I’m excited for this new section because it will create a competition to make the most ridiculous and terribly offensive names. Good job Vox. (this is not sarcastic in any way. This is the best weekly section that vox has done in my time here. We work hard to come up with creative names each week and it’s time our genius was recognized.)

What sucks more: Molly Redden’s sense of humor

Yeah seriously Molly, when will you realize that jokes about rape, involuntary abortion, women being bad at sports, women using sex to get jobs, and equations of homosexuality with bad or lame things are not only uproariously hilarious but also amongst the most unique contributions to the history of comedy since, I don’t know, EVER. Go make me a sammich.

it’s funny that vox is now giving a dizz about political correctness.

Thanks for maintaining the unique atmosphere that makes you such a great Georgetown institution.

There’s absolutely nothing offensive about that first runner-up’s name.

the belly laughs on Monday nights are sooooo worth the un-PC and ribald team nomenclature

Definitely with NGM here. These team names are offensive. They normalize these horrible attitudes to perpetrators, and must make past victims of sexual abuse extremely uncomfortable. Especially when something like 1 in 4 women have been victims of sexual abuse, hearing references to rape, forced abortion, and exploitation, followed by laughter, etc. only serves to make an extremely gut-wrenching, emotional subject worse.

And blah, this isn’t about political correctness. This isn’t about soothing egos, or minimizing uncomfortable differences. This is about the very real men and women who have suffered abuse, some of whom are friends are mine, that these team names trivialize and reduce to comedy.

What a disgrace to Georgetown. Seriously – let’s go out and copy the worst of Yale douchebaggery. http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/10/17/yale-frat-pledges-chant-no-means-yes-yes-means-anal/

Embarrassing. And I was thinking we had left the whole DMT labs / porn stars shame behind us. Guess not.

Preach it, Molly!

Wanna get PC? Change your website’s banner from that FUCKING ORANGE SNEAKER STEPPING ON THE UNIVERSITY SEAL.

Good Lord people, lighten up. Look at this from an outside point of view: It’s a bunch of drunk people on a Monday night in a restaurant basement answering bullsh** pop culture questions. It’s not a forum on human rights. The girl running this thing has her boobs popping out of her shirt and some of the music played is probably more offensive than these team names. Here’s a novel idea: If you don’t like how crass it is, stop whining, and DON’T COME!

Is stepping on the seal un-pc? Nothing makes for a good comment like a non sequitur. Keeping bringing the heat, dude.

@Doug The team names may or may not be offensive, but either way that’s life. Babying these “friends” of yours isn’t going to make reality outside the Georgetown bubble any easier on them. The pussification of America is a popular trend but the backlash has to start somewhere. I’m not going to nominate Tombs but it’s good to know some people don’t want us all to walk around with football helmets on and earplugs in.

P.S. The team names aren’t offensive.

I agree with the above post, but I gotta say the Gay-daffi one is lame. I know as a closeted guy it would be kinda hurtful hearing that every time they announced points.

@Yeah, but…

So, the only one you think is offensive is the one having to do with you? As an out gay guy, I think that’s pretty vile. If you had more than a thimbleful of empathy, you would find the rest offensive as well.

+1. I’m glad there are other people at Georgetown who recognize the reality of life. The bastion of liberal bullshit being promoted on this website only serves to further jade readers into thinking “this” is how the rest of the world works.

Can everyone just shut the heck up??!

Your justification for acting like a dick is basically, there are bad people in the world, so it’s ok to behave badly. You’re not helping America–you’re just an asshole.

Not that it matters or anything, but it seemed pretty obvious that the \No means Yes\ team was about 27 years old in average age. No way they were undergraduates.

Definitely think these are funny, if they weren’t then people wouldn’t laugh. I think we are marginalizing the participants artistic merit and the creativity that goes into making such serious and offensive things so hilarious. I highly doubt that the participants of “Number of stairs I kicked my girlfriend down when said she was pregnant” find the action actually acceptable (because we all know there are more effective means of preventing pregnancy!).

@F (me) I am in no way condoning sexual assault, rape or discrimination of any type. I am only asking people to realize that it happens and it is an inescapable fact of reality. Stop defining your friends who have experienced these things as victims and treat them like real members of society who can handle some creative humor and aren’t in need of your pity. Furthermore, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in Tombs on a Monday night who actually believes their team name so suck it up.

