How to handle jokes?

How to handle jokes?
C

cant_remember

This is a response to Ranger's last post. It's something I have a tough time dealing with, too. When a friend or just someone in the room cracks an altar boy/priest joke, or makes a joke about pedophiles -- usually not funny at all.

They send shivers down me, set my teeth on edge. I just want to sneer, "What do you know?" But usually just bite my tongue.

Has anyone ever "outed" themselves as an SA survivor in a context like this? Or, how do you deal with it?
 
i don't have a lot of tolerance for people who make those kinds of jokes -

the person who makes such a joke is someone i would stay away from -
 
you deserve a better friend -
 
Dear Cant...Yes, those jokes can really get on your nerves. If it is a passing joke, I may not say anything but I don't laugh either. If they ask me if I find it funny, then I talk about SA. If it's a friend or a colleague at work, I generally ay I had CSA as a kid and many other people do as well. We find it not a very funny area to joke about because it is serious!! Generally, they are able to understand. But then, I am not shouting from the housetops I am a survivor of sexual abuse BUT I WILL NOT EVER BACK DOWN FROM BEING EMBARASSED ABOUT IT!!

Howard
 
I had more problem dealing with jokes that featured abuse or homosexual content before I disclosed than I do now, it doesn't bother me at all now as long as I believe that the person telling the joke isn't using it as a weapon to belittle me or others, or as a way of revelling in their beliefs that abuse is OK.
That's hard to tell I know.

A lot of humour is used as a defence mechanism, I tell jokes about abuse because for me it's a way of expressing a small part of my many opinions about my situation. I don't use humour to trivialize mine or anyone elses situation, and I can't really explain clearly what my black humour does for me, but in a crude way it does bring certain aspects out into the open. I think it also makes some aspects of a terrible situation more easy to deal with, it breaks it down into small pieces that I can relate to.

The same happens for major public catastrophes such as the tsunami and 9.11, the jokes were circulating within hours. It seems like a first response to something too big to fully understand in one go.

It's not P.C. and it does upset a lot of people without any doubt, but I think jokes do have some role in our understanding of awful situations.

Dave
 
I have long had a difficult time with jokes that poke fun of any minority group, any sensitive subject, etc.
If I am in a group of people, I don't laugh. Usually the person will ask me what's wrong.... my reply is flatly, "I find that joke in bad taste and offensive." I don't think that it requires any further explanation on my part and I don't have to divulge any personal information. That's my way of dealing with it.

Sophiesdad
 
I echo what Dave said, but change it a bit : he said "defense mechanism" while I say it's a coping mechanism. I remember the really ghastly jokes that came out when the story broke about Jeffrey Dahmer and I'm convinced that humor was to try to accept & face the existence of hideous evil in our midst.

More recently, there have been lots of jokes circulating about Terri Schiavo - again, folk trying to cope with the idea of being a vegetable on life support for 15 years and the intensity of the legal battles.

So, if I think the joke is for coping, I just ignore it.

However, if I think it's purely to demean a vulnerable person / group, I'm likely to speak up. I live in the Deep South and sometimes still hear queer jokes, told as a pitiful, ignorant stupid-male bonding ritual - those I'm likely to challenge if I feel safe.
 
I some times walk away and say nothing or tell them I am ofended by there taste. Once two months after I came out about the abuse to my family my brother in law told a joke in front of everyone and I had a total melt down.

I am dealing with things a lot better now 3 years later. Tom
 
I think this is actually an extremely important issue. It may be true that a certain degree of levity over an awful situation serves to help us to cope, and perhaps specific instances of joking do little or no harm. But we should bear in mind that jokes about minorities or at-risk sectors of society are all about exploitation, intolerance, and disempowerment. "Nigger" and "fag" jokes convey the message that it is okay to rob someone of their human dignity because of their skin color or sexual orientation, and we have all seen the terrible results of this sort of thing. Where child abuse is concerned I remember hearing a "Michael Jackson" joke in the context of the trouble he was in about ten years ago, the one with the "underwear half off" punchline, and it deeply wounded me that anyone could take amusement in such a situation.

My own approach to this is to deal with it at home and stress to my own children the problems with this sort of joke. One never knows how well this is understood, and I have no doubt that within their peer groups my two are as guilty as the others. But they do know my objections and my reasons for this, and I hope this is something they will take into adult life.

Larry
 
there was a time when i use to love to hear and tell those kinds of jokes, too. now people tell me i'm too sensitive and to "lighten up". they ask me where my sense of humor went. i say "in another direction".
 
I'm always surprised at how much we laugh in our group therapy sessions, not at each other but with each other.

We don't laugh at jokes, but at the absurdity of some of the situations we've ended up as we lived our dysfunctional lives, and sometimes at the situations we still find ourselves in.

