Note: This is an excerpt from “Make Up Your Mind,” which was originally published at Splice Today.
Here’s a scenario that helps illustrate our predicament. Imagine you’re at lunch with two women. You tell a raunchy, dirty joke, bonus points if it involves a woman. Internally, one of them thinks the joke is hysterical—the other is outraged. Who’s right? They can’t both be right, can they? Let’s make it more complicated. Who speaks up first? Let’s say the offended woman is the first to respond. “That’s not funny!” Suddenly there’s a lot of social pressure on the other woman. Unless she’s uniquely disagreeable and doesn’t care about the sanctioning, gossip and backstabbing she may experience, she’ll either side with the offended woman or find a way to evade or change the subject.
But the reverse is true as well. If the woman with a sense of humor responds first, the social pressure is now applied to the more reserved party. Will she speak up? Or is the risk of being seen as “uncool” too great? Again, unless she feels confident enough to say something, she’ll probably hold her tongue until she has a chance to vent elsewhere. What if the wider culture of the day favors one woman’s opinion over the other? This makes it far more likely that one of the women will speak up and enforce this set of norms on the other. What if you’re in a blue state, or a red state? Who are you supposed to listen to and believe?
One answer is to just follow your judgment and decide for yourself. I think it’s sexist, patronizing and condescending to assume, a priori, that women are so fragile and brittle that they can’t handle a joke. I also think that, except in extreme cases, most people aren’t really offended by what they see or hear. They’re acting offended out of perceived social obligation. And I think that’s fucking stupid and I shouldn’t have to cater to people who behave like livestock.
But I have to interact with people and navigate a conversation without feeling like I’m going to face dire consequences because I stepped on an invisible eggshell. And this goes for men too, many of whom are even more touchy and sensitive… and are violent about it!
Everyone has boundaries. Social life always operates under a set of negotiated rules and assumptions. Any time you come into contact with another person, you each have an internal guidebook that says, “I’m okay with this” and “I’m not okay with that.” Reasonable adults can negotiate the gray areas without getting upset, mounting campaigns to get each other fired, or stabbing each other in the back.
We need to strike a balance between two truths. You can’t expect society to be cool with and embrace every part of how you express yourself. But you also can’t expect society to share and cater to your every sensitivity around someone else’s expression. As a society, we need to become like Good Guy Greg.
If you find something offensive or obnoxious, you should be able to say, “Get out of my face.” And the offender should leave you alone. This is akin to changing the television channel, skipping a song, blocking and unsubscribing from content, or telling a street preacher or canvasser to get lost. Likewise, when you’re involved in a form of expression within your own specialty, niche, scene or area of interest, and some busybody goes through the trouble to seek you out, you should be able to say: “Mind your own business.”