The Body Shaming Of Liberals
The more progressive side of things has done a somewhat decent job educating others about the shaming of other people’s bodies, to the point where body positivity and acceptance is even leveraged in advertising campaigns. As last month’s Democratic National Convention showed, however, there’s a final frontier in body shaming that even liberals continue to exploit for laughs and personal gain.
Here’s something I posted online the night of Tuesday, August 20, after the conclusion of the second night of the Democratic National Convention:
Spending the day once again watching the entirety of the Democratic convention was going pretty well until on one of the biggest stages of the world a former president engaged in the last form of body shaming, and toxic masculinity, still acceptable even to liberals and progressives, and since mine wouldn’t even reach from one of his hands to the other at the moment of his punchline look, I’m confused about how that’s not supposed to make me feel shitty, so thanks Obama.
Yes, I’m here to talk about the “small dick” joke.
People will, and do, argue that the joke is just about the target’s insecurity and compensatory flailing. That doesn’t actually hold.
In order for people to claim they’re laughing at insecurity, the target needs to feel insecure. In order to feel insecure the target needs to have learned that it’s embarrassing to have a small penis. What’s more, the joke-teller depends entirely upon bystanders who also have small penises themselves also having learned that lesson, and therefore being too embarrassed to object to the joke being told. The joke itself is a sort of circular reinforcement of the insecurity and embarrassment the joke-tellers require.
I’m done being too embarrassed to object to the joke being told, and if you (like the Harris-Walz campaign’s own “rapid response” social media accounts) tell or share a small-dick joke online, I’ll report you for abuse or other violation of code of conduct, community guidelines, or terms or service. I’ll do this even knowing that most services won’t agree that it’s effectively bullying and harassment.
I know this because I’ve reported the campaign account twice, most recently today, which is what prompted this post.
The root of the small-dick joke remains body shaming and toxic masculinity. (It’s the latter because it calls upon normative views of what’s properly masculine.) Everything else is a smokescreen to cover what the joke-teller is finding funny, and what those that hear it are finding funny. That they need a smokescreen at all should teach them the truth: it’s the joke itself that is shameful, and in the end I think they know it.
So they had to invent a myth that the joke is about insecurity, to protect themselves from feeling ashamed.
The joke makes me feel shitty, but the shitty person is you. I may have a small penis, but you’re the one that’s small.