@ Plan B Exactly. I’m not about to go kicking pregnant women down stairs as a means of abortion. But there’s no reason why we can’t collectively laugh at the people who do find that acceptable. They are obviously less intelligent than we are and should be ridiculed as such. :)

Won’t somebody please think of the children!

If I cared what you have to say, I’d take my dick out of your mouth.

Keep yo head up.

I am really interested in this topic because the Tombs is such a cool place to go to.

TOOOMBBSSSS! So legit.

I’d rather lax at Rhino

@the other side of the coin:
I believe you when you say no one explicitly agrees with the sentiments expressed in the team names. My issue however, is that turning these types of extremely traumatic experiences into a joke, when there are very good odds that someone in the audience has gone through these kinds of experiences or something similar, creates a whole lot of issues that I would never wish on anyone. Telling people to just get over it and laugh at it denies the very real pain that’s often still there.

I’m not asking everyone to change their name to “God loves you.” I’m just saying that team names that try to turn rape, abuse, and exploitation into a joke can be very hurtful, intentionally or not, to a large number of people.

see you guys at rhino tonight

i actually really appreciated this. a lot of georgetown students have lived pretty sheltered, privileged lives and have no idea what the real world is like beyond the hilltop, or their typical enclaves. its not a matter of politically correct, we could put that label on anything and dismiss it as silly people being sensitive. but hey, lets start calling rape victims silly! if you were raped, how would you feel? or gay? or abused in a relationship? I think you can safely say that there are people at georgetown who have suffered or been ostracized like that, and more beyond the hilltop. so to those coming up with these names – you are contributing to a hateful and punishing environment for people who aren’t straight white men. stop it.

“I am in no way condoning sexual assault, rape or discrimination of any type. I am only asking people to realize that it happens and it is an inescapable fact of reality.”

You know why rape is “an inescapable fact of reality”? Because we live in a rape culture—a culture that, for instance, views jokes about rape and sexual assault and the subjugation of women as “creative humor.” There is nothing inevitable about rape and sexual assault—these things are products of a culture that promotes an extremely misogynistic breed of masculinity, condones systematic sexism, and refuses to acknowledge women as full human beings rather than objects. So yes, by condoning/promoting these kinds of jokes, you are condoning/promoting rape culture.

So, to you and your straight white male privilege, I say: FUCK YOU.

Guy above me is a total ninny

Deadspin’s rules come to mind: “First, be funny. Second, do not not be funny. Third, don’t be a fucking idiot.” It seems like those names fell into all three categories.

Some of the names at trivia have a comic value in a Gilbert Gottfried, shock humor way. Laughing at those jokes doesn’t make you a misogynistic douchebag because the mindset that writes the team names ends with the writing of the team names. Georgetown “should feel ashamed” when one of its students pushes his pregnant girlfriend down the stairs, not when someone makes an off-color remark at a bar on Monday night. Let the amateur comics have their 20 seconds of fame, and fuck the haters if they can’t take a joke.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and advocate for our rape culture, the subjugation of women as “creative humor,” systematic sexism, and straight white male privilege.

Who’s with me?

Such a ninny.

@Matt, agreed. I don’t think the tomb’s trivia names are anything more than a joke regardless of their (at times) idiocy and “offensiveness”. For example: “Gay-daffi” is not offensive. It’s just dumb. Joke fail.

@@other side of the coin, Just because an individual is typically in the majority and has “straight white male privilege” (which I am not denying exists in many circumstances), doesn’t mean that there aren’t constantly offensive things said towards those individuals as well. Straight white males can also be in the minority in many other situations, so to your insensitivity i say fuck you.

