Waitaminute, do what to whom? In the where?

There are swears in this post.

Recently, Shauna Hunt, a reporter with CityNews television in Toronto, was filming a story outside a soccer game. Some fellows hanging around waited until the camera was rolling and then shouted “Fuck her in the pussy!” (heretofore shortened to FHITP). This ‘videobombing’ is one ‘a them…whattayacallems…odious viral behaviours originating supposedly from a newscaster’s blooper reel. You can read up on how the whole thing got started here. Ms. Hunt, clearly fed up to high heaven with this kind of idiocy, confronted the FHITPers and asked them why they thought that sort of thing was okay. Their response? “Because it’s funny.” “Because I didn’t mean it at you specifically, but for everyone.” “You’re too sensitive.” Today, the jackwagon doing the shouting was let go by his employer for his stupidity.

So, lest I be marked forever with the scarlet TS of “too sensitive”, I want to just assplain some things. Let’s start with a few premises:

1) I LOVE obscenities. I love SHOUTING obscenities. Obscenities are pleasing in my mouth, like delicious balls (snigger) of cookie dough or ice cream smothered in dark chocolate. Like pretty much anything drenched in garlic butter. I also recognise there are acceptable times and places for shouting obscenities. To wit: upon injury; following Great Consternation; to express frustration with one’s sports escapades; during any election; before, during, or after a physical altercation. Likewise and similarly, there are definitely times when obscenities ought to be whispered or thought about rather than shouted. To wit: at most religious observances; at the dinner table with Grandmother; in a grocery store; most places in public, provided one has not fallen prey to Grievous Injury, Great Consternation, or Physical Altercation.

2) Protests are important means by which people, unhappy with or uncomfortable with the status quo may garner attention for their cause. It’s okay for protests to disrupt citizens’ comfort, ease of access to public buildings or other services, provided the protests are not violent, and that the protests cause no harm.

3) Harassment, according to the Canadian Human Rights Code, is “any unwanted physical or verbal behaviour that offends or humiliates you” (http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/eng/content/what-harassment).

4) As Canadians, we have the right to free speech. The right to say whatever the fuck you want ends when it becomes illegal. Like when you promote hatred, intolerance, violence, or when your speech becomes harassing.

These are facts. We might disagree on some of the details of these facts, but in general, it’s pretty tough to say “that’s not what harassment is” when in fact, Canada says that’s what it is. So. Given those premises:

Running up behind (or milling about behind) a female reporter so that you can shout FHITP into her microphone so that it gets broadcast on television is harassment. Unless that reporter has asked you to please do that, of course, in which case, the entire argument is moot. Why is it harassment? Because by and large, that is unwanted verbal behaviour that is offensive and humiliating. How is it humiliating? Because the reporter whose microphone you are hollering at is a professional. It is her job to stand in the street and report on current events. If you would not run up behind a doctor in the operating room and holler “FHITP!”, don’t do it to a reporter. If you wouldn’t run up behind a teacher and holler “FHITP!”, don’t do it to a reporter. If you wouldn’t run up behind a construction worker and shout “FHITP!”, don’t do it to a reporter.

Let’s extend that a bit. If you wouldn’t run up behind a MALE reporter, doctor, teacher, construction worker, and yell “FHITP!”, don’t do it to a female one.

I get that you want to see yourself acting like a douche on TeeVee. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame. Some people want their fifteen minutes of fame to be because of their hard work, their achievements, their puppies, or their heartbreak. You, on the other hand, clearly want your fifteen minute of fame to be for acting like a twatwhistle in front of your mates because either you are fuelled with liquor or you are fuelled with idiocy. The only people who think that choads acting badly are funny are other choads who act badly. (Note: I steal that term, insulting as it is, quite liberally from my friend Arnisador who encounters choads on a regular basis in his work as a bouncer at Choad Nightly, the downtown dance/nightclub)

Insulting and threatening people because they have different anatomy than you do really isn’t the height of comedic genius. I realise this comes as quite a surprise, but unless you’re eleven and still think “well oh yeah? At least I don’t have BOOBIES” is an appropriate comeback for anything, U, as they say, R DOIN IT RONG. Clearly you don’t understand how shouting something obscene into a television reporter’s camera is threatening or insulting behaviour, so let’s just take a minute to drill down into that, shall we? This won’t take long.

Just because someone has a vagina doesn’t mean they want your penis in, on, or anywhere near it. Your penis really isn’t that special, and while making an earnest and heartfelt appeal to be allowed to place your penis in proximity to someone’s vagina can sometimes actually result in being granted permission, more often than not, that has more to do with mutual attraction, intelligence, and actual humour than it does with the suggestion itself. Now, if you didn’t actually WANT to put your penis in, on, or around someone’s vagina, why on earth would you be shouting it? Are you advocating that someone else do it? The chances of fucking-by-proxy are quite low, no matter how many times you have read Cyrano de Bergerac.

In this particular case, the reporter, Ms. Hunt, confronted the harassing warts and asked them why they thought it was okay to do what they’d done. Their responses range from “because it’s funny” to “everyone does it” to “it wasn’t directed at you so calm down”. When she asked if they thought their moms would find it funny, the response was “eventually, yeah, she’d find it hilarious.” I think what he meant was that “once my mother gets over being mortified that I would do such a thing, because she really did raise me to be better than this and has no idea that my opinion of women is kind of between tongue fuzz and fuck dolls, she might find the fact that I was filmed being a complete douchefart kind of funny because of the talking-to I got from the reporter.”

Some things you see on television (or on the internet) should not be repeated. Jumping off of a roof, for instance, jumping from one moving vehicle to another, picking up your children from school in the nude, shouting harassing things to, at, or near a reporter…all of these things are pretty much just bad ideas. Smart people understand that.

But I want an answer to one of Ms. Hunt’s questions – how would you like it if I walked up behind you at your work and shouted “fuck him in the asshole”? Is that something you would find funny? How about if I did it in front of your boss? In front of your mom? How about if I got my friend Noah to do it? Just some random stranger running up behind you at your office, or your kiosk, or your workstation, and shouting that? Think that’d be funny? Maybe I should get a bunch of people together and we can all come and do that during one of your classes or one of your exams. Maybe while you’re doing your banking. Maybe while you’re on a date. Does that sound like it might be embarrassing? Because if it does, there’s a good chance it’s harassment.

Harassment, by the way, is illegal in Canada. So the reason you lost your job, buttmunch, is because you engaged in illegal activity, ON TELEVISION. You also demonstrated that you have no respect for other people, and that you think it’s okay to shout obscenities at someone just because she has a vagina and a camera.

 

Comments

6 responses to “Waitaminute, do what to whom? In the where?”

  1. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar

    It is SO unfortunate that the gentleman (and I use that term VERY lightly) is probably not going to read this, nor would it soothe him after being fired.

    I’m sure his boss is delighted to get rid of him, with cause. People who do one set of things often think another set of equally annoying and harassing things are ALSO okay. They are not.

    Tell it like it is.

    Just don’t let the children read it.

  2. kevvyd Avatar

    Nicely played. Nicely played.

  3. albertaD Avatar
    albertaD

    well said.

  4. cenobyte Avatar

    Thanks, all.

  5. Arnisador Avatar
    Arnisador

    I’m just happy to see the term “choad” used in another forum. And happy at the image of Noah walking over to random people. This entry is just full of happy for me :)

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      You’re welcome.

i make squee noises when you tell me stuff.

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