h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's probably best not to clog the Jokes conversation up with this.

I'm not posting here to sound off at you...rather hoping to continue a discussion on friendly terms. Honest! And hoping to raise your consciousness, of course.

but do you *really* think that the "stools" joke is fair comment? Does it not equate homosexuality with constant, unhygenic sex (ignoring the fact that anal sex is proportinally as prevalent amongst heterosexuals and therefore numerically more prevalent)? And is this a polite way to treat a section of our society?

The Charles Hawtry example is reasonable enough...and also funny! I also liked Boy George's comment: "Clearly God meant us to enjoy gay sex, or else why did he put the male clitoris up there?"

But isn't that kind of humour a little different? Its the subversion of the majority view. Yes, there is also a lot of that in Jewish humour. But it doesn't oppress. Rather, it's the 'little man' fighting back. Example: One of my favourite jokes:

There's this priest and rabbi who find themselves together in a railway compartment over a long journey. So, they get chatting, and eventually the talk turns to their respective religions.
The priest says, "Tell me...your religion forbids pork. But I bet you've eaten bacon."
And the Rabbi says, "Well, yes, I must admit, in my youth I had the odd sandwich."
So the priest says, "and I bet you enjoyed it!"
And the rabbi says "Well, yes...it was a bit salty, but quite tasty. But tell me...you're a Catholic priest, and you're meant to be celibate. But have you ever had sex?"
And the priest says, "Well, yes, I do admit I have my 'outlets.'"
So the rabbi says, "It's a lot nicer than bacon, isn't it?"

See what I mean? This joke *overturns* prejudice.

I find it highly unlikely that this can continue in a 'friendly' manner, your opinion on the content of jokes is of no interest to me.

My reason for responding to your threats regarding the Joke page was that I found your attitude arrogant and overbearing. You received an apology almost immediately and yet still saw fit to warn this researcher to be more careful of his/her content in future - by what authority do you do that. These pages are monitored by staff both paid and unpaid who do an excellent job, all you had to do was bring it to their attention.

In other postings I note with interest that you refer to some people as 'ignorami' also you 'seek to raise my consciousness', I suggest that the only thing you are likely to raise in me is my blood pressure.

I have no idea to what position in Society you have appointed yourself but I have no intention of being controlled by it.

With any sort of luck this will be one of the shortest threads in the History of h2g2.

Bye bye, bigot.