Who makes jokes?
Part of the bill of indictment against me is that
I MADE JOKES.
The horror. Who does that? Who makes jokes?
Well, I do, for one. All the time. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m incurably flippant, and frankly I don’t want to be curable of that, because people who are relentlessly po-faced make me feel bored and suffocated in a matter of minutes.
This means that I make jokes about things I care about as well as less heavily freighted subjects. I make jokes about almost all things. I say “almost” just out of caution – I can’t actually think of any exceptions at the moment.
I make jokes about the left, about feminism, about political passions, about causes, about horrors. The jokes can be dark as opposed to flippant – or not. Either way I don’t consider them criminal in nature.
There are shitty mean destructive jokes, of course. There’s that Tosh guy, there was “Dapper Laughs” – there are all kinds of jokes expressing contempt for underlings. Those jokes are crap. But that doesn’t mean that all jokes about progressive causes are forbidden or slyly wicked.
I’m learning that some people don’t understand that.
There was that Fresh Air about Tangerine, the shot on a phone movie about two trans women. Terry Gross, the director, and one of the stars had a laugh about changing terminology.
GROSS: I want to ask you about the word fish, which is used in the movie by the trans sex workers to describe cisgender women – like, women who are born with a woman’s anatomy and are comfortable with that…
BAKER: Right.
GROSS: …And identify with that.
BAKER: I guess the proper term these days is chromosomal female.
GROSS: Oh, is it changed already from cis?
BAKER: It’s already changed (laughter). That’s semantics.
GROSS: Wow, I can’t keep up with it. It’s chromosomal now?
BAKER: Nobody can keep up with it. Yes, nobody can…
See that bit where it says “laughter”? All three laughed at that point. There were no screams of anguish or sounds of furniture being broken.
I said three words this one time in a discussion about terminology. The three words were “Too last week?”
That’s one of my putative crimes.
Yes really.
I’m sorry for the ongoing shit-storm. I don’t think it’s OK to hound people, and I don’t think it helps.
I do disagree on that particular joke. I took it as a flippant, off-the-cuff remark, but I did sort of flinch when I read it. I’m sure that coming to terms with a non-standard gender identity must be an incredibly difficult and painful process. “Too last week” does seem to compare it to a fashion statement, and I can see how that can be hurtful.
Testing
Jokes will soon be outlawed. The right can’t seem to tell a joke that isn’t mean spirited, and the left appears to have lost whatever vestiges of humor it had. That’s why I stick with cartoons that no one seems to understand. At least this way I can entertain myself.
Hi Ophelia, Sorry about all the rubbish you’ve been put through. A lot of feminists have found out the hard way, like you have, about the gender cultists. However, a lot of us worked it out with pretty fundamental feminist analysis as soon as we heard about it. In the last ten years I have been consistently disappointed at how we have been treated on blogs such as yours, and by mainstream women writers and funfems generally.
Even when libfems don’t actually say “Kill all TERFs”, they tacitly prop this sentiment up by letting it be uttered unchallenged. A lot of committed and serious feminists got abused, threatened, marginalised, slandered – over and over and over again – in the last decade or so, and continue to, with no word of defence from high profile women calling themselves feminists. I believe that women who silently allowed this to happen will find it is to their shame sooner or later. I for one won’t let them forget. Just saying.
But, Ophelia, don’t you know that you have a pattern of throwing trans folks under the bus? That you have gone out of your way, time and time again, to make the lives of trans folks worse? That you don’t support trans people? That you say you support trans people while secretly harboring resentment for their very existences? That you are a known associate of anti-trans people? That because you haven’t spoken out against each and every transgression of those associates that you are just as responsible for those transgressions? That by allowing them to comment on your blog — “in good standing” — that you have effectively endorsed their every horrible opinion (never mind that by giving a venue to those opinions you are giving other commenters a chance to publicly eviscerate the hell out of those opinions)? That you have dirtied an otherwise pristine network of bloggers by not reciting from the network-approved script while these righteous heroes try desperately to enlighten you? That you won’t just shut up the way they want you to shut up?
