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Sexist/homophobic or innocent jokes?

Alexandar

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Joined
Mar 8, 2014
Hello everyone I'm Alexandar. Recently as I've begun to learn more about feminism and the LGBT movement I've come to realize that some repeated jokes I've seen in comics and have used myself in my writings might be viewed at the least uncomfortably by women or the LGBT community if it's not down right sexist/homophobic. While some of this is has become blantly obvious to me (such as in martial arts comcis women fighters seems to get their clothes ripped right over their bosoms if not down right destroyed all together leaving them naked) others are more difficult for me to tell. While I can see the humor in the joke I honestly can't tell if this would make women/LGBT uncomfortable.

The first example of this is the pervy old man joke. For those of you who don't know in a lot of Japanese comics there's a character who is an elderly male (typically over 60) who is normally unmarried (although I have seen exceptions to this) who do what is described in the story itself as perveted things to women. Now before people's imagination's run wild by perveted things I mean more sexual harassment type things. For example the old man might say rude remarks to women/like flirting relating to the woman's looks and what he would like her to do for him, he might also constantly flip up her skirt, take up skirt pictures of her, or always try to sneak in on her in the bath.

A key part of this joke is that the woman who is the old man's target or another woman always catches the old man in the middle of this acts and reacts violently to him, resulting in some kind of slapstick like punching him in the face or throwing a large object at him which hits him etc. In fact I've never seen one where the old man gets away scott free.

The second running joke I often see in comics, which is often potray along side the perveted old man gag is the breast grope gag. As the name suggests one character will grope a female character's breast, causing her to react violently to him, resulting once again in slap stick of some form. Now I've seen this gag in two forms, one where the groper is male and the second one the groper is female. Interestingly this causes a major change in how the characters are treated. From my experience in comics, when the groper is male the female is normally successful in inflicting some sort of physical harm to him and he is labeled as a pervet. Note there's also two varations of this as well.

You have the purposeful groper, a male (typically the pervy old man) who gropes women on purpose and the accidental groper (typically the main character of the comic) a young person who would never grope a woman normally but due to either tripping or something outside his control he falls on a woman an "accidently" gropes them while trying to regain his balance, resulting in a misunderstanding.

The female groper on the other hand doesn't have this varation, or at least I've never seen them have it. They are shown to be purposeful gropers however how they are treated is also greatly different. The victim of a female groper is often shown as being unsuccessful in hitting the woman/punishing her normaly, with success being rare. Instead they are often chased by their victim until the next scene yet they are rarely ever potrayed as perverts with the worst them being called is (pervy old man) clearly referencing the above gag. Another interesting thing to note is that these woman are normally not potrayed as being Bi-sexual or lesbian, the gropers are often shown with boyfriends or interested in only guys.

Now I fine both those jokes to be funny but it's not because of their behavor. I mean I knew even as a child what the pervy old man and groper was doing was wrong, no what makes it funny to me is the punishment. I enjoy seeing bad things happen to people when they do something wrong, I enjoy seeing karma work because that's often something you don't see in RL, you just have to hope it works. With that being said it also helps that these characters are rarely if ever potrayed as being creepy/rapist type of people.

Yet now that I'm older and wiser (or at least I hope so) I wonder if women/LGBT community feels the same way or if they find this something that's uncomfortable. With that being said I would also like to hear what my fellow men think of this as well, how do you think women percieved this jokes and do you think they're insulting or innocent humor?

In the interest of be fair to men I also want to talk about a common male troope I see. This isn't a joke so much as something that's often shown in action heavy comics and movies. The main male loses his shirt or takes it off during a major battle scene, normally hand to hand and one or one. This character will often be the main character or one of the leading characters and will have muscules of steel. Now as a man I've never found this to be offensive before and still don't but I can't deny that I often feel shy or get nervous about my own body around women.

I don't have abs, I've always wanted abs but I currently don't have them and I feel that makes me less attractive to women, and sometimes down right ulgy to them. In a way you can argue this is men being sexually objectified and marketed to women. I'm curious to know if any men have ever felt this way and if women/LGBT community think this is something that might make some men uncomfortable seeing.

Finally I want to talk about a character I have writen in my story. When I first created this character what I wanted to do is take the typical sterotype playboy male (the guy who has sex all the time with all these women and can get any girl he wanted) and flip it. Instead you would have this woman who is Bi-sexual who has sex all the time and can get any woman or man she wanted to sleep with her. This character's seduction powers is a running joke in my story and I also due the groper gag with her as the groper and my other main female straight character as the victim. So my question to all is, is this character ok or does she make my female/LGBT readers feel uncomfortable if not down right offended?

Also if you don't mind I would also like to know what gender and sexual orientation you identify as. For me I'm a straight male.
 
It seems you care too much about what other people think.

First, about your character and your story. If you are writing for a transgendered/female audience, then you can definitely worry about whether or not you fit their standards of good entertainment. I'll tell you right now, having a male character and "just putting a skirt on them" ain't going to cut it. I've heard feminists rant and rail against the character Trinity from the Matrix because she's just a woman behaving in typical male ways. If you're not gearing your story specifically towards this target group, then who gives a fuck what they think?

Honestly, when engaging in any creative pursuit, I think about me first. I'm the one who's gotta draw/write the damn thing and I'm gonna have a fucking fun time doing it, everyone else be damned. THEN, during the editing process, I clean it up for consumption and choose my audience. Even then, though, I never worry about who might be "offended". A pre-op transgendered woman dressed as a man but not yet passing will probably jump your shit if you call them a "her/she", even if you're a stranger and don't know what pronouns they personally prefer. I guarantee you right now, you WILL offend somebody. There are stories out there about cannibals, rapists, baby-killers, you name it. American Psycho by Breton Ellis caused a stir when it was first published because of the graphic violence portrayed against women. It was so popular with other people though that they made it into a movie and it's a cult-classic. You have to figure out who you want your audience to be and decide whether you give a shit about anybody else.

I am a pansexual gender-fluid individual. Sometimes I feel like a woman, sometimes I feel like a man.
 
I see, thank you very much for your input Rudolph Quin. Perhaps your right and I should focus on what I want to write rather then try to make everyone happy.
 
Humor is humor. If it's any good at all, someone will find it funny, but you'll never find a joke that -everyone- finds funny, and someone will always find it offensive, too.

Also worth noting that I'm pretty sure these 'comics' are japanese in origin, based on your trope list, and therefore are really not suitable models for any kind of quality... Anything. There's good manga, but I've never read a good manga that leaned that heavily on weird-as-hell sexual behaviors. I've also never seen these tropes show up anywhere but in manga, or pieces aping it. Don't be the latter.

You want to write quality women? Don't think about how you're gonna 'flip the trope' or anything like that, because an inverted trope is just a new trope. Instead, talk to a variety of actual women. Ask them questions about situations and behaviors your female character will be in. Use their responses to inform her character.
 
Trygon that's a brillant idea!!!!! The best humor is always something that audiances can relate too! Why didn't I think of that.
 
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