From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Subject: Re: Secretly Wishing... (was: Feminist Jokes)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 04:44:24 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
| ...
| >>In any case, no matter how much feminists desired
| >>to be screwed like lightbulb sockets, there is
| >>humor in the analogy only for those who have a good
| >>deal of tension about the sexuality of feminists, 
| >>or possibly their own sexuality.  One can easily
| >>demonstrate this to oneself by substituting 
| >>different subjects into the joke.

csmith@tortoise.cis.ohio-state.edu (craig edward smith) writes:
| >It's WOMEN, and its not funny!

This is the second time in this thread for this lame joke.
Often, someone gets a project going to number all the jokes
in rec.humor, so one could just say #117!  #117!  One can
see why.  However, it's somewhat interesting in the same
way as our previous belly-buster: it shows that it's 
important for some people to say that feminists have no 
sense of humor.  This is a charge often leveled at people 
who are seriously concerned with anything: politics, 
religion, business, ecology, morals, poverty, starvation, 
sex, drugs, rock'n'roll -- if you care, you don't have a 
sense of humor.

But as a matter of fact, the first writing I ever saw in
modern (1950's and after) feminism was the "Gainesville Pink
Paper" a collection of essays including the now famous "The
Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm."  Many of them were satirical;
I remember especially "I'd Like to Have a Wife" (written by
a woman).  Somewhat later _Ms_ put out an edition of
feminist humor.  Like blacks and other marginalized groups,
women used humor to cope with their status problems, but the
humor remained invisible to the whites / men / straights at 
the center of the society, who were generally its objects.

Clearly, in a situation where one's centrality or importance
was coming under attack by those previously marginalized,
and humor was a weapon, a common reaction would be denial,
and a method of denial would be to make up jokes about the
humorlessness of the attackers.

payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne)
| None of it has been funny. 

It is to those for whom tension is released.  Others
won't feel it.  

|                              But I would like to point out another
| anti-symmetry in these feminist arguments. (did i invent a new word?)

You probably mean asymmetry.

| In another thread, it was pointed out that women who are self confident
| could care less what the models look like, while those who are insecure
| may well feel threatened. This was taken as an attack the victim post
| by at least one person, and I suspect more to follow. In another thread
| it was directly asserted that any male who feels threatened by feminism
| is obviously not getting enough sex, because it could only be the result
| of sexual frustration. None of the other feminists commented on this.

I alluded to possible sexual problems on the part of the
joke-tellers above, but I haven't seen other aspersions on
their sexuality.  I think it would be too crude to say that
they weren't getting enough sex; tension can arise from many
other situations.

| The point is that when a woman has a problem with something (anything
| at all it seems) she is perceived as having a valid complaint, regardless
| what, if anything has happened. But when a man has a problem with 
| anything regarding women, -he- becomes at fault, and a direct, unsupported
| attack upon his sexuality is accepted. This from the same group which
| just recently discussed gender expectations. 

Just because people don't respond to an article doesn't 
mean they accept its ideas or its approach.  There are 
already more articles in this newsgroup than I can read, 
much less write responses to, and that's probably true
for many of us.  

| The humanist approach would be more like 'if a person has a problem with
| something, it deserves attention'. The feminist approach has generally
| been much more limited, and men are usually perceived as -the problem-,
| not as people with different concerns and problems. ...

As I see it, feminism has been much more about power, 
status, wealth, and physical well-being, than about who
has a problem (outside of the differing allocations of 
those items according to gender).  A feminist woman's 
reponse might be "When we get the stuff you have, then 
we can talk about your particular problems."  I happen 
to think this is short-sighted; but I hesitate to 
advocate that those who have less than I practice more
charity.

Most of the sexual problems that have come into play in 
this discussion have been revealed by their possessors: 
for example, nobody forced Robert Sheaffer to declare 
that cunnilingus was lesbian sex only, a contention 
which would be far funnier than anything posted here as 
humor, were it not for the tragic implications of 
making it.
-- 

 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
Newsgroups: alt.feminism