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There's certainly a bunch of humour that relies on saying things that are normally verboten. I think that's indisputable. I think it's also indisputable that groups of people have jokes between themselves that they find entertaining based on commonly held assumptions or on the basis that everyone understands that they're being ironic or that part of the humour is on them saying something so terrible and incongruous.
Unfortunately, the thing about humour is that if you rely on common understandings to make the humour work and you rely on the idea that you're saying something scandalous or controversial to make it particularly funny, then you're taking a risk. If someone else doesn't hold those assumptions and doesn't know or trust you, then you have to accept that from their point of view you just said something really appalling and thought it was reasonable.
Basically if you rely on being edgy to be funny, then some people are going to think it's on the wrong side of that edge, and to be honest, they're entitled to get angry about it and shout at you.
I think it's reasonable to try and persuade them that it was meant in a funny way, and reasonable to try and convince them that you're not meaning it seriously. It's perfectly reasonable to also argue that they should have more of a sense of humour. After all, you can fundamentally say what you want. You wouldn't want your speech chilled arbitrarily for some abstract concept of offense. But having said that, a reasonable person does not continue to say things that cause offense unnecessarily. Social pressure comes in there.
Bluntly, what it comes right down to is that a joke like the two black eyes sort of relies on an unspoken agreement that while you'd never do these kinds of things in some ways commonly understood between men it might be a light-hearted fantasy solution to the problem of incessantly talking women. Now—again—between men who are comfortable with each other and who know full well that it's a satire that they couldn't conceive of ever thinking about in real life, well perhaps they'd feel justified in finding it funny. But I don't think you could legitimately claim to be surprised that female members of the board might not find it funny or might already feel vulnerable enough in their relationships with men. And I don't think you could be surprised that other men felt a desire to stand up for those women. |
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