And to add to all those sins you actually joke? Joke?! How dare you?!
Yeah, it’s the jokes that get ya.
It wasn’t specifically the Patreon support auto-tweet that got me yelled at, but my follow up manual tweet:
“Q: But Jafafa, HOW COULD YOU?
A: with Paypal.”
Oooh, but that was bad. Got me scolded for joking about supporting transmisogyny and transmisogynists and oppressors and shit. The exact phrasing gone now, either deleted or invisible to me because of my subsequent block, who knows… and who really cares. But there’s a new self-appointed TERF sheriff in twittertown, with a shiny new terfhuntery twitter handle badge which I won’t name… and they are on the job, taking names, and …. shooting themselves in the foot so far, as it turns out. Whoops.
Wait… am I joking again? Yes, it appears I’m joking, or kidding around and not taking my scolding seriously.
Have I no shame? Where did my parents go wrong?
(wait… on that last part… let’s not get started on that. There isn’t the time. :P )
I would like the committee for Serious Monitoring Of Serious Things to know I am not at all laughing at Jafafa’s ‘With PayPal’. I’m… Umm… I’m just choking on something…
(/Probably rage. That’s it! My shoulders are shaking with rage!)
“… I am not at all laughing at Jafafa’s ‘With PayPal’…”
Well, look. I understand that some people have serious issues with and anger at Paypal, but I still find it convenient.
Rumor on the street is that you might also wear clothing with mixed fibers, too, Ophelia. There is probably no end to your crimes (shall we just drop the pretense and start calling them sins?).
I saw that exchange on twitter, Jafafa Hots. And I clicked on the person who was so angry at you. A thousand suns worth of lolz.
I’ve now read the conversation that preceded the remark your joke responded to, here, and it’s frankly disgusting. Based on that one conversation alone, I wouldn’t want to associate with these people.
It’s made me realise that the objection people have to your joke is probably nothing to do with the joke per se, but that your joining in that conversation with a joke gives the appearance of your endorsing the views expressed in that conversation, which are pretty much the definition of trans-exclusive. I assume you were just cruising and responded to the one remark, but I can see how it looks bad. Really bad.
Arrrr. I’ve followed this all the way from the first without looking at the screencaps and now I have thanks to Delft. I feel like I’ve looked at pictures of Kate Middleton sunbathing.
I get why trans people feel it’s important to educate people and eradicate transphobia on The InterNet. I get why it’s important for cis women feminists to be trans allies. I get why people are really upset and think Ophelia should apologise and stop being gender critical and stop reading stuff by TERFS and stop being herself.
I hope some of this has been useful or educative to someone. The people who believe Ophelia is a TERF remain convinced they are right, and so do the people who support Ophelia; so not terribly beneficial to anyone involved.
I answered the question by saying “No-one is real! Gender is a construct, right? We are all performing, right? No?” What a shame, I can’t be all righteous like so many pure thinkers over at FtB.
Meanwhile, in the Real World, kevinkirkpatrick’s son won’t wear earrings anymore because he’s a boy and boys don’t do that. Yay for breaking down gender constraints.
Trans women are still choosing between getting beaten up in the male toilets or yelled at in the female ones. Yay for making the world a bit safer for people knocking against the biggest barrier in the world along with race.
You know what is bad, Delft? Seeing a person who looks somewhat like me but with a much thicker beard and with hair much, much shorter than my ass-length hair and a definitely more muscular angry clenched fist angrily tell a woman to choke on their dick… and then claim that it is not misogyny because they are “punching up.”
Now, this person identifies as a woman, and I accept that just as much as I will accept any profession of identity from a random twitter person who is otherwise a complete stranger to me… AND I will say that I don’t agree with all aspects of what I perceive to be the recipient of that insult’s interpretation of it…
…but that person who was told to choke on a dick and told that that was “punching up” and not misogyny is one of the accused TERFs who Ophelia is guilt-by-association co-labelled because of.