Humour can, I think, be used in two ways. Firstly as a release, one that makes it easier for someone to tell a particuarly difficult story.
I once fought my way out of an acting out situation with another man, and I can relate that story in two ways. I now tell it the funny way, because I can see it as a scene out of a bad 'Animal House' type movie. But I could tell it absolutely straight, which would 'ask' the listener to be sympathetic.
I don't want sympathy, but I do tell the story because I want to be understood, and I can do it better through emphasising the utter madness of two grown men fighting in a toilet cubicle both with their pants down!

The other use of humour is as I said in my other post as a method of spreading hatred and belittling a particular person or group. Most people who do this stand out a mile, and I either tell them to "shut the f**k up" or I walk away.

Dave
 
I liked Larrys post a lot, cos I was wondering its not just the joke yeah? Theres something else? I remember there was that gay kid out west somewhere some homophobes beat him up & left him to die tied to a fence. That sux. Its from intolerance I guess & "fag" jokes let us think intolerance is okay & funny.

In our family my Dad does sorta what Larry does, maybe a bit diffrent cos were a crowd of 5 brothers. Dad explained why cruel jokes are bad news & he gave us the example of "nigger" jokes & what do we think of them now we know our Uncle Eddie - cos hes black. That was easy to see. Then he got me & Mike 4 a diffrent chat & he told us that its our job to make sure our littler brothers understand & listen about this cos its really important. So now its cool cos Mike & me have the responsibility & our brothers get reminded a lot & its from us.

My Mom thinks guys have gross jokes - period. Her thing is nobody should say really bad words in the house. Sometimes we say "fuck" just to see if she hears it - & she does!!! Moms have radar for that. One time my Dad was fixing something on the landing upstairs & he slipped & hes coming down the steps half falling & half twisting around & hes coming down along with all the tools & all the nails & all the wood & the ladder & everything, & hes trying to stop everything from coming down the steps along with him. It was cool he was okay, but what really rocked was he used all the bad words b4 he got to the bottom of the steps with all that stuff. I guess thats off the subject but Im leavin it in. :D

Kev
 
i handle pedo jokes quite well, i laugh with it. life is too short to be upset all the time, what has happened is in the past, might as well derive some humor from it...

i can never take things too seriously, but thats just me. even if something bad happens i will make a joke out of it. it makes me feel better
 
Guys my age joke about sex all the time and that's cool (I do it too) but grownups telling jokes about kids is never funny. It stays inside my head for a long time and makes me disappear. It's like saying "names can never hurt me", of course they can! I'm still hurting, the abuse changed everything. When people joke about kids being abused I feel like they're saying "it's not a big deal, get over it".
 
one time I was at a party and some girl made a comment "oh well! you know what they say: incest is best!" And I replied "You're the first person whose eever told me they actually enjoyed it!" That shut her up.
 
In my grade everyone is still testing out cuss words and names of anatomy. It's weird and awkward for me, usually I just tune them out. Sometimes it gets to me, like when people tell Michael Jackson jokes, those are the worst to me.
 
I just needed to add another two cents worth for thought -
I was thinking about all of the postings and the bottom line reason for these types of jokes. I have a neighbor who works for a news station. When a horrific tragedy occurs or they witness as newspeople something completely incomprehensible or so awful that they can't cope with it, they tend to make jokes for the first week or so. It's their way of dealing with the horrible things that happen.
Then, there are the jokes that make fun of minorities... I think that those stem from someone's need to make a group lesser than themselves. In other words, if I have poor self esteem, I tell a joke about a minority group and that makes them "beneath me."
What these people don't realize is that they are actually degrading themselves and perpetuating prejudice.
I've even seen members of minority groups call each other the same names that others call them. I think that this also serves to perpetuate prejudice.
I think the best way to deal with it is to not participate. If someone wants to know why I don't laugh, my response is always the same - no matter WHAT the joke is: I find it in bad taste and offensive to me.
that requires no explanation, nor do I have to divulge any personal information.

Sophiesdad
 
Sometimes I think that absurd situations create the best jokes.

Stevie Wonder called as a defence witness in the Michael Jackson case.

"And did you see anything untoward at Neverland Mr Wonder"?

Now come on - even the defence should have spotted that one a mile off!

I'm neither racist or against people with disabilities but that is one joke that anyone can see. It certainly does not detract from the case, but it does show how absurd these Hollywood types can be (oops does that belittle the minority group of celebrities?).

So the defence team has created the best Michael Jackson joke so far, without having a crack at the victims.

Best wishes ...Rik
 
I have sometime have problem with jokes of other things that are personal to me,not just of abuse. Other things, like of race or religion, I have harder feeling of how to deal with them. So I just say 'ok' or nothing at all. But it seem wrong.

Andrei
 
Its funny that I would pick this post to read today...but I did. I came after being shown a "really funny" joke...pictures from last halloween. A good friend and co-worked went as a priest, not jsut any priest, but the preist with the blow up boy taped to his gown...extremely distastful and hard for me to take, looking at it like it was me again :( . I know people don't mean to do stuff like this and I usually am one all for the humor, but it still hurts....

cc
 
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