Also, when people make fun of me or something about my person, character, or experience I’ve had, I don’t get all wound up about it. There are terrible things in life that happen to people, but it shouldn’t restrict people from talking about or referencing it, even in a comedic fashion. A lot of people are short, something they can’t control, something that is a part of them, does that mean we can’t make jokes about midgets? I feel like if you’re a midget (or just short) and you can’t laugh at or at least just dismiss a joke about it (even a dumb one) then you have bigger problems. (Yes, rape and abuse is different than being short, but work with me on the connection here)

Guess what? I’m a queer female survivor of both rape and relationship abuse and I go to Georgetown. In fact, I experienced both rape and relationship abuse as a student at our fine university at the hands of fellow students, so don’t tell ME we’re in some sort of liberal utopia PC wimpfied bubble. Those guys were the same ones that hung out at the Tombs for trivia a few years ago and would have been regarded by the commentariat here as awesome bros. Every time you laugh at a joke that condones this kind of shit, even if you would never do something like it yourself, you are giving that guy who would do it your implicit support. Trust me.

Keep kicking ass and pointing out bullshit, Molly.

a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

It has nothing to do with hurting people’s feelings or being politically incorrect. All of you who are defending these \jokes\ are condoning a culture of violence against women. You all may not be rapists, but you’re supporting the culture that allows rapists to get away with rape. Misogyny is not a \fact of life.\ We can change the culture when we call people out on their bullshit. This is fucking bullshit.

I’m embarrassed, and frankly frightened, to be your classmate.

akakakakakakakakakakakakakaka

Yes, you should be so frightened and embarrassed of people who can have a sense of humor. No one is condoning any of these things you’re saying. While culture has marginalized many of these issues, intentionally comedic efforts such as trivia team names at the Tombs in no way promote, condone, support, or engender an atmosphere of acceptance of these behaviors. I’d like to think that groups of Georgetown students above the age of 21 understand that the names are purely for humorous purposes and no one actually takes any value away from them. I’d like to think we are mature enough for that.

Do you really think that because these people are 21 and understand that these are not behaviors to condone, that it makes it ok? No one would have made a racist team name about slavery because a/ it wouldn’t be funny, b/ it would be offensive and c/ they’d get the crap beat out of them. There aren’t the same attitudes surrounding racism as there should be around sexism, and this is a perfect example of this complete lack of disregard. Even if they thought that the team names were ok, I will give these people the benefit of the doubt and say that they wouldn’t have made these same jokes directly to the face of people they knew had gone through rape, forced abortion or domestic abuse. The fact that they did make those trivializing jokes in public probably shows they think the world they live in is completely devoid of these things, and that surely not a single person inside Tombs at that moment would be personally offended. They might think that these are \terrible things in life that happen to people\ and these are \inescapable facts of reality\, but they need to understand that these are \terrible things\ that people face right here on campus in their immediate reality, including to their friends and family–and that they are doing absolutely nothing to help stop it by making jokes about it, in public (or private).

“You know why rape is “an inescapable fact of reality”? Because we live in a rape culture—a culture that, for instance, views jokes about rape and sexual assault and the subjugation of women as “creative humor.” There is nothing inevitable about rape and sexual assault—these things are products of a culture that promotes an extremely misogynistic breed of masculinity, condones systematic sexism, and refuses to acknowledge women as full human beings rather than objects. So yes, by condoning/promoting these kinds of jokes, you are condoning/promoting rape culture.

So, to you and your straight white male privilege, I say: FUCK YOU.”

I’d say this is patently false. Rape is more a byproduct of our animalistic tendencies (using force to mate) than a product of our culture. I think sometimes people forget that we are animals.

So, to you and your human privilege, I say: Fuck you and learn some real science as opposed to the pseudo-science called “Social Science.”

[...] Untoward ribaldry at the Tombs. [...]

If you’re offended, don’t show up. And in the meantime, shut he f*** up

Most of these aren’t particularly funny, but I see nothing wrong with the Miller Lite girl one. In this case, the subject of the mocking can just as easily be seen to be Miller Lite, which hires women to do nothing but be attractive, party, and paint Miller Lite logos on their naked breasts.

@Straight White Male: We’re not talking about a hypothetical situation where straight white dudes are in the minority and being subject to “constantly offensive” jokes. We’re talking about the reality of Georgetown students considering it hilarious to make jokes targeting rape victims, women, and gays. I didn’t say “fuck straight white males” (although, full disclosure, I do often fuck straight males—sometimes even white ones!); I said “fuck straight white male privilege”—which hinges on the inability to recognize problems as legitimate if they don’t apply to said straight white dudes, something you seem to have a healthy dose of yourself.

