Haggard thread #2

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As it is at this precise moment in time, a statemnet saying that homosexuality is sinful and destroys marriage is not likely to launch me into a tirade about anti-porn politics. That's just the way it is.

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That's because you're not holmes, berberry. How dare you complain about gaybashing when there are also anti-porn sentiments in existence?

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I'm certainly not trying to switch or broaden debate because anti-porn tirades effect me more, if that is what you were trying to imply.

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What I was implying was that you do seem to try to include porn and/or sex into every topic possible, no matter how tangentially related it might be.And it wasn't a real insult. Just a little tease.Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

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A call for higher quality teasing, if you will.

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lol!What am I, some fluffer?

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I know that I will get a lot of flak for saying this, and I dont have any studies on hand to back up my assertion, but many of the men involved in the gay pride movements are emotionally immature.

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You mean these men?: Or the man whi installed these urinals, and the hundreds of men who used them and didn't say a word about them? Oh wait, none of these men are represented as specifically gay, but they routinely gather in large arenas and stadiums and act utterly emotionally immature.

And let's not forget hyst a few of the ones killed for being gay:

I do accept your explanation regarding the cultural difference regarding whimsy in bathroom fixtures.I do, however, think it's a bit naive to be surprised that nobody would think that putting open mouths (that appeared to me like a woman's with red lipstick on) over men's urinals would be off-putting to many.Perhaps it is such a "US" attitude because there is a long history of the acceptance and manufacture of such objects here with the definite intent to degrade or demean.I mean, there are many companies devoted to selling nothing but rude, degrading sexist, racist, and gay-hating t-shirts, for example.

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And going by inference from what I've seen, living in sin does not produce happiness. It produces moments of fleeting joy, as does all sin, but I don't believe that a long, lasting peace can be found in it.

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Er, by your definition, I've been living in big sin for about 20 years, since I don't accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.And yet, I have just celebrated 14 years of marriage, I've found and enjoyed a fulfilling career for almost as long, I continue to learn new things and enjoy good health and a great deal of happiness. I want for nothing, and nothing is missing in my life.

I get everything you are saying, but look at it this way; in the US, violence against oppressed groups is the norm. Maybe in the Netherlands, people can wear T-shirts like this: and nobody thinks they are offensive, but here in America, it's a terrible reminder that crimes literally exactly like this happen with regularity.

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I totally understand that you may personally take it that way. I can see how a person can be offended in that way. It's just that not everyone does and the meaning is not inherent.

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The meaning is not inherent?A male figure is literally throwing away a female figure, head first, into a garbage can.How does that not allude to a crime?

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However, my disagreement would still stand for the toilet, because that requires a drastic reinterpretation to get to rude, crude, or derogatory

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Er, I don't find it drastic at all to get to an interpretation of "crude, rude, and derogatory" from pretending that you are urinating into someone's mouth.

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Is it not possible to view the image in an entirely metaphorical context? I honestly did not see any "crime" being hinted at. I saw a statement that whoever this is is joking about using girls for sex in a rather callous manner. Love 'em & Leave 'em = Hump 'em & Dump 'em = Hump&Dump.

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To me that was obvious, and I don't see why that would be errant.

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Well, to me it alludes very strongly to a serial rapist/murderer of women.

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In any case, assuming it is supposed to be someone's mouth, how is that a statement of people wanting to treat others badly? The thing is smiling and happy. It apparently always likes it.

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If there was a smiling mouth on the face of Jesus on each toilet, do you think it would be reasonable for Christians to get offended? I mean, Jesus is smiling and happy while people piss into his mouth; apparently he likes it.I mean, come on, holmes. "To piss on" somebody or something is a put-down; an insult.

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I am of the belief that no man, woman, or child can choose their race or their gender. I feel differnetly about their sexual preference.

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So, when did you choose to be sexually attracted to women and not men?How old were you, and how many men did you sleep with or get turned on by before turning that off and deciding to get hot with women instead?

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For a heterosexual, their sexuality is the one of the least important aspects of their life as far as self descriptions go.

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Er, speak for yourself, bucko.

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Do you readily here of a heterosexual man referring to his sexuality as being a determinant in who he is as a person? No. He will likely mention his job or his fatherhood, or his marital status, or his interests as defining who he is.

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Both marital status and fatherhood are major, major references to sexuality.

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Do you actually believe that the makers of that shirt meant to sell a shirt implying a men kill women and dump their bodies in dumpsters? Or that such a thing is humorous?

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Sure.People make all sorts of stuff like that and sell it and think it's humorous.

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You say that pissing in a humorous (lets say female) mouth is to be derogatory. Say she had made them in the shape of a flower. Would that mean people should view it as people pissing on nature? Or say she decided to line them with images from famous paintings. Would that then be interpreted as pissing on art, or specific artists?

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If these latter cases should not be viewed that way, why should the mouth be viewed that way?

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It's a mouth holmes. A person's open mouth.A human mouth is different than a flower or a bunch of paintings.It's the same reason people I used to work with had no problem slicing up corned beef but freaked out when they had to slice beef tongue.The tongue looks exactly like...a tongue. Like, a larger version of what we have, and looking at it gave many people, including myself, a very viceral feeling. We know exactly where that thing used to be in the head of that animal because it's in roughly the same place in our head. To see it disembodied and to peel it and touch it and slice it up is a mite unsettling. The brisket, by contrast, is just some random hunk of cooked meat.It doesn't bother anybody to cut up a head of broccoli, because we cannot relate to it the way we do the tongue.Similarly, pretending to piss on a flower is not anywhere close to pretending to piss in a human mouth.We can relate.

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It is not a human mouth.

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OK.What species does it represent if it isn't a representative of a human mouth?Fish? Bird? Elephant? Lobster?

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Yep, but the question is is that really the message these makers were going for with THIS shirt?

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To clarify, the shirts I linked to were:A cartoon figure of a black man in a shirt and tie with a frightened look on his face, sprinting away from a number of hooded KKK figures who are also running and reaching out as if to grab him. The caption "Run Obama run" is underneath. To me, this is a shirt that portrays the lynching of black men by the KKK as funny.A depiction of the stick figure people, a woman on her back with her arms over her head and her legs in the air and a man situated as to imply he is penetrating her with the words "I am a Registered Sex Offender" next to the figures. To me, this is supposed to be interpreted as a representation of how the wearer rapes women.Three words on the last one; "No Means Go", which to me is supposed to mean that the wearer believes that when a woman says no to his sexual advances, he is to interpret that as her wanting him to continue. Or, on a different level, it is a backlash against all of those uppity women who came up with the "No means No" slogan. How dare they not be sexually available to men at all times?I found them at Access deniedYour question asked if the people who made this shirt could possibly have really intended it to indicate the killing and dumping of women's bodies, and that they thought this would be humorous. You seemed to be rather surprised or incredulous that a company would actually create or sell a shirt like that.My actual answer is that I don't know exactly what they intended, and neither do you, but the fact that one can easily find shirts that abolutely glorify and make light of crimes against women (and others) and portray such acts as humorous should settle any incredulity you might have over any company doing this.It is just as likely as not, then, that they did indeed want to imply the killing and dumping of women.I do, of course acknowledge the methaphorical interpretation of "love em and leave em". But I also think that it's not unlikely that they were also going for the double entendre of literally discarding disposable women, dead, in the garbage.I mean, it wouldn't be anywhere near as offensive or shocking if it didn't imply that, and that's the sort of thing these companies specialize in.Edited by schrafinator, : fixed link