Yeah, Yeah, That’s The Ticket
I noticed the following slightly-butchered factoid at the bottom of a “fun semen facts” infographic posted by Mistress Matisse:
The Etoro people of Papua New Guinea it is believed that to become sexually mature men, young boys must swallow the semen of their elders.
I’m calling bullshit. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the cultural anthropology has been done right and reported right — not too likely, but hey. Go with it. Assume the cultural pattern exists as reported.
It’s that word “believed” I’m choking on. My proposition to you: the “elders” in question “believe” this line of happy horse shit in exactly the same way that I “believe” the following two propositions:
1) Anal sex will make your butt bigger; and
2) Swallowing semen will make your unborn baby healthier.
Shorter URL for sharing: http://www.erosblog.com/?p=4655
Nope, totally true. I actually had to read an entire case report on them last year for a paper. They believe that men get their power from this fruit (whose juice is semen-like), and then when they have sex with women, the women drain their power out of them. The women then pass on diluted power to babies via breast milk.
So the men have this pathological fear of the evil power-draining vagina, and when the young boys hit puberty, they have to go to the men’s hut to get their power-giving semen, because only full men (those who pass a giant pain-inducing ceremony) can know where the semen fruit is.
It’s a whole thing.
If you disbelieve this, do you also not believe that the other Papuan tribes who undergo extremely painful full-body scarification rites genuinely think that this will protect them, as they claim, from crocodiles? And do you think that the Australians who undertake penile subincision are just doing it for kinky kicks?
You’re missing my point.
I’m not doubting that the belief exists, I’m snarkily suggesting — for humorous purposes, without any serious assertion nor basis of supporting knowledge — that the belief is cynically perpetuated by those who benefit from it.
Your cultural bias is showing.
Your sense of humor isn’t?
This is an actual belief. Was, actually, because they’ve finally caught up to the post-colonial mindset and now they pretend it never happened. Not that I’m supporting this practice – what with having grown up in the post-colonial mindset myself – but pretending portions of your history didn’t happen isn’t a good thing IMO. Lessons, history, destined, yadda. Although I don’t know from Etoro, I thought it was Sambia. Might be multicultural. In which case the Etoro might still do this; if they haven’t taken to Westernized views of things like biology and gender roles, they might well still believe this wholeheartedly.
People believe a lot of things that aren’t particularly accurate, especially about sex. Consider the prevailing myth in certain African regions that sex with a virgin will cure you of STDs, which in South Africa has lead to the rape of infants as young as a few months, some of which I seem to recall needed surgery to re-arrange their internal organs afterwards. (That last bit might be scuttlebutt, I’m too lazy to look for sources. The infant rape thing is real.)
Or consider how many times your average health and/or biology teacher in the U.S. has been asked if pregnancy can occur from swallowing semen. I’ve seen it happen firsthand, and the person asking was (IMO, apparently) old enough and smart enough to know better.
At any rate, if you’re just going for a quick joke, it’s kind of a humor fail. I’m not saying that to be a dick, it’s just an FYI.
Humor fail?
In my experience, telling somebody a joke isn’t funny says more about the speaker than the joke-teller.
Talk about the circle of life… I bet all them youngsters just can’t wait to be all grown up.
My first question was, is this jism ingested via “direct feed” or from a coconut shell…
This reminds me of the practice of elderly men in ancient Greece “mentoring” young boys in the art of sex while out in the fields and forests of the countryside.
Also, the practice of fathers, in some remote island cultures, taking their daughters virginity before giving them up to marriage comes to mind.
I get the feeling that all of these “traditions” got started by some wily (albeit horny) adults.
Sure, man. My mistake. Clearly I was wrong, because I was contradicting you. I don’t know what I was thinking.
No, you were wrong because you confused “I didn’t find this funny” with “that’s not funny”. It’s a common mistake, so common that it used to be a parodic identifier for at least one advocacy group.
