"I could be in touch with my 'gay' side. I mean, I don't, and never have, owned a leather cap, but I did once have a moustache (and the fact that I can claim I only grew it for a bet, doesn't exactly help)."
This was a post from a friend of mine on Facebook, who thought he might be "going gay" because he had Dancing Queen by Abba in his head. In the ensuing posts, I asked if we could be a bit less stereotypical and was told by another Facebook post to "take a joke... its thursday...".
Now, I've never been particularly politically correct, but being told to amend my perfectly good sense of humour by someone who's clearly in the majority (white, heterosexual and middle class) irked me somewhat.
It's all too easy to explain away racist, homophobic and sexist views as attempts at humour; this makes anyone who objects into a "poor sport" or someone who can't have a laugh. Instead of being someone who may have a legitimate gripe with certain views or how they're expressed, people are categorised suddenly into prudes, swots or the type of individuals who hang round the beer at parties and wear crimpelene.
In this instance, being accused of suffering from a sense of humour failure actually MADE me have one. I wonder how many other people believe that it's everyone else that fails to see the funny side when it's their own prejudices which should be the butt of the joke?