Being told to choke on a dick. That’s what looks bad. Really bad. Saying it’s OK to say that to a woman because it is “punching up” looks bad too.
Now, they did call it a “girl-dick…” and I personally accept that some women are born with penises and some men are not, etc., but there is no such thing as a “girl-penis” anymore than there is a “boy-penis.”
There are just penises. The same way that there are no “girl-throats” or “boy-throats” to choke on them, there are just throats.
So this is what I saw.
I saw a woman who may or may not, depending on how you interpret their words, have the same opinion of some aspects of gender issues as I and many transgender women do (as if transgender women are a monolith of thought to begin with) being told to choke on a dick.
I saw a person angrily telling her to choke on their dick, and excusing that as appropriate because it is a woman’s dick, and using upset reaction to being told to choke on a dick as evidence that the recipient of that threat or insult is a TERF, and people who associate with the person who was told to choke on a dick are TERFS.
I only point out the appearance of the dick-owner because while I acknowledge gender dysphoria and understand that there are women who have either not had the opportunity or the desire to conform to societal expectations of what a woman looks like (in the same way that I don’t conform to many or even most of society’s expectations of what a man is supposed to look and act like…) I ALSO recognize that on the internet there are ALSO people who just happen to be angry and liars and full of shit.
But regardless, I know one thing for a fact.
If you are a person with a penis, angrily telling a woman to choke on it is misogynistic bullshit. Calling it “punching up” is bullshit.
And if I’m forced to take a side in a particular argument, it will not be with someone telling women to choke on their dick and then excusing it because they think calling it a “girl-dick” makes it ok, or that it’s OK because they think the person they tell to choke on their dick is a bigot, or that it’s OK because the person they tell to choke on their dick not accepting it’s OK-ness makes them a bigot, etc. etc. etc.
I will not be taking the side of a person who thinks that not accepting a distinction between being angrily choked by a “girl-dick” versus being angrily choked by a “boy-dick” makes a person a TERF.
So if you want to see really bad, dig a little deeper.
It’s very often comedians, isn’t it, who are among the first to campaign for freedom of speech? They recognise that jokes can be hurtful, but that we need the freedom to joke about stuff; to ridicule painful things, to describe foolish positions that help us think; to make us question boundaries. We can criticise individuals for crossing lines but not the right – or the rightness – of joking.
Delft, rereading my post it comes off as if I’m ranting at you. Just wanted to explain that it’s not intended to, I’m just verbose.
Well, I hope I can comment at last without being blocked. I merely want to say that I do not take a great interest in these (to me) really rather extraordinary squabbles, and that those attacks I have seen of Ophelia in the ‘TERF connexion’ strike me as absolutely infantile.
latsot @ 14
I’m just going to repeat your comment with this: Sometimes humor is a more effective method for getting ideas and points across than adding your screams of outrage to a digital rainforest full of howler monkeys.
Sigh. Everyone is writing their post-trial briefs, spinning what Ophelia said into things she didn’t say, proclaiming her motives and meanings and intentions, stretching the truth to fit their narrative. I’m not saying that only the people piling on Ophelia are the only ones capable of this, but damn are they busy doing it. Sounds like Greta is working on her post-trial brief right now, so just a heads-up on that.
Regarding this particular joke and the thread it contained, here is what I thought when I read it. First, as context, the thread contained a variety of people commenting from different perspectives, several making what I would call valid points reflecting their desire that gender non-conformers just keep non-conforming rather than trying to re-define “woman.” I don’t have a firm position on that, and I certainly do not think that trans people should not exist, but that resonates with me and if that makes me a TERF then I think the term TERF is being stretched well beyond its usefulness.
When I saw Ophelia’s joke “too last week” I laughed first because it just struck me as funny in its pithiness and timing. Then I started thinking more about what she meant by it. I took it to mean that trying to fundamentally destroy the gender binary has fallen out of fashion, i.e. too last week. I did not at all take it to mean that the trans woman who was the subject of that thread was engaging in a fashionable fad – a negative spin that I’ve seen others put on this joke.
