and see how many people agree. I don’t think black people get to call me ‘cracker’ and I can’t fight back. I don’t think women can call me “prick” and I can’t fight back.

Who does?

Why? It’s not fair. Simple. You can’t insult me because of “history” and demand I not return fire because of - y’know theories. You guys are just splitting hairs and sort of tricking yourselves with your own intellects. 

And I’m a little amazed to find people implying that “choad” or “prick” is actually - Hey sort of a *good* thing! Again “bitch” could be kind of a good thing because, like ‘dicks’ ‘bitches’ are demanding and get what they want.

So again, if all female gendered insults are dirty pool, and all male gendered insults are Hoyle bridge, how is that not just asking for a return to chivalric values?

Penn brags about never having seen the Superbowl ads in a post about how he hates people who act like they’re better than everybody else. Talk about self-defeating. a) What’s more superior than bragging about things on TV you have never seen and never intend to see? b) If he didn’t see the ads, his opinion of a comic essay about the Superbowl ad lineup is worthless.

I have nothing really to add that hasn’t already been said, but I do have a hypothesis why “bastard” might be viewed as a “male” slur: in the sort of patriarchal/patrilineal society where a person’s “legitimacy” really matters, e.g. for inheritance purposes, it matters much more for males (who actually have rights to inherit, etc.) than for females—thus a “bastard” is a label that would tend to attach more to men/boys.

To be honest, though, this is just a guess. What did happen to girls born out of wedlock in “ye good olde days”?

because “female gendered insults” are universally where the intended insult is that the subject it is female, while “male gendered insults” are universally where the intended insult is that the subject is a body part in synecdoche.

How are you not getting this? Calling someone a cunt, the insult is not contempt for a bodily organ, it’s contempt for a female. Calling someone a prick is not a statement of contempt for men, but of a rude bit of flesh which sprays urine.

It’s also telling that he felt compelled to use the word “cunt” twice in the same facebook status update.

“Dick” at least has some informational content besides the penis allusion. Dicks are selfish, arrogant, disruptive, irreverent, reckless, and/or rude. If you say, “Penn Gillette was being a dick” or “Nikki Minaj was being a dick during the Super Bowl half time show,” that at least conveys something about why you think their behavior is objectionable.

“Cunt” doesn’t really mean anything except vagina and bad-by-association-with-vaginas. That’s why it’s so offensive. There’s no reason to use it unless you really want to play up the alleged feminine worthlessness of whoever you’re calling a cunt. Notice how Penn has to use additional adjectives to get his point across “stupid cunt” and “talentless cunt.”

How are you not getting this? Calling someone a cunt, the insult is not contempt for a bodily organ, it’s contempt for a female. Calling someone a prick is not a statement of contempt for men, but of a rude bit of flesh which sprays urine.
Comment #99: karpad

There’s no contempt for men in general? Really? How about here?

http://overratedwhitedudes.tumblr.com/

So you are saying cunt means ‘women in general’ - and then Lindsay Beyerstein is saying cunt only means vagina.

Which is it guys?

This is exactly what I mean about splitting hairs. Everyone who splits hairs thinks there’s some good reason or another to do it - but it’s still splitting hairs. In this case, you’re both doing it, and ending up with completely different stories for why we can ignore the golden rule in feminism.

Comment #95: KingElvis

I don’t deny the ‘nuance’ of the argument about historical oppression. But the point it is this: take that out into the real world and see how many people agree. I don’t think black people get to call me ‘cracker’ and I can’t fight back. I don’t think women can call me “prick” and I can’t fight back.

At any point did anyone imply that you couldn’t say, “Hey, I don’t appreciate you calling me that.”?  In fact, a key point is respecting people who say, “Don’t call me that.”

Why? It’s not fair. Simple. You can’t insult me because of “history” and demand I not return fire because of - y’know theories. You guys are just splitting hairs and sort of tricking yourselves with your own intellects.

Right, it isn’t fair.  Neither was the historical reality that created the asymmetry.  Slavery and Jim Crowe weren’t fair.  Not being able to say “nigger” all the time really doesn’t remedy that inequity.  If you don’t realize that you’re referencing that history (and its contemporary legacy), then you’re either being incredibly insensitive or really stupid.  If you DEMAND to use those slurs after people explain how offended they are, you’re being a dick.

And to be clear, no one has a right to avoid being offended.  When, say, a Catholic bishop is offended by having to provide contraception to employees of their charities or some Imam is offended by a woman who appears in public without the proper attire, we rightly say piss off.  Their desire to remain unoffended relies on the oppression of others.  It is a greater wrong to continue to oppress people in the name of avoiding offense.

Now, if you can explain why you need to use the word “cunt” in a similar fashion, you might have something.  But people using slurs cause offense to intimidate and humiliate.  There’s no good served by fighting for the right of white people to say “nigger.”

