I don't want to belabor this whole "what are we allowed to joke about? "thing" because we've spent a lot of time on it here. But I'm going to anyway, because we can't always get what we want, and because, conveniently, my man over at is talking about it today with the news of this guy Evan Emory, who posted a video on YouTube in which it appeared he was singing a sexually explicit song to a room full of elementary school kids. He actually just spliced footage of himself singing the song in the same empty room with crowd shows of the kids from his actual, presumably innocent-as-a-chaste-peck-on-the-tits kid's song. Stupid, obviously, and he should have known better. But is it a crime. Leo sums it up succinctly:
He’s a scumbag, and a very dumb one at that, because even an autistic should be able to sense how pissed the parents of these kids would be if this video ended up on YouTube; he didn’t blur out their faces or anything, just left the kids’ real faces intact in all their smiling glory.
Well, as you might expect, when the parents complained to police, they arrested this kid and charged him with a felony count of manufacturing child pornography — a charge that carries a 20-year sentence.
Recognize: The night that this 21-year-old spent in a jail cell, thinking he was going to prison for 20 years, was the first time a kid was harmed because of that stupid video.
Obviously trying to define what is and isn't funny is very difficult, and is going to change on a case by case basis. There are certain things I won't make jokes about myself, and may not laugh at if I hear them -- who actually laughs at jokes anyway. Sort of weird and oddly animal-like behavior isn't it? -- but I'm not going to get too upset about jokes about most anything. I'm certainly not going to call the Joke Police, or the real police for that matter.
My girfriend is a school teacher, by the way. We once talked about the idea of my coming in to talk to the kids about writing. No fucking way I am going anywhere near an elementary school with the hysterical protective forcefield we've got these bubble-boys and girls living in now, especially since all adults are assumed pedophiles until proven otherwise, which you could never do, because why would you try to prove something like that? You feeling guilty about something? Methinks the pervert doth protest too much.
Leo goes on:
As usual, I’m agape (anally) that our government continues to take the horrific crime of child molestation (whose actual perpetrators should get the DEATH penalty) and water it down by applying its sentencing guidelines to people who have: Texted pictures of their own 15-year-old naked bodies. Photoshopped the heads of babies onto Jenna Jameson’s doggystyle stills. Watched reel-to-reel film of themselves losing their virginity at 16. (Is that actually illegal by the way? I’m asking for my mom.)
How the fuck can the government keep equating these childish pursuits with the monsters who rape and photograph abused children?!
I don't want to excerpt the entire piece here, so you should go read it , but his point is a salient one. "It’s like when touching a girl’s leg is called sexual assault — that trivializes the woman who was attacked in an alleyway at knife point."
This guy is a dumb dick who should've put the brakes on his awesome gag, but is he a sexual predator? The fact that we even have to ask that question is a waste of everyone's time.
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4 comments:
This poses a real dilemma for the hardened cons in jail who are supposed to beat or rape or kill offenders who violate kiddie porn laws. Could be a lot of awkward apologizing going on.
Yeah, internet moves fast innit? Still, I thought it was apropos.
I am pretty sure those dudes aren't going to lose too much sleep over it, but who knows!? /dontjudge
Ugh, so gay.
Will things change once the internet generation begins to fill the ranks of the legislature, or will our policymakers always be butthurt pussies who can't take a fucking joke?
Also, LOLd at "As usual, I’m agape (anally)"
I think there's always an equal supply of reasonable people to unstable psychopaths. You would think things would just keep getting more progressive as we go, but there are actual teenager and twentysomething conservatives out there. Conservative meaning scared in this sense, not politically, although there are those too, which blows my mind as well.
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