@oh please: What you’re talking about is evolutionary psychology, which draws from (among other fields) anthropology and sociology—which are, gasp, social sciences. I assume you’re taking your cues from books like “A Natural History of Rape.” Those kinds of theories are by no means uncontested—for a good analysis check out http://www.jstor.org/pss/1290397 or http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/29/rape/print.html

Without getting too bogged down in the scholarly back and forth, though, on a very basic level it makes no sense to say culture doesn’t have an impact on rape and sexual assault. Because if culture played no role in encouraging rape and it was solely an evolutionary adaptation, the rate of rape around the world to be fairly constant, which it is not.

@oh please

Please do this campus a favor and reveal your real name so that everyone in your immediate vicinity can get the fuck away from you. Good god man, do you fucking attack people on the street because they looked at your food? I think you’re the one who should probably back away from the “pseudo-science” and stop making generalized claims about the entire human race based on a Discovery Channel special you saw once on duck mating. When we talk about a culture which accepts and condones rape, we are talking specifically about you and your bullshit “well animals do it and you can’t stop a man when he wants something right hehhehehheh” attitude. For anyone who think feminists hate men, look to this guy for the real man-haters. Men are predisposed to rape? Shit, I really don’t want to live in your world or in your gender, so I’ll just be in my nice “pseudo-scientific” “I think men don’t naturally sexually assault 25% of the female population and we can change” box.

-Rex

PS Again, please stay away from me and anyone I know. I can’t afford to get rabies this time in the year.

I’m intrigued by the competing rape joke comparisons that showed up in the comments above. On the one hand, you have someone defending our right to joke about rape because bad things happen in life—like being unusually short.

“A lot of people are short, something they can’t control, something that is a part of them, does that mean we can’t make jokes about midgets? I feel like if you’re a midget (or just short) and you can’t laugh at or at least just dismiss a joke about it (even a dumb one) then you have bigger problems. (Yes, rape and abuse is different than being short, but work with me on the connection here)”

On the other hand, you’ve got someone saying that rape jokes are like racist jokes.

“No one would have made a racist team name about slavery because a/ it wouldn’t be funny, b/ it would be offensive and c/ they’d get the crap beat out of them.”

Let’s think about that first one. That commenter does the “yeah, I realized being raped is not like being short” song and dance, but to him or her, there’s still a relevant connection. What is that connection, exactly? Sometimes, bad things just happen to people, like being short, and that’s life. So … sometimes you’re going to get raped, and that’s life? Or maybe his or her argument is, sometimes, someone is going to make fun of something that stings you personally, but their comments are generally going to be considered funny, and that’s life? I’d say the sting of being made fun of for being short is different than the sting of having someone make light of an experience that is traumatic, scarring, and socially stigmatized.

There is no connection between jokes about being short and jokes about rape. Someone who is short doesn’t go through the the fear and pain of having to tell their new boyfriend that as an undergrad, they were raped, so they’re going to have to take it slow. Or tell their parents that they suffered sexual assault. Or go to a trauma counselor because they were assaulted. Or go through two rounds of invasive STD testing because they were raped. Or have serious issues whenever they meet strangers after the fact. Short jokes? Are you fucking kidding me?

Rape jokes are like racist jokes. They hurt because they reference something real and horrible. When a black person hears the ‘N’ word, they may recall that they have a direct ancestor who was lynched. They may recall that thanks to two hundred years of racism, they’re going to meet people all their lives who don’t take them seriously as job candidates or neighbors. They may have been called that word before, and hearing it may remind them that people in this world use language like that to make them feel like dirt.

Racism is not the same as rape. But both come with a serious dose of pain. Being made fun of for being short? not so much.

There is nothing inconsistent about abhorring rape and violence against women while at the same time getting a little laugh out of a silly, offensive trivia team name that plays on those two things. They’re funny precisely because the topic is so wrong, and the names are kind of stupid, and they make people shake their heads and chuckle “Wow, that’s wrong and kind of stupid.” If we were all desensitized to rape and violence and consider them trivial (which is what those who are offended seem to posit), then a joke about rape would be as empty and bland as a joke about the billion other trivial things/actions that mean nothing to us and that don’t get laughs at a bar (e.g., celery, used cars, asphalt, airplanes, crutches, staplers, clouds, picnic benches, bowling, juggling, having pleasant conversations, eating, running, watching TV). The very reason the names get laughs is because the subject matter, at its core, appals the vast, vast majority of people, and so such casual, flippant references are unexpected and absurd.