KingElvis,

you deliberately misread my statement, saying “Calling someone a prick does not indicate a general contempt for men” to “no one has contempt for men” and then present, as evidence, a blog which describes overrated white dudes as “contempt for men” when in fact, it simply presents overrated white dudes who are all: overrated and white. This doesn’t even indicate contempt for those men. Merely that they are disproportionately loved because society fawns over people who happen to be white and male disproportionately. And YOU say I say it means “women in general” (which I didn’t. I said the insult is that it is female, not that it is genitals) and that my definition doesn’t match a completely different speaker, and that this means that I, or perhaps Lindsay, is splitting hairs. Which, holy shit I cannot imagine a better illustration of seeing a mote while ignoring a beam. (that’s a biblical allusion, and not a common one. you might need to look it up. And yes, THIS right here is being condescending.)

You’re trying to be Socrates, and it doesn’t work because you are completely wrong.

So apropos of an earlier post of mine: You’re insane. You are bad. You wreck everything you touch and you’re a sociopath. And there’s one thing that just everyone’s wondering and that’s when you’ll die.

KingElvis, you misread my comment. “Cunt,” as used by Penn, is pure misogyny. It means woman the way some unmentionable ethnic slurs mean person-of-group-X.

“Cunt,” as used by Penn, is pure misogyny. It means woman the way some unmentionable ethnic slurs mean person-of-group-X.

This is basically the open-and-shut case for me.

Look, there are certainly uses of the c-word that one can debate, just like there are uses of the n-word that one can debate. The “N” in N.W.A., for instance, or (to take an example of a white guy using it), the use of the n-word in Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” are different issues from Michael Richards using it.

But I don’t see how that debate has any relevance to THIS use of it. Calling a woman, unironically, a “remarkably stupid cunt” is not anywhere near a close case.

KingElvis, feminism is not complicated and bogged down by weird rules based in history. The reason that feminist language analysis is complicated and bogged down by weird rules based in history is because LANGUAGE is complicated and bogged down by weird rules based in history. Language’s historicalness and rule-based-osity is what allows it to function at all: words have meanings because a group thinks they have meanings, which we more or less do because we heard they have meanings earlier. Language actually derives its entire function from what is basically “common sense,” which is why it is so tricky and weird, because “common sense” more or less just means “widely held delusions.”

The complexity of language usually goes unnoticed by people who have spent so much time learning language that it has become natural to them and who have infantile amnesia about much of their key everyday-language learning time, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t complicated.

For example, the trolls trolling about how insulting it would be “if” somebody used a male-gendered insult to insult a woman probably used “if” automatically, and didn’t stop to realize that they were using “if” because they were now talking in hypotheticals instead of talking about things that really happened. They have all failed to notice that they have to talk about how insulting it would be “if” someone called a woman a dick because they cannot talk about how offensive it was “when” someone called a woman a dick, because that shit doesn’t happen very often. Although they likely made that switch automatically without thinking about it, it is still the correct word choice! They did this while simultaneously managing to completely miss that the goddamn POINT is that people usually DON’T use male-gendered insults when they are mad at women and trying to insult them. And they are wondering why everyone’s so mad at them, because they have actually not noticed what it is that they have actually said—namely, that when other people have said “Such and such a thing happened, and it was shitty” that their answer was “But if such and such a different thing happened, would that not also be shitty?” like it was some sort of rebuttal.

When people begin to regularly insult women by calling them “dicks” or “pricks” and this is regularly treated by most people as if it is more insulting than calling them a cunt or a twat, then we can talk. Until then, you are pulling false equivalencies out of your ass, and you are pulling them out of your ass because they do not really exist, which is why they are false.

You’re trying to be Socrates, and it doesn’t work because you are completely wrong.

Ooh, ooh! I promise to buy the T-Shirt when you have them made!

As the father of two special needs children, it’s pretty embarrassing how long I held on to The R word. I actually half-seriously argued for a Boston / New England exemption for “REETAAHD”. But once you’ve repeatedly and politely been asked by people who find the word hurtful and insulting to stop using it, the fork in the road couldn’t be more clearly labeled. Granted, it took me a second before I veered away from the “Turd Gobbling Asshole Fingerers This Way>” sign.

@alara

“Dick” is considered equivalent to “jerk.” “Cunt” is equivalent to “you stupid fucking bitch, just die already.”

I loved your entire comment.

Do we do trigger warnings on this site? Anyhow, [TW: MISOGYNIST HOMOPHOBIC CUSSING]

I tried to think of the worst common insult for men, (nothing uncommon or Shakespearean) and it might be “cocksucker*.” I’ve heard it used sort of like a homophobic variant of “soulless brown-noser.” “motherfucker” used to be horrible but it seems to be losing its edge lately. Anyway they’re different from the genital-insults, in that they imply doing something “bad,” rather than a denigrating a part of one’s physical being.

