Why Are Conservative Men Harder to Insult than Liberal Women?

 

This morning, on another thread, I made a joke with @docjay. This joke, like many jokes between men, took the form of an insult. Now, DocJay is a friend of mine, but regardless, I knew that he would not take offense at this joke because (a) he is a man and, (b) he is a conservative.

That struck me as odd. Why is it that men in general, and conservatives in particular, are less sensitive to insults? When a man insults another, it is generally harmless ribbing, they laugh, and get back to whatever they were doing.

I have a lot of liberal friends on Facebook. When they insult someone, it is generally mean-spirited, and intended to hurt. As opposed to my liberal friends interacting with one another, where hurtful words are verboten, you should be in a safe space free from hateful speech, and we should all support one another all the time. Meanwhile, the conservative men are over in the corner drinking and joking about how fat one another are. If a liberal insults someone, it is not a joke.

At this point, I would like to ask the moderator to cut any comments asking for data or studies to back up my assertions. I am also uninterested in individual anecdotes about your aunt who is a drill instructor in the Marine Corps. I am generalizing, and as is often the case when I generalize, I don’t care (to paraphrase Dave Barry). But these are stereotypes that I think most of us recognize. So, why? Any theories on the different approaches to insults and humor among different groups?

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  1. Annefy Member
    Annefy
    @Annefy

    Doug Kimball (View Comment):
    First of all, only a man with a diminutive nose, thumbs, whatever, would take offense when I mention their shortcomings. It is best to mention a friend’s less attractive parts, you know, the guy with the gorilla sweater, the guy who missed the target altogether at the shooting range, the guy who missed eight putts in a row. We actually name these events after they are achieved, so that they can be memorialized. There is the Lenny mulligan; that’s when your hand is in your pocket after calling a mulligan before the first T-shot has stopped moving. There is also the Oatman; if a mulligan is called, however the second shot is worse than the first hence the first shot is used in the round, the mulligan (limited to one per nine holes) is renamed an Oatman and can be evoked a second time. Then there is the Rudy Valley shot otherwise referred to as the gutterball. There is a corollary Rudy Valley golf shot where the ball ends up in a depression on another fairway. There is the Ritchie rule, invoked at the entrance to any casino, where Ritchie is asked to burn all his cash before entering to bring luck to everyone else (he’s never agreed though and is no better off as he leaves his cash at the casino in any case. You’d think he’d have the decency to help his friends.) There is the JL rule, which states no player can leave the black-jack table until one friend/player at the same table is out of cash. The opposite rule applies at the craps table; if one friend wants to leave the table, everyone else must also leave (but only when the table is clear after a craps throw.) I could go on and on. These insults are invoked again and again along with the story of origin, including naming the person after whom the insult is named, thus the infamy continues. Lenny, Oatman, Rudy, Ritchie, JL and others live on even after their original insults. We should all be so lucky.

    When we would sit at my In-Law’s dinner table, my husband would be facing a mirror. It wouldn’t be unusual to catch him checking himself out. My father-in-law would always say: Quit acting like Duck Butter.

    I think Duck Butter was a guy in his small town in IL who fancied himself as good looking.

    Whenever we would catch our sons flexing in front of the mirror (done so often it was considered a hobby) they were called Duck Butter.

    I just heard my son-in-law use the term referring to a co-worker.

    I wonder how Duck Butter would feel knowing how famous he is in California.

    • #61
  2. Jim Beck Inactive
    Jim Beck
    @JimBeck

    Afternoon Annefy,

    You might check the bing definitions of duck butter as a precaution, they are similar to my understanding from decades past.  If you are just pulling my leg, then high fives to you.

    • #62
  3. Annefy Member
    Annefy
    @Annefy

    Jim Beck (View Comment):
    Afternoon Annefy,

    You might check the bing definitions of duck butter as a precaution, they are similar to my understanding from decades past. If you are just pulling my leg, then high fives to you.

    Man, that’s funny.  Knowing my father in law, he was referring to someone who existed but it was the guy’s unfortunate nickname.

     

    • #63
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