Look, I freely admit it was a lame joke. Lame jokes are a stock-in-trade around here. Pretty much everything written here is swiftly tossed off without much consideration or research. Lots of things fail silently because nobody much enjoyed them, but it’s OK, because new tries are cheap.
But when you try to speak for the universe and say something is a “humor fail” because you personally didn’t find it funny, you’re attempting to assert your superior ability to judge the funny, and implicitly denigrating anybody who in fact might have found it (weakly, fleetingly, mildly) funny. And I’m prickly about people telling me I’m wrong, wrong on the internet! when it’s not a matter of objective fact.
I eat a lot of garlic, and my tag team partner says my semen taste like garlic, soooo yes, it CAN be healthy. Do
your loved one(s) a favor, and eat more garlic.
See, here’s the thing.
Humor is an inherently subjective concept. So “your joke isn’t funny” and “your joke isn’t funny to me” are the same statement to anyone who understands this concept. I didn’t bother to include “IMO” because it seems hideously redundant to me. I thought you would get that – you seem to understand that humor is subjective – but since you didn’t, I guess I was wrong. My bad.
Or maybe “humor fail” doesn’t mean what I think it does. I’m pretty sure “humor fail” means “you failed to achieve humor,” or, colloquially, “your joke isn’t funny.” If it means something else, I apologize for my misunderstanding of modern slang; what I meant to say was “your joke isn’t funny.”
So, here’s the thing. Your joke sucked.
Now, you’ll notice I didn’t say “Your joke sucked IMO.” That’s because the IMO part is implied by the fact that I’m making a value judgement in the first place. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll say it anyway.
Your joke sucked. IMO.
I’m not saying it’s inappropriate. I’m just saying it’s not funny. The juxtaposition of one culture’s perspective on another’s beliefs is not humor to me. Maybe that’s just because after a few years of studying anthropology one tends to get really bored with said juxtaposition. Maybe that’s even my loss, in the sense that I don’t get to giggle at your scintillating wit.
But your joke still sucked.
IMO.
I agree that humor is inherently subjective, which is why the most-commonly-recognized polite responses to it are to laugh at it or to ignore it. Polite criticism is rare, in part because there’s no obvious reason to bother.
Funny thing, though. If your point was about your own (lack of) reaction to the joke, why the helpful/condescending “just an FYI” as if your subjective reaction to the joke was an important piece of information that I needed to know?
Nope, I don’t believe you. Especially when combined with the erudition display, I don’t think your motive was communicating your reaction to me. I’m not sure whether you were attempting to make an ideological point (and failing, “just an FYI”) or whether it was a posturing display for the audience in an attempt to adjust our relative social status with respect to that audience (shades of high school).
Comment #7 was my shorthand way of calling you on that bullshit. Comment #11 was a more longwinded statement of it, after you tried to confuse the audience with sarcastic misdirection. This comment is me saying that I don’t believe your subsequent denial and attempt to backtrack.
I thought it was funny, and to me, at least, this joke doesn’t have anything to do with raining on another culture- it’s about pointing out the common thread shared by certain acts- that when it’s something people might not do voluntarily but would be quite pleasurable to the other party, you seem to find cultural myths conveniently extolling the benefits of doing it (whether it’s sucking off your elders to get sexually mature or having anal sex for a nice backside).
Considering how often we see serious commentary about sexual politics here (which is, actually, one of the great things about ErosBlog), I had no cause to expect to read a joke… so I didn’t think I was reading one. I just thought I was reading some interesting commentary about a cultural practice that may not actually apply to the culture in question, but unless one is Papua New Guinean, one probably doesn’t get to make that call for sure.
So, to sum up: I didn’t see any joke. Didn’t think it was funny because I didn’t see a joke. Might have been inclined to say hey, B, respected writer about sex culture, not sure that cultural interpretation appropriate for western world applies, pretty sure this is for reals at least to some degree. But figured other people had said it.
Went into the comments and found B behaving hyper-defensively toward people who have said it. “It’s just a joke! You people have no sense of humor!”
Probably not the best moment on this blog.
D, I think you’re missing the point to my responses in these comments.
