Offensive posters for sale at freshers' week

[ImJustMadAboutSaffron]

I'm a university lecturer. I have been out and about on freshers' week to different buildings and come across a poster sale that is on for a few days. There are several options for sale, Harry Styles, Blink 182, Stranger Things, Billie Eilish, Mabel, lots of different ones. But three I find really offensive, and I imagine some students would, too:

A Buddha with the wording "Don't be a Ct"
A poster with "Fk Off" in different coloured fonts
Another with the same words taking up the whole poster

Asterisks mine. Think I am repressed if you like, I don't care!

Early 2000s this was popular, angry sweary posters are not new. I don't think swearing in and of itself is offensive

Asterisks are formatting characters, your asterisks have made some of your message bold.

No they wouldn't, and no..they wouldn't. Most they would in my experience, is politely correct you.

As for posters, sexist offensive 'shock' posters have been around since the 60's so to say they weren't around in the 90s is not correct.

They are on sale to young adults , if they want to be 'edgy' by buying them, let them enjoy that bit of growing up and having new found freedom.

Did they have a poster of the Pope smoking a joint and the words 'I like the Pope, the Pope smokes dope'?

If so, can you buy it and send it to me, thanks.

You've either led a bizarrely sheltered life or didn't grow up in the UK

You really think that students didn't use anti establishment or 'shocking' posters in your youth? They did in mine and I'm in my 60s.
No one is forcing you to buy them. We all like different things.

Hijacking a thread for your own devices is a very low trick.

The whole point is for ancient people like you and me to be offended op. In my day it was “offensive” posters about Thatcher. ‘‘Twas ever thus.

i can’t get wound up about swearing. If it was properly offensive - racist, misogynistic - then I’d be offended. But swearing? No. It aimed to shock you. It shocked you. Job done.

It's just swear words. I don't find swear words offensive tbh

@UndercoverCop - thanks for posting that trainspotting poster, took me right back to picking up posters from a poster sale at my uni in the mid 90s! I’m trying really hard to remember what I picked. One was definitely a Dali (“Persistence of Memory” to show I was cultured!). Can’t remember what the other one was though…

Surely that one should be in a museum?

Ancient 1990s student here. Fid you mean the 1890s because where were you? There was plenty of offensive poster "art" available. Pornographic images were perhaps more popular than fuck off, but the swearing was definitely there.

And, which uni? Because my eldest is currently selecting and I think one where the staff are anti freedom of speech isn't worth her time.

I wouldn’t worry about it. The numbers of actual academics care about students being offered the chance to buy posters saying fuck off are negligibly tiny.

Nor would any of the many academics I know be prissily messing around putting asterisks in fuck. I’ve read plenty of papers which feature the word fuck in them.

Interesting personal attacks discussion - I've read all the posts.

I never said that I was "shocked" by these posters. Swearing is everywhere, of course we hear it all the time. Strangely enough though I very rarely if ever hear it in my workplace from either staff or students.

I'm not shocked by, but I don't like, casual swearing. It's very often childish and also very often pointless - save it for when you really need it or it loses its currency. And I am entitled to feel that way. I don't pepper my conversation with swearwords and I don't encounter it amongst my friends or colleagues (we're clearly all repressed pearl clutchers, aren't we?). I do on public transport, in bars and on Mumsnet, though!

Those accusing me of being a troll, old fashioned or not a real lecturer, or tarring all students with the same brush - just grow up. Being a university lecturer really doesn't require lots of swearing in your job. Most of us have managed to do just fine without it, thanks.

I remember posters like that back in 2002. Half my flat had one that said "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them". If they don't like them surely they just won't buy them?

I forgot about that one! They were on T shirts as well.

Is the "dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians" one still around, or has that been replaced with "sounds gay, I'm in"?

I wouldn't see them as offensive. I wouldn't buy them myself, but if someone else does and puts them in their private bedroom, who cares.

It's very often childish

How old is the target market?

I know they're not children, but how far off it are they?

I was talking about swearing in general in that statement, superfluous swearwords inserted in ordinary conversation, not specifically referring to university students.

Childish is an appropriate word apart from the Buddha one. Imagine if the Buddha was replaced by Jesus Christ or the Prophet Mohammed, what the reaction would be.

Sure, but the target market is 18 year olds.

I know they're not literally children but they kind of are.

I'd also like this as a poster -

All of this crudeness on display, yet if you were to accidentally misgender one of these students they’d have a nervous breakdown on the spot and sue you for the trauma inflicted.

This is a load of nonsense, I work with young people and have never seen anyone get upset about being accidentally misgendered. At most they'd politely correct you and move on, more likely they'd say nothing.

I also think it's a bit rich for OP, a grown woman who can't bring herself to type the words cunt and fuck and gets upset by seeing some sweary posters for sale, to be enthusiastically agreeing with a post mocking her students for being fragile.