[zer00eyz]

Parasite: an organism that lives in or on an organism of another species (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other's expense.

If we drop the species bit, and the negative connotations, it's not far off the mark. Children, in utero are certainly not symbiotic.

Just from a biological POV the toll on women for carrying children is HUGE. There's a whole swath of things that get rebuilt in a woman's body (nose/sense of smell being an interesting one) and a rather large tax on resources. Calcium is a huge one, most mothers in the west supplement as part of pregnancy. Dig deeper and you're going to find more and more biological impact that looks less (re)"productive" and more parasitic.

If you change domains to art, the whole film aliens covers the themes of rape, impregnation and parasitic child birth. These notions are not far from our fears and nightmares.

Lastly loving your children and being honest about a biological and personal toll they take are not incompatible. I know women who HAVE children they love and adore who have used the term parasite to describe the process they went through. It is done partly with tongue in cheek and partly to express something horrifyingly taxing on their bodies...

[Geisterde]

There are people that legitimately and fully consider babies to be a parasite, maybe you arent one of them. I understand the biological parallels you draw, I understand the need for comedy in dealing with stress; however, I would advise anyone against making jokes that dehumanize people over immutable qualities, I caution you that this behavior is morally corrosive. It may seem acceptable based on current standards, but so would have dehumanizing comedy about blacks in the era of slavery or jews in the holocaust; I wouldnt want to have regrets about how I would have acted in those times.

[zer00eyz]

>> I understand the need for comedy in dealing with stress

The rest of your statement says you do not understand why comedy and stress have the relationship they do.

If you go look there is data for the impact of humor on stress, on fear, on danger. The product of comedy, laughter, is one of the few autonomic functions that others can trigger in you.

In return I would caution you to not police others good time. Not only is it unfounded in data (yes there has been research on this, no one supports this perspective). It is the thing that has been done for generations, and failed (see tipper gore as the latest example).

>> dehumanizing comedy about blacks in the era of slavery or jews in the holocaust

Candidly this take is deeply misinformed. Blackface, had shades of slavery but the larger arc of it was NOT that. Calling attention to the slavery aspect is actually diminishing what it was. You're also reinforcing the stereo type of Black people and Slavery something that is massively historically inaccurate, read about the bakery pirates and the ottomans. Plenty of other people from other races have been slaves throughout history.

Meanwhile calling out "jews in the holocaust" and comedy is going to be a hard sell. Not only was this comedy never common, the foundations of American comedy are deeply rooted in the jewish community and jewish tradition. The godfather of modern comedy, Lenny Bruce was a jew. The scene in the Catskills that drove early days comedy that ended up on television (think cid cesar) was jewish.

[Geisterde]

I never said you shouldnt engage in humor, I said you shouldnt dehumanize people. Its possible to make a joke without equating an entire population as less than human. Its not productive to nitpick my analogies, I never claimed there was comedy about blacks during slavery, nor jews during the holocaust, you missed the point completely, its not funny to dehumanize people, and its corrosive to your own senses as well as society.