| As someone who actually enjoys making offensive comments in the _right context_, I can't disagree more with you. When somebody says something offensive, context is everything. If you're in a meeting with a group of adult men that are culturally similar to you and there's nothing pressing on the table, sure, a dick joke might be fine. But in the case of the article, I think the author even let off lightly situations like the "dick in the hand" anecdote. It's one thing to make an off-color joke to ease the mood when the context is appropriate, but if you're sitting in a room with a woman, and you make a comment like that, you know for a fact you're crossing a boundary, no matter how small it may be. For some reason, it reminds me of a former (male) roommate of mine who would always make comments containing indirect sexual references in the presence of our (only) female roommate. He would never say something sexually related pertaining to her, but things like "I watch too many TV shows? Nonsense. Are you calling me a whore??" Shit that would be subtle enough that he could easily shrug off an accusation that he was being offensive, yet he very much knew he was trying to spin the conversation toward sex as a means of flirting. I don't think there are many excuses to be made in these contexts. If you've ever known your mother, or had a sister or a girlfriend who was attractive (and the recipient of suggestive comments), you know exactly what's acceptable and what's not. Picture it's your girlfriend getting harassed. I'm hardly the whiteknight, social-justice type whatsoever, but for fuck sake, keep business as business and play bullshit kiddie flirt games at the bar. |
Your argument is incomplete. I doubt most people have an attractive women in their lives, having either the role of mother, sister, or girlfriend, since such a minority of women are attractive, even if they might be the only women you notice every day.