Moreover, drawing entertainment from something does not condone anything about it. Does “Anchor Man” condone a culture of poor journalism? Does “Titanic” condone the building of inferior ships? Does “Twelfth Night” condone cross-dressing and deception (with sexy results)? Does “Hop on Pop” condone the act of jumping up and down on one’s father? Does “Sesame Street” condone living in a trash can or befriending a 9-foot-tall bird?

Let’s get a grip, people.

Students who came up with \Gay-daffi\: please report to my office Friday to be expelled from the SFS.

That is all, students.

My favorite part about this is the hippies bitching about \a rape culture\ which I’m sure no one can explain to me are the same liberals lobbying for extended furlough programs for convicted felons and the elimination of life sentencing. Yeah, but drunk people at Tombs are the real problem.

When did we all get so sensitive? Laugh if you want to, don’t if you don’t. Who are you people to draw the line? Who are you to determine moral piety? Comedians like Carlin, Pryor, Hicks, Maher, Chapelle, Dangerfield…allll made successful careers and earned spots in American culture by marginalizing and degrading various races, women, and religions. Why? Because people laugh.

So here are the two constants: 1) I don’t care if you think I have a disgusting sense of humor. 2) Anyone can find anything offensive. So I’ll end this by saying the most offensive things aren’t rape jokes or sexist remarkts…it’s Dane Cook fans.

I’m really bummed I didn’t see any of you at Rhino last night…

@peanut allergy, first off, I explicitly said that rape and abuse are different than being short. I realize being short (generally) lacks a violent past that inherently accompanies rape and abuse. But what about the people who were beat up and bullied because they were smaller than everyone else? Is there then more of a connection? (No, I’m not saying it will be on the same level of how traumatic the other two are, but this is an analogy and I hope you can see that both can be mentally and emotionally scarring). The connection is two-part: 1. There is a similar “sting” that is felt when someone insults or offends something about your person or something that has happened to you that you might not be comfortable with, and 2) that it is in fact something that is part of who you are and what you’ve experienced. Like @mike said, laugh if you want to, don’t if you don’t. I agree that many of the names are dumb and a poor attempt at humor, but that doesn’t mean they’re offensive.

Here’s one for next week:

My couch might pull out, but I don’t.

Hoyas Suck!
The humor is juvenile.
The basketball team is a bunch of chokers.
The coach should be fired.
The newspaper should get serious and quit printing this crap.
The Tombs management should throw the bums out.

@That guy Not nearly offensive enough and already been done. #stepyourgameup

This is relatively simple. Everyone who has read this now knows that these jokes hurt a lot of people at Georgetown. Like anything else, you can choose to ignore that information. But the people that have been hurt can’t choose to not feel pain. If you didn’t know the magnitude of gender violence (against women and LGBT) in this community, now you do. If you don’t care, I think you should ask yourself why not.

Lots of Muslims get upset about images of Mohammad: does that mean we should stop drawing them???

Interesting that you draw that comparison. Derogatory images of Muhammed come from a place of ignorance and intolerance and are often used to scandalize Islam. Similarly, jokes about rape come from a place of ignorance and misogyny–which begs the question, what is it they intend to accomplish?

While I don’t think it’s productive to weigh different suffering against one another, I think it’s fair to say that religious/political beliefs and related feelings of marginalization are also quite different from the physical and psychological trauma of sexual assault.

But the important point here is that this is not some Dutch cartoonist we are talking about, these are people in our community. Given first hand accounts from our peers on this thread, I think it is clear that a lot of people are directly affected by this problem. So why not err on the side of caution–and respect.