And finally, I thought, I don’t know and I can’t know what Ophelia meant by that joke because it’s entirely too cryptic for me to know. It’s NOTHING like the Tim Hunt joke, except insofar as they are both jokes. I would have to ask Ophelia what she meant by that joke before fairly deciding that it was a sign of anything. Yet as far as I know, no one has EVER asked Ophelia what she meant by that joke, or waited for her answer, before spinning it into a piece of evidence for this show trial. I’ve looked at all these lists of supposed evidence and come to the same conclusion each time – overzealous prosecutor.
I hope my long comment didn’t get lost in the ether. :/
I see you Jennifer. :)
And I agree with you. You summed up my take on the situation nicely.
Welcome home, btw.
I should not have posted that last comment.
I’m going to go away for a while.
Jafafa do you want me to take it down?
Tell you what, I’ll take it down and you can let me know if you want it to stay.
Delete as you will but in fairness I wanted to notify you.
My comments have already been cross posted elsewhere along with links to archived versions showing which comments you deleted. It’s your right to delete what you want here but if I can help it you won’t do it under cover of darkness. Not to mention (thankfully for the rest if us) you can’t control what happens outside your small and now isolated (insulated?) piece of the internet.
Your spitting out vile excuses (hurr hurr, just a joke, the magical harmless kind, what’s the big deal) and your continuing to gaslight is beneath contempt. It’s your right to post vile stuff if that’s your bag but (freeze peaches and all) you have no right to try and control what others have to say about it.
It is utterly heartbreaking to see what you are doing but it’s even more heartbreaking to see your harmful behavior go unchallenged and if I can help it I won’t let that happen.
I was one of those, “Hell yeah trans women are women” people. Then this whole thing about Ophelia being the worst person ever happened. I read. And I read some more. And then I read some more. Wow, things are complicated. Life, gender, opinions, are complex and not black and white.
The thing that bothers me most though is that Ophelia’s condemnation does not in any way help trans people. And many of the people typing long diatribes to prove how awful she is and what wonderful people and allies they are, are nothing more than fishing trips. Nothing on “that” side is accomplished. They accuse Ophelia’s defenders of circling the wagons but isn’t that what they have done.
I’ve learned things though. I always do when I read a variety of voices. When they suggested that people read what trans women have to say I don’t think they expected that some of us would not want to sign on for the inquisition.
Is_Kris_Hypo@25:
Sort of like how you’re trying to do?
So brave, “Is Kris Hypo” – so brave, so dedicated, so lone warrior battling the whole world. My “behavior” has indeed gone totally unchallenged until now, so it’s heroic and wonderful that you are going to take up the flag and go into battle. Good luck to you!
@ 25
Good thing we have your pleasant and validating surveillance to help against the dark, spitting, vile, beneath contempt,and harmful “Controlling what others have to say from my small and now isolated/insulated piece of the internet!”, you know, empire.
Am I right in deducing that Is Kris Hypo came here with the express purpose of screen capping his/her post, to be added to the Big Pile of Evidence?
I assume that’s in the Rules, but I’d like to suggest that all further posts intended for that purpose be at least as funny as Sandeep and really well spelled and grammared.
You know who else does that? Runs around making comments they know are unwelcome, on the blogs of people they’re in the process of harassing, and making screencaps of their own comments so that they can then brandish them as more evidence of turpitude?
I know who else does that.
Like many other terms that have been made worthless by overuse, “gaslighting” now seems to encompass plain ol’ disagreement.
How dare you point out parallels between the behavior of The Valiant Defenders of the Current Orthodoxy and the behavior of The Brave Heroes!
I mean, the parallels are there, all right, but how dare you point them out!
Ophelia a@28, not just brave, but Is_Kris_Hypo is fair! Fair enough to warn you about all sorts of things about which you were evidently unawares. For example, they were fair enough to let you know that you no longer control the internet since you can’t delete evidence of your vileness because they were clever enough to copy their words elsewhere.
