So I was at the gym today...

jeepgirl7812 · June 2013

Jennifer, sooo true. Honestly, ive seen soooo much negativity, and not so nice things about him... i happen to come across this and now i see why.. him and his douche friends.. oh wait, i didn't mean it that way... hmm, like u said regarding rape...

Perplexities · June 2013

you don't know the context of that statement so I don't really expect you to understand. Liftingmommy is on my FL she wasn't offended by any means.

littlelady2b · June 2013

Yeah I agree you went lower than her level!! I don't know what's up with you two but is this really damn necessary? Take it some where private and grow up! Oh btw I don't care how big you are or who you are that comment was uncalled for no one deserves to be raped!!! I'm so pissed right now its time to get off this topic before I go off on your chlamydibrah *kitten*!

Doodlewhopper · June 2013

Political correctness is nothing more oppression. You who relish the "gotcha" game are a blight on society.

Doodlewhopper · June 2013

chlamydibrah you dont owe anyone an explanation, ignore these trolls.

"Never get in a fight with a pig. You both will get muddy and the pig will love it."

nikilis · June 2013

like I said, keep your misogynistic and abhorrent humour off the forums. feel free to share it with your misogynist bros.

there are rules here,

17. No Profane, Vulgar, or Sexually Explicit Language

No explicit, sexual, insulting or vulgar content including expletives, or sexual innuendo, will be permitted. This includes the use of non-alphabetical characters to approximate expletives or other objectionable language. Publicly visible text on MyFitnessPal should be work-place friendly.

We reserve the right to moderate a topic based on the intent of the sexual material it contains. Topics intended to titillate will be removed. Topics with medical or clinical themes related to sex or sexual health may be permitted, at our discretion.

this site is about fitness, and a little bit of fun. not making jokes at others suffering. maybe just try to explain what you said to your mother, or any woman in your life. none of them will laugh man. seems like you are still in the process of growing up.

in any case, this isn't the place for that kind of "joke"

Perplexities · June 2013

You clearly don't understand and that's fine, but I think it's best you leave this thread. I don't think I can take you seriously after that last statement. Viewed your profile, after you threated to "go off on me" since you have both pictures of yourself and another individual. I'm not quite sure who you are... Not that it would matter..

jeepgirl7812 · June 2013

Who r u talking about, when you mentioned not offended? Omg, this is ridiculous

Perplexities · June 2013

Lol. I like that quote!

Ninguneado73 · June 2013

If someone posts a pic wearing underwear this thread will have then violated every rule in the mfp book

Mario_Az · June 2013

just as long as it is a female

jeepgirl7812 · June 2013

Who r u talking about, when you mentioned not offended? Omg, this is ridiculous

Cutting4life · June 2013

u can;t get laid on the internet plz go

GlassslippersAndFairyDust · June 2013

And this is a perfect example of what's wrong with people today. Heartless, cold, completely void of compassion. It's all about self and if anyone gets hurt or offended you resort to name calling or blame it on their lack of humor or oversensitivity......real mature. He needs to man up and take responsibility for what he said, whether in jest or not. He offended women in general and especially those that have lived through rape. And as far as your troll comments, I don't care what you think of me, I have an opinion and what he did was wrong.

littlelady2b · June 2013

Doodlewhopper · June 2013

oooooo-kay

DopeItUp · June 2013

Trolls trolling trolls, I'm getting a headache.

Cutting4life · June 2013

PhattiPhat · June 2013

GlassslippersAndFairyDust · June 2013

It's time to apologize. Is this how you were raised? Do you speak to your mother like this? Would you think it was funny if someone you loved was raped and then someone made a joke about it? You should look up the word respect and memorize its meaning.......no, really.

littlelady2b · June 2013

Oh I do understand you and your so called friend thought it was funny to ruin everyone's day with what you and her consider funny. But being someone who has been raped I take offence to that comment and so now maybe you can clearly understand my position. Because seriously if you know anything about the horror of the act you would never never publicly say something so stupid as that. You are the one that doesn't get it and that includes your so called name calling male supporters. Ignorance may be bliss for you but actually its not excuse!

Cutting4life · June 2013

to the lady quoting me below i called u an idiot and u proved it again by posting things i never even mentioned. Stop being a keyboard warrior and get out there and actually help people. Maybe this way u can make a difference in the world, instead of crying about it and pretending like u are better than everyone. Walk the talk and get over urself.

Rage_Phish · June 2013

Patton Oswalt on rape jokes....

3. Rape Jokes
In 1992 I was in the San Francisco International Comedy Competition. Out of a field of 40 competitors, I think I came in 38. Maybe.

