Taking Offense

   When I was dating my exboyfriend, he loved to watch the TV show, South Park. It is an adult cartoon show. I once read that the goal of the creators of the show is to offend as many people as possible. The characters are a group of children. In addition to being offensive they use bad language and at the end of every episode one of them, Kenny, gets killed.
  My exboyfriend recorded every episode on his VCR. One time when he was visiting me, he brought over a tape for us to watch. I watched it in complete disgust. I was even more disgusted when Kenny died at the end. What sick person thinks that a child dying, even in a cartoon, is funny? I took the tape out of my VCR and told him that while he was perfectly free to watch this garbage in his own home, he will not be watching it in mine.
  He didn't understand. It was such a funny show. The writing was genius. How could I possibly not like it? He continued to record episodes. When the show came out as a movie he bought a copy.
  This continued until there was a show on pedophile priests. My exboyfriend was a very, very conservative Catholic. After the pedophile priest episode, he thought South Park was a horrible show that should be taken off the air. I had to chuckle. It was a good show in his eyes until they poked fun at something that he found offensive. (For the record I don't think sexual abuse is funny in any way shape or form.)
  I learned a lesson from this. Offensive is in the eye of the beholder.
  Fast forward many, many years to last week. C and I attended the Toastmasters area speech contest. We had two members who were competing. The categories were Humorous Speech and Table Topics. The humorous speech contest was first. One of the men gave a speech on how he doesn't understand his wife. The longer his speech went on the angrier I got. How could this offensive piece of junk get to this level? It was mocking. condescending and played on many male/ female stereotypes. It was a great speech to give at a stag party and the jokes would be funny if told in a men's locker room. To give such a speech at a public contest was an abomination.
   It got worse. In the Table Topics part of the contest, the question was "What is something you don't understand, but pretend to?" You can guess how the guy who gave the speech about his wife answered. In fact, the other two male contestants answered the same way. I was furious. How could they demean women in a mixed audience?! I noted that their wives were not present at the contest. Would they have answered the same if they had been present? I was also irate at the lack of originality. Really, when confronted with this question you fall back to picking on your wife? You can't get more original than that?
  I was concerned about the potential damage to the reputation of the local Toastmasters clubs. I certainly wouldn't join any club where I would be a target for ridicule or even discreet snickers because I happen to be female. I was so offended that if it weren't for the fact that I was a judge at the contest, I would have walked out in protest.
  Instead, I went home and fired off an email to the Area Director with my concerns about the contest. It was not a bad letter, given how truly angry I was.
  The next morning was the meeting of the Small Town Toastmasters club. I was still seething from the night before. I talked to two other women from our group who were at the contest. To my utter amazement, they did not share my feelings. I was baffled and a little upset. How could they possibly think that those presentations were OK? If those men had said similar things about African Americans or Muslims or any other minority group, I'm sure they would not have the same attitude. I also believe that small acts of disrespect that are tolerated lead to greater acts of discrimination later on.
  It wasn't until later in the morning that I had to laugh at myself. For many years I had been talking and even writing in the column about how society is too easily offended. How I think that society demands that those who don't hold the current politically correct opinions should be silent. I even wrote a column about microaggression once and how I felt it was made up so people would have a chance to be offended about smaller and smaller things. I remember the lesson that I learned many years ago courtesy of my ex boyfriend. Offensive is in the eye of the beholder. It wasn't until someone decided to mock something I cared about, that I got all offended. Point made.
  I still believe that what those men did was wrong and damaging. I do not believe that they would have given those presentations if their wives or daughters had been there. I believe that such attitudes are damaging and not acceptable. However, we are in a country where we are allowed to hold an opinion and voice it in public. Even if it is offensive......