If someone’s “cunt” insult were not backed up by society it wouldn’t bother me. It’s basically like saying, “something’s wrong with this sex-bot, it’s trying to do people-things. Hey sex-bot, you’re broken!” and they’re supposing I’ll think, “oh no, I’m broken!” The logic would be funny… if I’d never encountered it before.

*So, I’ve heard guys use the “cocksucker” insult or say their company or bank or whoever “fucked them in the ass,” then turn around and bemoan women who don’t want to give a bj or have anal sex with them. I’m thinking, dude, you probably said right in front of her that sucking cock is the worst thing a person could do, getting fucked in the ass is the worst possible thing that could happen to someone, and then you’re like, “hey sweetie, would you mind…” I’ll never truly understand why those dudes create an atmosphere where those things are horrible when they want those things to happen to them.

I have to admit that I found her article pretty unfunny… but so what, I would have just thought “ehh” and moved on. I certainly wouldn’t have gone bugfuck nuts on Twitter about it. I don’t even get why he felt the need to comment on it. I guess some male comics still are driven nuts by women who try to be funny. I kinda doubt he would have called out that article if it had been written by a man.

MoseyMcShuffleson: while agreeing that such guys are stupid, what they mean is that it’s OK for chicks to suck cock or take it in the ass because that’s what they’re for. Anyway, sex automatically degrades a woman anyway, so no biggie. But doing it to a man…well. It’s the difference between throwing a cigarette butt on a filthy garbage-strewn street (what’s one more?) and dropping it on the floor mats of your brand-new car.

I don’t think of Penn Jillette as a sexist. I think of him as an obnoxious shit-head.

But yeah, he’s a sexist, too.

I actually thought the article was good. Oh wells. I can’t believe some people even consider it debatable that calling a woman cunt is sexist. Ahhh. Anyway speaking of reclaiming words and all that jazz, there’s a book high on my reading list called Cunt that looks quite good.

What annoys me is that, years and years ago, when they first appeared on the scene, they made a big deal over how they didn’t make fun of people for the way they looked, because that’s what other hack magicians did.  You know, mocking someone’s bald head or loud jewelry.  And Penn said who am I to make fun of the way someone looks, look at me.

But on Bullshit they routinely made fun of how frumpy or unattractive certain people are that they dislike, and va va voom about women who agree with them.

I will give them credit for including male full frontal nudity along with the female, which approximately zero percent of any other tv shows using nudity to titillate will do.

mythago,
I would go even further and say that they are using it very specifically men are people, people having to suck cock or get fucked in the ass is demeaning, I want to do that to someone else who is female - > females are not people and anyone who the guy calls that is treating him badly because they are saying he am one of those unpeople women and his calling someone that means they are homosexual or a woman as well as “bad”. 

This is a perfect example of sexist insults that really have greater impact on men. 

Calling a woman a cocksucker is worse than calling her say a whore or a slut?  No, probably not even as bad to most people.  A guy saying some woman fucked him in the ass is just…kinky.

I will give them credit for including male full frontal nudity along with the female, which approximately zero percent of any other tv shows using nudity to titillate will do.

As a bisexual I also appreciate this. Oh man, if I were the producer of a TV show, it would have so much male nudity. But enough about that.

@helenhw & mythago, Thanks how could I forget. I guess I was just being irrational.

Here’s the thing about card tricks: Penn Jillette is a magician. And magicians do have a well-earned status in the pantheon of skeptics—magicians know the tricks that scientists don’t when it comes to busting frauds like Sylvia Browne and Uri Geller.

The problem is when you get to someone like Penn Jillette—Penn seems to think that his expertise in magic and his reputation as a skeptic means he can do no wrong. Ironically, this attitude is the same reason magicians got into the skeptical movement to begin with—people like Martin Gardner and James Randi calling out scientists who put too much faith in the claims of paranormalists because they thought they couldn’t be fooled. (This also explains why so many libertarians think they’re skeptics, although they frequently have less reason to think that because the flaws in their reasoning are much more blatant.)

So yeah, don’t go dissing card tricks. What Penn does for a living is not the problem. The fact that he’s a self-important asshole is the issue here.

(Actually, come to think of it, it goes back well before Martin Gardner—Harry Houdini was rolling his eyes at Arthur Conan Doyle a hundred years ago.)

He comes across okay in his book…when he has an editor, I’d guess. I remember bits in “God, No!” that explicitly state how conscious he is of sexism and works against it.

So, in the comment, I’d expect he knows exactly what he’s doing. Being sexist.

