This came up with the boyfriend last year and it was never really resolved. It came up again the other day. I'm educated, open-minded, don't get too easily offended and have been known to laugh at a tasteless (ie, Helen Keller) joke, which I'm sure might not make me too popular here. :/ My point being, I'm not that faint of heart, and can handle offensive jokes etc.
There are quite a few of these guy terms if you go to urbandictionary.com. The first one I heard was the "dirty sanchez," another is the "Tony Danza," and most recently we were watching a movie and the term "angry dragon" was mentioned. I asked him what it meant and he explained. I'm not going to repeat it here, it defines an act where a woman is pleasuring a man and she's physically hurt and demeaned. Most of these terms are just that...where a girl is performing a sexual act on a guy and he hits her or does some other crappy thing to her to either make himself feel better physically or just for the sheer entertainment or look on her face.
Since he explained it to me the other day, I've had a visceral response, feel revulsed, and I can't get it out of my mind. My boyfriend is gentle and is actually pretty shy in bed. I told him how it affected me, and he said he was sorry to have offended me. I said it wasn't just a matter of being "offended," it was a physical revulsion I felt when he said it. He said it's just that guys have weird senses of humor. I asked how it could possibly be found funny...the idea of your woman trying to make you feel good and inflicting pain and humiliation on her while she's doing it. He said the same way many of us find racist jokes or Helen Keller jokes funny.
This is probably where I made a mistake...I wanted him to *feel* what I felt, so he could understand where I was coming from...how severe my response was. I tried to put him in the position of the woman, for him to imagine that being done to him, and he said he "guesses" he understands. That was last night, and it didn't end well. We've been together for years, and I don't think this is going to make or break things. But is there a better way to handle this? Or any suggestions on how you'd react or talk to him about it--if at all?
Blumarine
7 For All Mankind
DKNY
You must know that your man has enough respect for you that he would never act violently towards you or degrade you in that way. All you can do is ask that he not joke about these terms around you. You have to understand that he may never understand. You kind of have to forgive him for that. Women have a history of repression. Clearly that attitude is still prevalent and dumb frat boy humour is just one example. It's society, it's our culture. He may never get it. The best you can hope for is that he respects you and your feelings enough to not joke about that sort of violence towards women.
1I think all of the terms you mentioned are awful acts.
Certainly a man would not do any of them if he loved and respected his woman.
Two of the three terms you mention, physically hurt a woman, its not just ewww, gross!
I think thats where it is different from a Helen Keller joke. I find humour in alot of things, I've laughed at a Helen Keller joke too, but it never hurt anyone, really.
A punch in the face, or a chop to the throat when you aren't expecting it, while supposedly making love, is just weird and sick in my mind.
So it would really depend for me, like why he thought it was funny.
WAs it simply the name, and image, or the actual act? I think if my guy thought these acts were so freaking hilarious, I doubt I could continue with him.
It is really difficult sometimes to convey your feelings, and if the other person just doesn't feel that way, they aren't going to get it.
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2OBAMA: You Betcha, My Friends! SQUEEEE!
Thank you both for your thoughts. I think you understand the intensity of my response and I appreciate your putting yourself in my shoes. I was starting to feel like a right-wing moral-majority wacko or something. Also, I have no history of physical or sexual abuse, so I'm attributing my emotions to the cruelty of the act itself, and then the additional cruelty of laughing at it. One of my biggest fears in life is to be ridiculed. To be the object of physical or emotional cruelty and to *then* be ridiculed is unfathomable to me.
...Also, I'm feeling a bit angry about the unfairness: there aren't many male analogies to these terms that would help him to "get it."
I thinking that to the bf it's the actual term that's funny. The play on words. But, um, still. Creepy. Regardless of how prevalent and stupid and frat boy humor is...this is the guy I do those acts with.
I talked with him a bit more about it after reading your posts. I told him I would probably have the same response to dead baby jokes if I were a dead baby. Normally I'm entertained by them, as disgusting as they can be (again not going to be a popular stance here perhaps and I apologize to anybody who may be hurt by my saying that and I mean that).
He assured me that he has never thought of these things in regard to me. Gee, thanks, that's nice to hear. I guess the lesson learned from this...it's funny until the joke's on me.
In the meantime (bad joke but I can't help it), maybe we can all brainstorm some guy jokes - har har. Anyway, thanks again for listening, and for your insight.
3I have been around a good many years. NONE of my male friends have ever expressed anything like what you describe as far as hurting or demeaning women as part of the sex act. Maybe because of my age I am not up on the latest slang, but none of those terms are familiar to me. How did he become familiar with all these terms in the first place? The thing is you say he is gentle, and that is the most important thing.
4
Good Lord, I looked up those terms on that urbadictionary.com, the fact
that such practices have actual names is not only repulsive but sick. Any lady so treated should immediately reciprocate with a "Lorraine Bobbit", using her teeth.
5You are NOT overreacting. You're feelings are perfectly normal. I looked up one of those terms, in the past...in the urban dictionary. I do NOT want to know what the other two terms mean, or I might physically get sick. If, you're trying to explain to your bf...and give him the feeling of revulsion, we all on this panel share with you,....why don't you say, "(Bf's name) imagine if (whatever term from above you choose) that happening to you, by a really large guy or by a group of males, against your will. Now how do you feel? Really take a few seconds and think about it...now what do you feel?" Then, tell him that's is about the 10% of the revulsion you feel...when his friends use these terms around you.
Personally, I would get up and walk out of a room, before I sat there and listened to a group of guys talk like this. I've been in this type of situation, when I was probably 20 years old. Anyway, I was at a party and bf was in another room. I was in the living room, and this guy was talking to us (us being a bunch of girls). He was saying the grossest things I've ever heard...all of us were in a state of shock. I just looked at all their faces and could tell. So, I got up and went outside (I think I might have said to the guy "you're disgusting" (I don't advise that)...soon someone told my bf where I was. He came outside where I was and we left the party. After, my bf heard what happened from me in the car. My bf then told the guy, who was having a party/the owner of the house, and then the owner told the disgusting guy to never to come back to his home again...he wasn't welcomed there anymore.
Luckily, the man I married, also understands how offensive some guys can be and he stands up and says something, or he gets me out of wherever we are (to protect me...before I hear any of it). Normally though, this an extremely rare, rare occasion we are around this type of individual. I'm older than you (but not that much older)...so I would really talk to your bf about this again. He should know that talking like that or hanging around guys, who do talk like that....isn't cool for him or you. It's not healthy. I'm sorry for what you went through..but hopefully, the men in your life will be mature and actual gentlemen. (Oh, and the guys who think their cool or trying to impress girls, by talking like this....they have A LOT to learn. Real men do not demean women in any way.)
6Grandpa, amen.
7I agree with Grandpa. And BeachBarbie is completely right - I too have gotten up and left a room when people were making degrading comments to women - not nearly as gruesome as the comments you were describing. Any comment that involves humor and violence to women should never be said. And to any guy who responds with - "We'd never do that." "We are really kind." "It is just a joke," I would say that laughing at such a thing and making light of it, only promotes this behavior in real life. Until men and women stop making comments and creating names for such acts, they will continue to happen. I'm so glad to hear that you are with someone who is very gentle. Any man who respects women, who never say such a comment much less do those acts.
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