One of the comedians I competed against was named Vince Champ. Handsome, friendly, 100% clean material. He would gently – but not in a shrill or scolding way – chide some of the other comedians about their “blue” language, or “angry” subject material, or general, dark demeanor. But nice to hang out with. Polite.

Later that same year Vince won Star Search. $100,000 grand prize. A career launched. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

He’s now sitting in prison in Nebraska, serving a 55 to 70 year sentence for a string of rapes he committed at college campuses where he toured as a comedian. College bookers loved him because his material was squeaky-clean and non-controversial. I guess the Star Search producers agreed.

Vince is one example – there are others, believe me – where some of the friendliest, most harmless-seeming, and non-offensive comedians carry around some pretty horrific mental plumbing. The comedians I’ve known who joke about rape – and genocide, racism, serial killers, drug addiction and everything else in the Dark Subjects Suitcase – tend to be, internally and in action, anti-violence, anti-bigotry, and decidedly anti-rape. It’s their way – at least, it’s definitely my way – of dealing with the fact that all of this ****tiness exists in the world. It’s one of the ways I try to reduce the power and horror those subjects hold for me. And since I’ve been a comedian longer than any of the people who blogged or wrote essays or argued about this, I was secure in thinking my point of view was right. That “rape culture” was an illusion, that the examples of comedians telling “rape jokes” in which the victim was the punchline were exceptions that proved the rule. I’ve never wanted to rape anyone. No one I know has ever expressed a desire to rape anyone. My viewpoint must be right. Right?

I had that same knee-jerk reaction when the whole Daniel Tosh incident went down. Again, only looking at it from my experience. And my experience, as a comedian, made me instantly defend him. I still do, up to a point. Here’s why: he was at an open mike. Trying out a new joke. A joke about rape. A horrible subject but, like with all horrible subjects, the first thing a comedian will subconsciously think is, “Does a funny approach exist with which to approach this topic?” He tried, and it didn’t go well. I’ve done the same thing, with all sorts of topics. Can I examine something that horrifies me and reduce the horror of it with humor? It’s a foolish reflex and all comedians have it.

And, again, it was at an open mike. Which created another knee-jerk reaction in me. Open mikes are where, as a comedian, you’re supposed to be allowed to **** up. Like a flight simulator where you can create the sensation of spiking the nose of the plane into the tarmac without killing anyone (or yourself). Open mikes are crucial for any working comedian who wants to keep developing new material, stretching what he or she does, and keeping themselves from burrowing into a creative rut.

Even Daniel admitted, in his apology, that the joke wasn’t going well, that when the girl interrupted him (well, heckled, really) he reacted badly. The same way I reacted badly when an audience member started taping one of my newer, more nebulous bits with her camera phone a few months earlier. Daniel’s bad reaction I don’t defend. His attempting to find humor in the subject of rape – again, a horrifying reality that, like other horrifying realities, can sometimes be attacked with humor? I defend that. Still defend. Will always defend.

What it came down to, for me, was this: let a comedian get to the end of his joke. If it’s not funny then? Fine. Blast away. In person, on the internet, anywhere. It’s an open mike. Comedians can take it. We bomb all the time. We go too far all the time. It’s in our nature.

And don’t interrupt a comedian during the set-up. A lot of times, a set-up is deliberately meant to shock, to reverse your normal valences, to kick you a few points off your axis. If you heard the beginning of Lenny Bruce’s joke where he blurts out, “How many ******s do we have here tonight?”, and then stood up and mother****ed him into silence and stormed out? You’d be correct – based solely on what you saw and heard – that Lenny was a virulent racist. But if you rode the shockwave, and listened until the end of the bit, you’d see he was attacking something – racism – that he found abhorrent and was, in fact, so horrified by it that he was willing to risk alienating an audience to make his point.

So that’s how I saw the whole “rape joke” controversy. And, again, my view was based on my experience as a comedian. 25 years experience, you know? This was about censorship, and the limits of comedy, and the freedom to create and **** up while you hone what you create.

But remember what I was talking about, in the first two sections of this? In the “Thievery” section and then the “Heckling” section? About how people only bring their own perceptions and experiences to bear when reacting to something? And, since they’re speaking honestly from their experience, they truly think they’re correct? Dismissive, even? See if any of these sound familiar:

There’s no “evidence” of a “rape culture” in this country. I’ve never wanted to rape anyone, so why am I being lumped in as the enemy? If these bloggers and feminists make “rape jokes” taboo, or “rape” as a subject off-limits no matter what the approach, then it’ll just lead to more censorship.

They sure sound familiar to me because I, at various points, was saying them. Either out loud, or to myself, or to other comedian and non-comedian friends when we would argue about this. I had my viewpoint, and it was based on solid experience, and it…was…****ing…wrong.