@FYouMudflaps If it’s the book Cunt by Inga Muscio, don’t bother.  It’s really fucking awful.  I picked it up when it first came out, expecting as the publisher’s blurb promised, a book on the history of the word cunt and it’s social implications.  What I got was an anti-hormonal birth control rant from someone who advocated aborting with Pennyroyal oil without giving specific ratios (and even if she had, that shit is dangerous).  I found it poorly researched, relatively poorly written and irresponsible in it’s advocacy of dangerous home abortion methods.

You’re trying to be Socrates, and it doesn’t work because you are completely wrong.

So apropos of an earlier post of mine: You’re insane. You are bad. You wreck everything you touch and you’re a sociopath. And there’s one thing that just everyone’s wondering and that’s when you’ll die.
Comment #103: karpad

Dear God: Please don’t kill me because Karpad is praying for that outcome.

Signed,

‘Beneficiary of Feminism’

KingElvis.

P.S. I really hope Feminism comes up with some cool new rule.

How about this?

We can’t use male OR female gendered words as insults, but must use universal epithets.

signed.

LOGIC.

Calling someone a cunt, the insult is not contempt for a bodily organ, it’s contempt for a female

How would I ever get the idea that you’re saying cunt mean’s women in general?

MoseyMcShuffleson - you weren’t being irrationanal, you were reacting to the speech as a native speaker, that is not having to go through the whole why to get to the understanding it’s wrong.

You can’t insult me because of “history” and demand I not return fire because of - y’know theories.

Hey, liar, you know “history” includes the present, right? This is history we’re living through. Words still get said in context. Sexist men know this as well as we do. They don’t use these words expecting them not to cause pain. They turn around and lie when called on it, and they’re so good at lying to themselves they do it without flinching.

It sure bothers you when people don’t like you, doesn’t it? Especially when you have that nagging feeling they might not be entirely wrong. Well, guess what. I don’t like you. You’re a dishonest person and a fool. Like all unremarkable men, you’ve spent your life getting credit you don’t deserve and are unworthy of. This isn’t your fault. You didn’t make the world the way it is. But you’re all too happy to take advantage of it, even when you can see the injustice of it. That’s what earns you the contempt of people you want to engage.

thecynicalromantic @ 106

KingElvis, feminism is not complicated and bogged down by weird rules based in history. The reason that feminist language analysis is complicated and bogged down by weird rules based in history is because LANGUAGE is complicated and bogged down by weird rules based in history.

I’d also point out that one doesn’t have to be aware of or understand the background analysis to put it into practice, any more than a person needs to know how an engine works to drive a car.  KingElvis’s comments about feminism being too complicated uses the same type of rationalizations as rapists who pretend they don’t understand “no” :
Mythcommunication: It’s Not That They Don’t Understand, They Just Don’t Like The Answer

Conversation analysis involves the painstaking cataloguing not only of the words used, but the way they are used — pauses (with lengths in tenths of second), overlapping speech, elongated syllables, verbal nods, rising tones and all.  Every um, ah, I guess and momentary silence that gets omitted from regular transcriptions is noted and used in conversation analysis.

Here’s what they find in a nutshell:

Drawing on the conversation analytic literature, and on our own data, we claim that both men and women have a sophisticated ability to convey and to comprehend refusals, including refusals which do not include the word ‘no’, and we suggest that male claims not to have ‘understood’ refusals which conform to culturally normative patterns can only be heard as self-interested justifications for coercive behaviour. . .

Citing literature, they note that “[a]cceptances generally involve (i) simple acceptance; and (ii) no delay” while “refusals very rarely involve ‘just saying no’.”  [p. 300.]  That’s not just sexual acceptance and refusal — those are conversational norms in the English language . . .

Since softened and couched refusals are how refusals are typically issued in conversation, that’s how they are usually heard, too.  Reviewing the research, the authors find that people understand refusals to all kinds of offers in pauses, deflections, conditionals or even weak acceptances with certain tones and pauses.

We don’t have to consciously know or understand any of this to be able to understand or “hear” a softened or indirect refusal. As Alara J Rogers noted @ 44 w/r/t “dick” and “cunt” in movies, “They are of such incredibly different levels of perceived offensiveness, you’d really have to be trying very, very hard not to notice.” Or, for another example, look at the difference between Canadian anglophone and francophone cultures. Nobody needs to explain to a French Canadian that religious oaths top the offensiveness list or why that is, nor do they have to tell English Canadians that sexual and scatological oaths top their lists.

So for KingElvis to argue, as he does @65, that it’s ” too complicated because of a baroque bible full rules and exceptions to those rules”, he’s being as disingenuous as those guys who claim they don’t understand sexual refusals or that women should be more direct.  It’s weaselly bullshit. 

This thread made me think of a Flannery O’Connor short story called The Turkey about a religious little boy who curses, alone in the woods, for the first time. It’s a great read.