The way I see it, these kinds of team names are funny in the same way that dead-baby jokes are funny to some people.
In many instances, humor is a thin red line (PC). The closer you get to that line the funnier something could be.
However, once you reach the line or cross it, you better go FAR FAR beyond it that what you have to say or joke about is patently absurd, and the humor is in the absurdity of it.
Nobody with an understanding of the forms and consequences of, let’s say, rape (generalizing here, i know, just go with it) finds it funny. That said, when something like a team name like “Yes means no, no means anal” touches on the subject, it does so in a way that absurd.
Rape is an uncomfortable topic, yes. People often laugh to cope with glossed-over uncomfortable topics. I for one refuse to condemn someone that would chuckle at such an absurd take on a serious topic. It’s a way to cope with the absurd.

Would you make a “dead-baby joke” in front of someone that had lost a child? Because that’s the risk you’re taking every time you make a joke about sexual assault. Except for unlike the former, you KNOW that the latter happens to 1/4 women in college and some of them have told you on this thread how much it hurts them…

I am a girl and I laughed out loud really hard when read those team names.

That is all.

*when I read those team names.

I mean, the issue here isn’t whether these people should be punished by Georgetown. They shouldn’t. Crass, insensitive, offensive, whatever you want to call it, it’s free speech. The correct response is the one done here — engaging in the marketplace of ideas to produce better speech, and let these people know that their speech really does harm some members of the community — clearly, members at trivia at Tombs itself.

My problem with the team names aren’t so much that they touch offensive subjects; it’s that they’re just so crude and sophomoric. The Heckler had some hilarious takes on these issues — e.g. “Take Back The Night Concedes the Night To Georgetown Cuddler in Solemn Surrender Ceremony,” or “Pride Party Pretty Gay, MSB Bro Reports.” One satirizes the countless simple campus safety messages that are routinely disregarded by students, like locking one’s doors, that allow the Cuddler entry, while the other more makes fun of bros than GU Pride. “No means yes, yes means anal,” is just, well, crude in comparison.

Listen, bottom line, you want to choose that as your team name? Go right ahead. Hell, slap it on a t-shirt and parade around campus if it makes you feel good. Just know that you’re legitimately traumatizing people on campus who have actually faced sexual assault. Is that worth it for a snickered laugh at Tombs?

@Matt

Not to get off topic, but does the description of the Cuddler in the first Heckler article remind anyone else of Quaddafi?

P.S. ReCaptcha is “Existed Hogmen” = MANBEARPIG!!

By that i meant part with the military garb with the white-stained blanket

The biggest problem is that this has turned into a subjective comparison of what groups of people the majority thinks we’re allowed to levy jokes against. Muslims? Vertically challenged People? Women? Sexual abuse victims? People of different races? Large-breasted women in bud light t-shirts?

So we approach it with an all or nothing mentality. And because no one wants to walk on eggshells forever, we agree that everyone is fair game. And in essense, they are. Laughter is healthy, laughter helps us move on. Laughter is not called the best medicine for no reason. To truly heal or to truly feel comfortable involves being able to one day maybe not laugh at whatever it may be, but to at least not have to run out of a room when the topic comes up.

We can’t ignore these issues. But they are issues that exist in our most serious intellectual discussions and thus they come up also in our basest of conversations. That involves especially, and I cannot stress this enough, in conversations that aim to garner the highest shock value while picking a team in trivia while drunk at the Tombs on a Monday.

So if you think we only need to watch ourselves around rape jokes/marginalizing women jokes, you have being incredibly tunnel-visioned to other groups of people who may have been offended by the team names, and if you think we need to avoid any sort of teasing or crass/insensitive team names that offend people, you are planning to prevent people from ever naming a team, because every one of those team names is going to offend someone.

CAN EVERYBODY PLEASE SHUT UP! I”M TRYING TO FALL ASLEEP!!! GAWD!!!

I don’t believe that 1 in 4 women at Georgetown are victims of sexual violence. I think 6 in 10 women at Georgetown, on at least one occassion, drink too much and the next day, regret how they ended their night. Some of them choose to call that sexual violence. But if a guy regrets a drunken hookup, how many people will take it seriously when he says he’s been “victimized”?*

* There is no evidence that any guy has ever regretted a drunken hookup.

“Those guys were the same ones that hung out at the Tombs for trivia a few years ago and would have been regarded by the commentariat here as awesome bros”

That’s right. ‘Cause guys who go to Tombs are rapists.