But I don’t see any point in trying to explain further; I’ve said my piece.
I think this believe is a perfect metaphor for government everywhere.
Mm. Sure, if that’s what you want to believe. Hell, you can go ahead and skip all the rest of this if you want, since it’s just going to be more stuff you consider bullshit. I’m going to say it anyway, because I can’t shake this feeling that you’re an intelligent person who will think about my points even though you’re almost certainly going to be sarcastic in your dismissal of them very shortly. If I’m wrong, I’ll still feel better for having said it. So:
I’m actually very much in agreement with D in #16 & 17. I didn’t think it was a joke. I come to this blog expecting intelligent social commentary and pretty pictures. Not because you have an obligation to provide that, I’ll note before someone gets sidetracked, but rather because that’s what I usually find here. This lacked the latter, so I assumed it was an attempt at the former. This calling of bullshit is a fairly common reaction – an actual reaction, not an attempt at humor – when people hear about this cultural practice, so I went in to the comments intending to tell you it was a real thing.
Upon reading the comments, I found that you were calling it a joke. I first addressed the aspersions you cast on the story (assuming anthropology got it right etc), which weren’t invalidated by the rest of the post being a joke. Then I addressed the common nature of (from my perspective and presumably yours) weird beliefs, just in case you were covering up your reaction by calling it a joke. Then, in case it really was a joke, I told you I didn’t find it funny. I told you I didn’t find it funny because, as I have noted, I assume you are an intelligent person based on previous writing, and I thought it might be useful for you to note that some of your readers, who (if I may be so bold) are at least moderately educated and intelligent, weren’t digging this entry. It’s the sort of thing I’d want to know, personally. Maybe you don’t care. That’s your prerogative.
Now, as to your rebuttal, if you’re going to quote part of my statement, quote it all. I didn’t just say that it was FYI, I said I wasn’t being a dick, and instead was giving you information I thought you might want. I said I wasn’t being a dick because people on the internet are almost always dicks, and those of us who are attempting to exchange legitimate commentary really need to say so lest we be taken as people attempting to be random dicks.
You took me to be a random dick anyway. Comment #7 dismissed my opinion while deflecting an implied – and non-existent, I would point out – attack on you personally. Under the impression that this was what you considered worthwhile debate, I responded in kind in comment #10. Then you started an actual discussion on the matter, explaining your position. So I again responded in kind, explaining my original intent. You’ve now called me a liar while doing what appears to be your level best to prevent any achievement of stasis on this issue, so we’re clearly not going to get anywhere with this conversation.
But I do so love to talk – or write, as the case may be – so we can keep going around if you like.
Oh, and a side note to Brent: Your joke, I liked.
Actually, I think I’ve summarized the point.
D, I know you think that. And I think you’re mistaken. How many iterations of this dance would you like to do?
Having just read the blog post and the thread above… I’m highly suspicious of any cultural phenomenon that is presumed to be for the benefit of one at the apparent pleasure of another. Which leads me to contemplate the Dr. Whiplash question concerning the method of ingestion. Here’s my theory… Direct feed, then it’s all about the elders. Coconut shell, then misguided as they may have been, maybe somebody really thought they were helping those young whipper-snappers grow up.
Erm.. Bacchus, maybe take 2 steps back, pretend it wasn’t you, and then read through this comment thread? It sounds like you’re having an off day at best.
For my 2 cents, I’m with Patrick Harris and D. – I didn’t realise it was a joke. I thought you had real information, and were merely delivering it with a sarcastic commentary. And once I realised it was a joke, I didn’t think it was funny. That’s cool, I don’t have to agree with your sense of humour.
Nor does anyone else. And after what reads to me like a very polite and nonconfrontational series of comments attempting to say that – you still sound like you’re taking this a bit personally, when all that Patrick and D were saying is what I’m saying: hey, dude, that wasn’t up to your usual standard.
*shrug* I wouldn’t have thought that was such a big deal to someone who writes on the internet, and must get dozens of crackpot emails a day, never mind legitimate commentary.