Delicious LiveJournal Links for 4-22-2009

[andrewducker]

• Study debunks the beer goggles myth
  Drinking alcohol reduces the attractiveness of the opposite sex and makes no difference to a man's ability at guessing a woman's age, according to a study in the British Journal of Psychology.
  (tags: alcohol psychology beauty)
• Russian hairdresser turns stickup merchant into sex slave
  In Soviet Russia Something Something Something!
  (tags: russia funny crime)

Comments

[meihua.livejournal.com]

I find that a good bit of rape is always good for a giggle.

Why the hell is it in fingerquotes in the article?

[andrewducker]

I have no idea.

Presumably because nobody has been found guilty yet. I assume at some point they will be.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I was being sarcastic. It's in fingerquotes because issues such as male rape aren't taken seriously. The tone of that article is fucked-up and very offensive, as is the "funny" tag you put on it. Switch the genders on that article and replace the bit about the frenulum with "vaginal tearing" and I don't see you tagging it with "funny".

I know at first glance it's, "haha, funny switcharound" but it's really not funny, and giggling at this stuff is just taking the piss when issues such as abuse of men (including sexual abuse) are real, massively undereported and largely made fun of.

Yes, yes, I'm "humourless feminist commentator" yet again, but seriously, think about this one a bit more...

[andrewducker]

I do find it funny. And depressing. If find it funny because of the way it's presented, and depressing in its details and the fact that it always is presented that way.

Yes, I'm probably going to hell. I guess I'll have to live with that.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

That Russian story really irritates me. If you reversed the genders there'd be an outrage at the imprisonment and rape but because it's male-rape it becomes an amusing joke story.

Olga complained. “Yes, we had sex a couple of times. But I’ve bought him new jeans, gave him food and even gave him 1,000 roubles when he left.”

So that makes it OK? Can you imagine the reaction if a bloke had said that to try to justify his treatment of a woman?!?

It's up there with domestic abuse against men as one of those things that no-one takes seriously.

[andrewducker]

Oh, absolutely. It's pretty depressing.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

And I will bet if the man concerned had been raped by another man, there would be outrage too. Same if he had been anally violated. As long as it's hetrosexual rape, it's OK?

I have to admit, like andrewducker I initially laughed. Thinking about it, I wish I hadn't, but I did. So I guess I will be joining you in hell.

[andrewducker]

So many jokes are offensive and unpleasant. Take, to pick a random example, the joke in Blackadder Goes Forth about making custard using a cat. Actually forcing a cat to vomit and then feeding the result to people: Horrible. The scene: Funny.

Luckily, I'm capable of realising that just because something if amusing to me doesn't make it ok, and that the actual event is something abhorrent. I'd like to think that other people reading this would feel the same.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

However the cat joke was a joke and not based on a real incident, whereas this is something that actually happened (not that the cat thing hasn't undoubtedly happened somewhere in the history of somewhen).

That said, I found it comical on the face of it too, but my mental image was certainly a cartoonish caricature of events, possibly involving a female protagonist similar to Julie's icon demanding snoo-snoo (I saw the icon just before I clicked on the link).

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

I laughed at this as well. It's not funny at all, but the BBC sure can do a headline: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bradford/7993407.stm

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I think The Guardian may take the title this week.

Nazi 'super cows' shipped to Devon