I’m not going to try to tell you that I’m different from all the rest/ I’ve been subject to the same de-structure of desire and I’ve felt the same effects/ I’m a hetero-sexist tragedy/ And potential rapists all are we/ But don’t tell me this is natural.

It’s not that hard to be funny without being blatantly offensive. You go to f*cking Georgetown, you should be able to do better than that.

@ J

Your language offends me. Please refrain from using profanities. You go to Georgetown.

[...] Esposito doesn’t approve: Students who came up with Gay-daffi: please report to my office Friday to be expelled from the SFS. [...]

To the people who think that rape jokes, jokes that denigrate women, or make light of exploitation, I’m sure you would think otherwise if your mothers, sisters, or girlfriends, had been the victims of these assaults.

“Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and—as it did here— inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.”

Supreme Court. Read it, if you can, because you’re a woman.

Honestly this article makes me so angry. A few reasons:

1. Many things make me angry, offend me, hurt my feelings, or bring up bad experiences. I choose to ignore them, laugh about them, or avoid them. I’m not American, but I live in this country where freedom of speech is a prized ideal. So just on principle, those of you wanting Tombs to moderate team names are being hypocritical, also because I’m entirely sure that you would be the ones protesting censorship in other countries. To me, it doesn’t matter the level of censorship or whether political or not. On those grounds alone, deal with it or don’t go.

2. I met someone who was going to CAPS to talk about her ‘abusive’ relationship. I learned that this was in fact her having emotional issues because she kept sleeping with her ex-boyfriend when they’d attend the same parties. I highly doubt he forced her to each and every single time. Emotionally and physically, she was responsible for her own behaviour a majority of those times. Reporting that as abuse is what’s actually offensive to people who’ve been through actualy traumatic experiences.

3. Culture obviously plays a role in our behaviour. Kids absorb the culture that surrounds them at home. Simple. But honestly, by the time you’re at Georgetown, if your behaviour is influenced or validated by team names at Trivia night and that is the catalyst for you to go rape someone or abuse them, then you’ve got other issues and need help. If you think that Trivia night is what makes people do this, you also have problems. I understand that it may perpetuate the idea that this behaviour is okay, but really the people that behave that way don’t need the validation of a Trivia team’s name. Just like the people who objectify women don’t do so because they saw a GUGS shirt which reads ‘Grade A, Size D’.

4. I agree with everyone who says we laugh at them because they are such bizarrely wrong and offensive ideas. The humour is absurd.

5. I’m scared for a society where our trivia team names are monitored for appropriateness. It’s just a slippery slope down monitoring so many other things. When do things become inappropriate and offensive? How do you monitor that? That’s taking away someone’s freedom of speech. ‘I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ Boom.

6. As someone who has been subject to endless taunts about my sexuality and my being a minority, and as someone who has actually been sexually abused, I find these team names hilarious. It’s more offensive and hurtful to me to label myself a victim and cry about it than it is to laugh about it with friends and know that they all think it’s absurdly funny how wrong those jokes are.

7. I’m more offended by J.Lo singing ‘Vegas to Africa’ in her latest song and still making millions off of it. I hate the totally incorrect use of ‘Africa’ over here.

@Dave Roffman

I’m assuming from the blog link you’ve posted that you’re a local resident rather than a student, so why are you spending time trolling in such unintelligent fashion? Grow up and get a job. You’re making my Senate Minority-leading mouth get even tighter over here.

As for the issue at hand – obviously no one except Tombs can censor the team names, but it would be helpful if the people who came up with them saw that they were hurting their classmates’ feelings and toned it down. Our team’s taking it down a peg from now on. Sometimes you do things you’re not required to so you can avoid hurting other people’s feelings.

Does anyone realize that these things are funny because they ARE wrong? It’s called dark humor. If I had a team name like “puppies” “socialized healthcare” or “equal pay for equal work”… who would laugh? No one would. The key to this kind of humor is that it creates discord between the solemn reality and the levity of response. These names find their humor in the fact that they are openly dishonest. Yes, we know no doesn’t mean yes, but it’s amusing to think some idiot would be so disconnected with reality to think it were true. In fact, it’s humor that often allows topics to be discussed with frankness. From child abuse to racism, humor removes the social taboo that comes with discussion. It’s the self-conscious and the afraid who wish to end this kind of humor. It’s not to save anyone else, but to defend their weak social constitution.

