Worried about my 18 year old son buying joke shirts from Afflecks Palace

[ForSparklyFatball]

Hi everyone, I’m after some advice because I’m really not sure if I’m overreacting or not. My son is 18 and has started going into Manchester at weekends with his university mates. They’ve been spending time in Afflecks Palace, which I know is full of alternative stalls, but he came back yesterday with a couple of t-shirts from the shop on the top floor that does the t-shirt printing.
One of them says “Don’t bully me, I’ll cum” and the other was along similar lines with crude sexual humour. He thought they were hilarious and just a bit of edgy fun, but I’m honestly concerned. At 18 he’s an adult, yet these kinds of slogans seem to normalise really objectifying and inappropriate attitudes, especially towards women and sex. I’ve tried speaking to him about it calmly, explaining why it bothers me, but he just laughed it off and said it’s only a joke.
Has anyone else come across these sorts of shirts in Afflecks or had their own son or daughter bring something similar home? Am I making too much of it, or is this worth having a firmer conversation about? Any thoughts on how to approach it without it escalating would be really helpful. Thanks.

I'll consider it if you stop....using....full stops....in between....your....words.

I'm not being passive aggressive or superior though, just openly scathing of adult women who think their teenage son wearing a t shirt with immature, edgelord humour about ejaculating on it, is hilarious for some reason.

I thought this was a joke and then I saw it was you and realised you’re completely serious. You’d have us all in uniforms.

You’ll have to pry my slogan t shirts out of my cold dead hands.

Still think your best bet OP is to feign indifference. It's just tedious, I'm sure he is a good person.

I think at 18 he is an adult (even though very young still) and you cant really tell him what to wear.I think he will grow out of this phase .Probably feels very cool! the more you say about it the less he will listen I think .

You blame his father for his t shirt choice, to whom do you credit his success in getting into uni? Not his father I bet!

But only the logo of very expensive manufacturers otherwise Aldi may sell shirts with their logo, shudder!

My adult children and their friends ( boys and girls ) never wore t shirts like that .
They tended to wear heavy metal band t shirts ironically and Jesus is my homeboy ( so they’re older )
My youngest would wear anime t shirts .
I think if they’d worn anything like that I’d tell them not to wear in certain circumstances and also not in front of granny .

thats a funny one though 😂

I am generally scathing of grown women with a stick up their backside and no sense of humour who think everyone of a certain age should conform to being boring & beige like they are.

If she thinks Afflecks is a bit “out there” she’ll lose her shit mind if she goes to Camden Market on a Saturday.
I still think this is a wind up.

Op has issues, and it’s not the son that’s the problem here. That’s a completely unhinged reaction.

I think most teenagers go through that phase. I remember having a black cropped t-shirt with white handprints over my boobs. Another t-shirt had pictures of Malteasers on it, and underneath, in the Malteasers font, was the word "Manteaser."

I need a Rage Against the Washing Machine T Shirt, I'm always ranting to DH about the bastard thing randomly deciding to take 20 minutes longer than the display says. I wish I'd known Afflecks existed last time I was in Manchester but its definitely on the list to visit next time I'm there.

They are just poor taste jokes. Ask him not wear them around you or other relatives who might be offended. I do think this is normal for his age group…

In case anyone is interested, this is the place that has the OP riled up 😂

https://afflecks.com/

Yes, it's as old as the hills. There's a character in Brideshead Revisited who said this or words to this effect, when he was being hassled in a club. The book was written in 1944, published in 1945.

I'm pretty sure I've seen Stephen Fry make the same joke on QI.

Perhaps OP would be ok with it in a posh southern accent rather than a t-shirt?

I can't see the OP being happy about anything much to be honest.

This is an AIBU? Everyone - Nah. Live and let live. OP - I'm right. You are all wrong and I'm going to burn the place to the ground.

Personally I would love for this to be the worse thing that was happening to me.

Man, I love frogs 🤣🤣🤣
I think your teen is doing normal teen stuff. If this is all you have to worry about then I think you’re very fortunate.

Same

There’s hundreds of these tees on Vinted, save some money and protect the environment plus piss off a few milfs

Have you not seen the Lidl “range”?

Oh wow... yeah I was 13 to 14 when I started buying my offensive t-shirts from Afflecks.

I had 'Adihash' with the adidas logo turned into a cannabis leaf, the previously mentioned 'FUCT' ford parody.

My absolute best though was ScoobyDoo smoking a big fat blunt. That was peak and a shitty boyfriend nicked it when I was 16. Arsehole.

I digress - buying offensive tshirts from Afflecks (or wherever your local 'alternative things' market is) is a rite of passage.

My mother said 'those aren't funny, you can't wear them out of the house if you're with me' and that was that.

I grew out of it - mostly. They still amuse me though. No one died.

Actually the one she hated THE most was the Nirvana one, with 'flower sniffin' baby kissin' corporate rock whores' on the back and the dead eye smiley face on the front.

Dunno why that one got her goat so much but it really did.

That's nice for you.

Have a word. When he puts it in the wash lose it.