Let’s go backwards through those bull**** conclusions, shall we? First off: no one is trying to make rape, as a subject, off-limits. No one is talking about censorship. In this past week of re-reading the blogs, going through the comment threads, and re-scrolling the Twitter arguments, I haven’t once found a single statement, feminist or otherwise, saying that rape shouldn’t be joked under any circumstance, regardless of context. Not one example of this.

In fact, every viewpoint I’ve read on this, especially from feminists, is simply asking to kick upward, to think twice about who is the target of the punchline, and make sure it isn’t the victim.

Why, after all of my years of striving to write original material (and, at times, becoming annoyingly self-righteous about it) and struggling find new viewpoints or untried approaches to any subject, did I suddenly balk and protest when an articulate, intelligent and, at times, angry contingent of people were asking my to apply the same principles to the subject of rape? Any edgy or taboo subject can become just as hackneyed as an acceptable or non-controversial one if the exact same approach is made every time. But I wasn’t willing to hear that.

And let’s go back even further. I’ve never wanted to rape anyone. Never had the impulse. So why was I feeling like I was being lumped in with those who were, or who took a cavalier attitude about rape, or even made rape jokes to begin with? Why did I feel some massive, undeserved sense of injustice about my place in this whole controversy?

The answer to that is in the first incorrect assumption. The one that says there’s no a “rape culture” in this country. How can there be? I’ve never wanted to rape anyone.

Do you see the illogic in that leap? I didn’t at first. Missed it completely. So let’s look at some similar examples:

Just because you 100% believe that comedians don’t write their own jokes doesn’t make it so. And making the leap from your evidence-free belief to dismissing comedians who complain about joke theft is willful ignorance on your part, invoked for your own comfort. Same way with heckling. Just because you 100% feel that a show wherein a heckler disrupted the evening was better than one that didn’t have that disruption does not make it the truth. And to make the leap from your own personal memory to insisting that comedians feel the same way that you do is indefensible horse****.

And just because I find rape disgusting, and have never had that impulse, doesn’t mean I can make a leap into the minds of women and dismiss how they feel day to day, moment to moment, in ways both blatant and subtle, from other men, and the way the media represents the world they live in, and from what they hear in songs, see in movies, and witness on stage in a comedy club.

There is a collective consciousness that can detect the presence (and approach) of something good or bad, in society or the world, before any hard “evidence” exists. It’s happening now with the concept of “rape culture.” Which, by the way, isn’t a concept. It’s a reality. I’m just not the one who’s going to bring it into focus. But I’ve read enough viewpoints, and spoken to enough of my female friends (comedians and non-comedians) to know it isn’t some vaporous hysteria, some false meme or convenient catch-phrase.

I’m a comedian. I value and love what I do. And I value and love the fact that this sort of furious debate is going on about the art form I’ve decided to spend my life pursuing. If it wasn’t, it would mean all of the joke thief defenders and heckler supporters are right, that stand-up comedy is some low, disposable form of carnival distraction, a party trick anyone can do. It’s obviously not. This debate proves it. And I don’t want to be on the side of the debate that only argues from its own limited experience. And I don’t need the sense memory of an actor, or a degree from Columbia, or a moody, desert god to tell me that.

I’m a man. I get to be wrong. And I get to change.

Viva_Karina · June 2013

.

Mrsallypants · June 2013

I've seen gyms put a sign in the squat rack that read "Do not curl in the squat rack." That is the solution. Talk or write an email to the manager or staff about it and get it done.

Rage_Phish · June 2013

THis is why i think slapstick comedy should be banned. i was once slapped int eh face AND poked in the eyes, and these 3 Stooges jerks are just going around joking about it. If they knew someone who was poked in the eye i bet they wouldnt laugh about it!

Viva_Karina · June 2013

Perplexities · June 2013

I've been to a half dozen different gym chains and I've never seen one. I'll give it a try though, couldn't hurt.

BenchPressingCats · June 2013

0

GlassslippersAndFairyDust · June 2013

You edited your response but I read it and I'm assuming you are talking to me since its my quote you captured last and I can assure you that I don't have any social or illiteracy problems. And you didn't snip away at anything I said......nothing. Are you on Drugs? You really are grasping at straws now. I feel sorry for you and if I were your mother, I would be deeply ashamed of you. I have sons older than you and I raised them better than this, they would NEVER disrespect women the way you have. You should be ashamed of yourself. One day, if you're ever lucky enough to have a daughter, maybe you will understand the importance of the act of rape. It is demeaning and violent and by no means a word to throw around lightly and if you can't see that, you should seek out the help you so desperately need.

So I was at the gym today...

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