Response 2: You’re at a bar where people are getting drunk and doing silly things. Get over it.

maybe the issue here is not simply the team names, but rather how the website has chosen to glorify and give prestige to the most offensive ones. There is some room for argument that these team names may be in a college bar with insensitive drunk students, who care less about the feelings or experiences of their peers. Thankfully this is America so those of us who find them offensive are allowed to freely judge them for it, those of us who ignorantly believe that there is no issue with these names may also continue to have the team names. However, it is not the individuals who come up with these team names who we should necessarily blame, but VOX for perpetuating and encouraging this commentary even more than it already is in modern society. By giving the highest praise to the most vile and offensive speaks largely to the values of an institution, and perhaps the institution should be scorned.

@GMan and everyone else making that argument.

I think we should shut down the Tombs and any institution that sells alcohol because it is insensitive to people who have relatives who died of alcoholism, and drinking in front of them is clearly offensive to them.

@Mike

You’ve converted me. I’m going to the Tombs on Monday, help me choose names. I’m thinking of ‘Whitie, your great grandfather was a slave owner!’. good joke no?

Stupid rich yank cunts, I pity the country u end running ha ha

The problem here is that no, some people don’t know that no doesn’t mean yes. It’s NOT amusing to think that someone would be “so disconnected with reality” to believe such a thing. It’s actually quite horrifying to think that, because that would be rape.

People don’t laugh because they find the idea absurd. The reason why people wouldn’t laugh at a team name like “puppies” is because it’s not funny, not because it doesn’t break some social taboo.

Also, child abuse? Do you really think anyone at the Tombs would laugh if your team name was “number of children I molested last week” or some other child molestation joke? Or would that be found offensive? Of course it’s fine when the jokes are about women, but everything else is deemed to be quite offensive.

Just keep in mind that there are a lot more victims of sexual assault or rape around than you realize. They are people you know and people who seem like “normal” Georgetown students. And part of the reason most victims will never talk about it or pursue legal action is the culture that this is promoting. I have a pretty un-PC sense of humor but this is just something that shouldn’t be turned into a joke even more than it already is one.

I can completely appreciate the problem and that this is an issue plaguing our country BUT it’s a college bar, not the white house, and the people who are offended just shouldn’t go there… not everywhere is for everyone, deal with it. You clearly get offended easy and maybe you should just stay at home so you don’t see have to see or hear anything to be offended by. I’m not saying the names are right or wrong but there are much bigger problems than this at Georgetown and maybe all this built up hostility should be directed somewhere else.

I’m sorry; I just can’t remember the last time that I’ve paid to view comedy and none of the material could be construed as offensive.
When’s the last time any of you have gotten a laugh from reading a joke on the side of a Good Humor popsicle stick? Just because you’re in your twenties doesn’t mean that you need to feign offense with something simply because “sensitive” people do.

[...] Tombs may have taken a break  from tired rape and abortion jokes to watch an awful basketball game last week, but came back strong during yesterday’s trivia [...]

For those decrying censorship, I think “Mitch McConnell” and “make it simple” have it right on the money. I don’t deny that the teams have the right to come up with these names, but for them to continue to do so, and for Vox to glorify it, when they know that it can be really damaging to some people is just a matter of simple human decency.

Side note: those talking about freedom of speech should note that the principle you’re evoking refers to the government regulating speech. I don’t think anyone here is advocating the government regulate trivia night team names. The question is whether individuals or private businesses should participate in, or allow, such horrible sentiments to be given voice.

[...] During our time here we brought you coverage of the Campus Plan hearings, our obsession with food trucks, brought back Vox Talks, reported on the students evacuated from Egypt, and found out how offended our commenters were by the names at Tombs trivia. [...]

[...] returned to Tombs trivia for a third time this week to see if Hoyas were still yukking it up with cheap jokes about [...]

OK, but you can you handle these:
Don’t touch me there, you are not my real priest!
Lemaize class is a great place to meet girls.
Pork is a verb.
Why is my priest wearing an ankle bracelet?
How can I love you if you won’t lie down?
Daddy, turn mommy over, I want a puppy.
Katie Holmes has Stockholm Syndrome.