In defense of an unfunny gag gift

You can read about the evils of a remote which controls your husband or wife here.

Here are some disorganized thoughts I have about this, in no particular order, and not very well articulated. I was going to post this as a comment on the blog itself, but I got on a hot roll arguing what I consider to be a real problem, and mostly ignored her point about people who actually want that level of control. I gave that only a cursory treatment because I think it's silly. But because she makes a huge deal about it, upon rereading what I wrote I realized I'm not really addressing her (incoherent and oversimplified) points at all, so I'm going to post it here so that no one will read it.

Here's my problem with this whole thing, we're getting pretty worked up about a gag gift, and a lame one at that. This kind of thing is the reason I don't like to tell people I'm a feminist, because they assume I too am a prude who cannot take a joke. There are real issues out there that need to be addressed, but crying wolf about a stupid product that most people will never even know exists makes it harder for the lay public to take the serious issues seriously. And it's completely side-stepping the real issue.

Have you and your partner ever disagreed about something? Perhaps you wanted to get Chinese but your significant other wanted pizza. Did you ever think, "I sure wish my SO wanted Chinese right now because I'm really craving it." I bet you have, we all have. Who would even want someone they always agree with, that would be boring. But on the other hand who would want someone they never agree with, that would be unbearable. And sometimes you want them to agree with you when they don't. The person who made this product had that thought and realized, "Hey! I bet other people sometimes disagree with their SO's too! Wouldn't it be great if occasionally you could change your partner's mind with the click of a button, holy cow I'm funny!" Now I humbly disagree with that person, I don't think it's funny. But most gag gifts aren't funny, they're stupid. This one is no exception. If you looked at this and immediately wondered what kind of monster would want complete control over their partner you're not only missing the (admittedly unfunny) joke, you're also making some wild assumptions about the creator and potential consumers. The packaging doesn't say "Use this product every day to make your wife perfect." If it did you would have a valid point and I would be right next to you rallying against what would be a sick product.

I understand the point that this is indicative of sexist stereotypes that do cause harm. But I have some issues with this particular fight. The first is that the remote itself isn't a problem. It perpetuates ideas which are already so widely held that it's effectively making no difference at all. It's a drop in a very very large bucket. The remote isn't going to change anyone's mind about anything. No one is going to look at it and think "I wish I could literally force my wife do these things" unless they already have that thought. And let's be honest, occasionally, we all wish we could magically change other people's minds, and our life partners are no exception. Which brings me to my next point, that generally speaking the things that men want from women are different from what women want from men. The reason that "Give sex" is on the control-a-woman remote and not on the control-a-man remote is because it's less common that a woman wants sex when a man doesn't. Obviously this is not true of every relationship, but we're fooling ourselves if we say that men and women are completely even when it comes to the regularity they want to have sex, especially later in life. If we're talking in huge sweeping generalities, and we are, most everything on those remotes makes sense. But even if you completely disagree with that we're still sidestepping the real problem.

The problem is not whether or not stereotypes are true, that's inconsequential. I think many of them are, but even if all stereotypes everywhere were completely learned from our respective cultures and had nothing to do with different group's innate tendencies my point would still stand. The problem is people reacting negatively to people don't follow the majority, people who don't fit neatly into a stereotype. Is believing that women like to shop more than men harmful? No, of course it's not, shopping doesn't hurt anyone. What's harmful is treating the girl who doesn't enjoy it, or the boy who does like they're freaks. Abnormal isn't necessarily bad, it's just abnormal. But let's not fall into the trap of saying that nothing is abnormal. Being gay is abnormal. We straight folks have gays way outnumbered. Who cares? It's not better, it's not worse, it's just abnormal. This is the reaction we should strive for everyone to have about anything which doesn't hurt people.

Through the right set of eyes, this, like many things, could be construed as offensive to whichever group you're most sympathetic towards. Without prompting, if you asked me who I thought this product was most offensive to I'd be inclined to say African Americans. But that's because I'm young and liberal and white and have been taught my whole life to feel crappy because other whites used to be own black people (it worked, I do). And when I think of having total control over someone slavery pops into my head readily. Slavery also isn't funny, nor is racism. If someone wanted they could probably make a good case that these remotes are insensitive to African Americans on the grounds that they're reminiscent of slavery.


If you read this please let me know! I am getting some traffic on this blog, though not very much. And people are staying for about a minute, which means they're reading at least a little. So if you you did take the time to read to here please comment, even if all you do is say "I read your thing". Opinions would be even better!