Fair enough to tell you that you broke their poor widdle heart and that this is all very heartbreaking.
Fair enough to point out that, for the first time in the history of this whole ordeal, they alone have exposed your beneath-contemptibleness.
Fair enough to let you know that they intend to challenge your efforts to be beneath-contempt in the future.
Though you must be quaking in your boots, you must admit that this heroic person is also an amazingly fair person. And a complete and total fucking dipshit.
The penny hadn’t dropped when I wrote the comment @ 31 – I think Is_Kris_Hypo is a slime pitter, as opposed to just acting like one.
I think there are at least two pitters playing Jason and Stephanie, and Jason and Stephanie are eating it all up. No frothing hatred is too exaggerated, no wild accusations are too far-fetched. It’s all good.
False flag comments from unknown people can work if one is already prejudiced; IMO, the best defence is to address the comment itself rather than the flag.
As for the archiving of comments etc. in case they disappear, where there is no disingenuousness or an attempt to hide opinion, there is nothing to fear — and more importantly, that very action shows that those who perform it realise that there is no “smoking gun”.
No, it’s pretty much never the best defense to take troll comments seriously.
Jokes can also reveal what we really think but would not otherwise say out loud.
It seems to me, from my reading of your comments, jokes, etc, that there is a tension between what you think about gender and what you think is courteous to say/politically appropriate to say about transgender people. And this is a place that many feminists find themselves in, not wanting to cosign views about gender that they disagree with, and also not wanting to cosign discrimination/violence/prejudce against transpeople.
I was reading this in another context. Made me go hmmmm
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-avoid-getting-brainwashed-falling-for-stu/
Hello Ophelia,
I know you are going through a lot and that internet pile-ons are a nightmare to go through. My comment is probably going to add onto that and I regret it. However, I have been following you for quite some time (and expect to do so in the future), and remember quite well your dispute with Richard Dawkins (and his offensive, boneheaded tweets). I cannot shake off the impression that your responses in this crisis share a disturbing similarity with his.
I also cannot shake off the impression that this could have been handled better, when things started going south, wouldn’t have it been better to stop, reach out to the people part of FTB (serveral of which are out as trans) for advice, think about the issue for a while and come up with a way to discuss the topic that did avoid/alleviate the distress it causes among trans people?
I hope things will get better for you soon and that you are taking care of yourself.
Best regards,
JN.
@propater/JN
It would help if you’d point out the similarities rather than just asserting they exist. But I think you’d have your work cut out for you in any case. It’s hard to see how those two situations are closely related. Any common lessons learned would have to be viewed through a very wide lens, I think.
But since we’re all apparently about giving unsolicited advice now, I can’t shake the impression that you could have thought about whether you were question-begging before you wrote that post.
I can’t shake off the impression that you’re not entirely sincere. But I’ve been wrong before.
Yeh, not entirely sincere as in sounds like a sock puppet to me.
Also note the assumption that I didn’t think about the issue for awhile, and that if only I’d thought of doing that…why, all would have been different.
But you didn’t need to think about it because the question was pre-begged, apparently.
Sorry for the question begging. Indeed, this was not a good way to ask my question. I am not a native English speaker but I will try to do better.
The similarities are as follow:
Dawkins spurts out a tweet about date rape/forcible rape
he gets told this is hurtful to a lot of people (and ignorant/stupid, but this is not part of the similarities, Ophelia’s discussions of gender are neither)
He replies rather tartly that this is only intellectual musing/fostering a necessary debate and that this cannot cause damage to anyone, that they are over-reacting
Dismisses people criticizing his quoting of/cozyness to Christina Hoff Summers
Says that he cannot help being sarcastic/witty when people get irritated by some of these jokes they find hurtful.
I do realize that Dawkins Facebook profile was not trawled as Ophelia’s was. I do agree many people do not navigate well the borders between the different social media and do not realize that Facebook is different from Twitter which is still different from blog posts. They also do not measure how people with a rather public profile on one platform consider their profile on another as a lot more private and the trawling of it as a very hostile action.
