Do you find this offensive?

[Besswess88]

Someone posted this in a group I am in, and I find it really offensive AIBU?!

Actually, a poster has tried to get me banned as they didn't like my answers 😂

I dont think it should be ok to objectify women this way at all.

'a 50 year old cartoon which makes a man look like a desperate sex pest for wanting to touch some melons which he thinks are like a lady's breasts?'

???

He's going to grab her tits. She is looking the other way. The older women have misunderstood what he means when he talks about melons.

I mean that's a serious reach in what the joke is.

In your version there is no need to have the young woman with the large boobs on the end of the stall. It would just be fruit.

I mean argue your case that it's not offensive if you wish but pretending that he's not going for the boobs is a bit weird.

It’s an old seaside postcard. It’s of its time. Pick your battles.

It does objectify woman, but it also caricatures men. havent seen postcards like this since the eighties, thankfully they are dying out. I can see why it hit a nerve for you, thankfully times are changing and I hope the kind of comments you had to put up with as a young woman are no longer common place.

@NiceGerbil - are we looking at the same cartoon? His hands are literally on the melons. If he were to reach out further he would in fact touch the woman's shoulder or miss her completely. We all know the 'melons' is a reference to breasts but he is not reaching out to grab the woman's breasts in that cartoon. Seriously.

@NiceGerbil

Oh god diet Coke really?

Well I may have looked at a handsome man. And random men may have grabbed my tits (and undercarriage) in the pub.

Fairs fair!

I'm cringing for you. Urgh.

@HerselfIndoors

Thank you for your lovely post.

I did experience what would be described now as sexual exploitation as a teenager which led to drug addiction.

This stuff underpins the bigger stuff.

I truly believe that.

Not funny. Not offensive.

You have to love the how far things end up on MN

There's another thread where the poster complains about her husband driving his kids around on Christmas Day, which culminated on said husband being a regular visitor and client of the local prostitutes on his way to Asda.

It's MN for you.

*There's another thread where the poster complains about her husband driving his kids around on Christmas Day, which culminated on said husband being a regular visitor and client of the local prostitutes on his way to Asda.

It's MN for you.*

This has made my evening 😂

Besswess I understand

@NoPainNoTartine

You have to love the how far things end up on MN

There's another thread where the poster complains about her husband driving his kids around on Christmas Day, which culminated on said husband being a regular visitor and client of the local prostitutes on his way to Asda.

It's MN for you.

Don't think they stock prostitutes at our local ASDA.

Cringe all you like. He's clearly going for her tits while she looks the other way and doesn't see him coming. Haha!!!

Jesus!! 🙄🙄

Don't think they stock prostitutes at our local ASDA.

They do, you have to duck behind the fruit aisle and ask for the deal of the day. It's a bit more straightforward in Sainsbury's, they keep them by the deli counter.

@Nicegerbil - no. He's not. He's really not. His hands are on the melons. We all know what it is alluding to but you are seeing what you want to see. He is not 'going for her tits'. You're actually making stuff up.
As for your comment about finding it perfectly acceptable to perv at men because you have been treated inappropriately by men in the past, well, what a hideous outlook. Where on earth would we be if we all behaved like this? You're making a bit of a fool of yourself now.

Don't think they stock prostitutes at our local ASDA.
I once asked my sister where people actually buy cocaine from and she answered “you can get it anywhere, you can get it in Asda”. Supermarkets these days really do stock everything.

I don't perve at men! Blimey.

Where did you get that from?

I have looked at good looking men in the usually pretty surreptitious way that women do.

Men have over the years done way worse.

To draw equivalence between the two is just shitty.

And having checked that image AGAIN he's reaching for her breasts. That's the whole point of the joke. The women commenting are naive. He's a dirty old man.

When Benny hill used to chase the young women round the park I expect he was what. Just asking for directions or something probably

I mean come off it.

I mean the women on the postcard. Are naive.

The women on the thread who are saying that this sort of stuff is good clean fun and super hilarious aren't naive obviously they know exactly what they're saying.

Its seaside humour in that context I wouldn't be offended. But it would depend on who posted it, where and why.....

@NiceGerbil - yes, he is being portrayed as a dirty man, I have stated this previously. I think the cartoon portrays the man in a worse way than it offends the woman. I haven't watched any Benny Hill as I personally can't stand that type of 'humour' but no, I'm assuming he wasn't asking for directions, and nobody actually believes he was.
I believe it was you who drew equivalence between the two actually. You downplayed the very sexist and inappropriate advertising used in the diet coke adverts and then said you may have looked at a handsome man (in the surreptitious way that women do)...fair's fair. There is nothing surreptitious in the way the women in the advert look at the men in the adverts. So it's not me who has drawn shitty comparisons actually.
And once again, the man in the picture is nowhere near the woman's breasts. It shows a sweaty sex pest barely able to control himself while touching some melons. It is down to the viewer of the cartoon to conclude that the melons are a metaphor for the breasts of the lady standing nearby. It reflects badly on the man in the cartoon, not the woman.

@nicegerbil - I must have missed all the comments from women (how on earth you know they are in fact women is quite magical) saying they find it 'super hilarious'. There are a couple who have said they find it funny but I don't recall seeing any saying it's super hilarious. I could have missed them though, of course. Or you could just be exaggerating/making shit up again.

Why are you so keen to tell women (not just me) who grew up in the 70s 80s when all this 'saucy' shite was all over the place, combined with a healthy level of men thinking it hilarious to behave like that in real life, that they are wrong?

Yes I have surreptitiously looked at handsome men. Yes I have had stuff shouted at me from cars- get your tits out etc. The two aren't the same.

Why are you so insistent that this joke- haha go for the tits- is so totally unrelated from the behaviour of men back then (now?) shouting or grabbing and their mates laughing?

Page 3 was normal. 16 year old Sam fox. I don't understand your read of the joke on the card at all. Benny hill. Carry on. All good family fun. Blah blah blah.

I mean if you think jokes about grabbing women's tits, sorry melons, are grade a then that's fine. Lots on here agree with you. I don't. You trying to paint me as a pervert for pointing out the (always used) example of the diet Coke man is not in any way on a level of the objectification of women over the years that's again your opinion.

My friend was an 'early developer'. She got shouted at, ogled, commented on, and once memorably offered by a bus driver to let her off the fare if he could have a feel. This was back in the 80s. She was 14 and in school uniform.

Of course men will be men and lechy old men are very funny.

I'm not offended by the card. I'm surprised at it being posted on a large public chat thing in 2020. But then lots of women on here saying what's the problem and well you know diet Coke.

Ok. We are allowed to have a difference of opinion. That's fine.

No one has said it reflects badly on the woman at all - it clearly doesn't. She's not even aware of the situation.

The point isn't really the moral standing of each person in the picture. It's the fact that a man ogling a woman's tits and possibly being about to grab them (I agree it looks like he is, and the text suggests that too, and it's not where his hands are, it's his gaze that show he's going for them), is meant to be funny. The woman with the big boobs is not a person, she's ha ha a pair of comedy "melons", fnarr fnarr. It does not comment on the objectification of women, it just takes it as read, and funny.

Of course deconstructing it exhaustively is massively dull. There's nothing to suggest that means anyone who doesn't find it or its implications amusing therefore has no sense of humour. Just not laughing right now.