I also realize the two affairs are not complete replicas of each others. I am still surprised that Ophelia got herself so badly burned when she seemed to have a rather good understanding of the dynamics of Dawkins’ responses and how he could have handled it better. I am also rather sympathetic to the point of view that the rethoric can sometimes be inflamatory in militant internet spaces, that there is a brand of “tumblr feminism” that seems rather toxic (as Stephanie Svan mentionned a few days ago.)
I am also aware of Ophelia’s post where she states clearly her position of support of trans rights and why I do not think for a second she is a “TERF”. Which is why I am surprised this conflict could not have been resolved in a more satisfactory manner. This reminds me of the spat in the effective altruism movement between Christopher Halquist and Scott Alexander regarding Scott’s antifeminism (Scott made a post where he reaffirmed his support for the feminist values, his gripes having more to do with the epistemic standards of discussions in some parts of the feminist movement but to no avail.)
@Ophelia
The assumption was not that you did not think about the issue but that, maybe, you did not ask for advice from people with a different perspective on the issue and who would have been of a friendly disposition to you (through your common affiliation to FTB, but I admit I may have an exagerrated idea of the collegiality among FTB members.) Maybe you did that but then they certainly keep mum about it or even seem to imply the contrary (didn’t FTB have a back channel where people could discuss this sort of things?)
It is true my question seems victim blamey in retrospect and I should have formulated it differently. Sorry about that. I wanted to know how the situation escalated so fast, even among members of FTB (had it been only the commentariat, I would not have been so surprised) and among people who basically are in agreement when it comes to value but have issues about what that entails when it comes to “just” discourse.
I hope my comments will not be seen as hostile but if you want me to fuck off and leave you in peace, say so and it will be my last comment on the subject.
I take it back, propater seems really nice.
propater,
First of all, yes, I suspect that you are exaggerating the colleagiality among FTB bloggers. Not that I have any inside info on the subject, but based on what various bloggers have written over the years (usually in response to accusations of groupthink and marching-in-lockstep), the amount of backchannel discussion over substantive issues is said to be small. Also, you seem to be presuming that there was a ton of goodwill there before things blew up recently, and everyone involved seems to think otherwise: Ophelia’s accusers have expressed their long-simmering suspicions of her on trans issues, and Ophelia has been aware of those suspicions.
Second, and more importantly, I think this isn’t the kind of situation that could have been remedied by Ophelia seeking some friendly advice. And this is where the Dawkins analogy really falls apart. Ophelia isn’t expressing much confusion about why people are pissed at her. She doesn’t claim to be just stating basic facts or logic and oh good heavens how could any of this be controversial? Ophelia’s been writing about gender issues long enough to know exactly how controversial they can be. And she knows damn well what her critics want: they want her to stop participating in any group that includes “known TERFs,” and refrain from any musings or opinions on gender that don’t fall within the range of acceptable views.
This does not appear to me to be a problem of miscommunication at all. Ophelia knew what the “right” answer to that “YES OR NO” question was; she didn’t need to confer with FTB colleagues or trans activists or anyone else to figure out what was “expected” of her and why.
This dispute is many things, but one thing it isn’t is just all one big misunderstanding. I know that’s the go-to lens through which to view all disputes where both sides are seen as “good people,” but it doesn’t always apply. There really are principled and deeply-felt bases for disagreement. That’s not to say that all individuals have expressed that disagreement in a principled and effective way, but I think that has more to do with personalities than misunderstandings.
Not long-simmering ones, no, I haven’t. Last two months+ ones, yes, but long-simmering, no.
I was going off of the incident — I forgot how long ago now, but two months+ sounds about right — where someone posted a comment about “gender binaries” on an unrelated thread, you said I’d rather you didn’t, and said commenter then stalked off to Pharyngula to fume about your supposed trans-hating ways.
Ok, I am caught up on the stuff I missed. Thanks for your perspective on this.