The "trump sucks Putin's cock" humor relies on homophobia for it's punch. Frankly trump doesn't seem like the type to go down on anyone. He's a coward and a blowhard with distorted ideas about what makes someone strong, masculine, etc.

I didn't get that vibe at all.

I know that's something we all say....often.
But the Nobel Prize thing yesterday and now this about Pelosi....
Who says shit like that?
What other President ... or political figure...or public person...talks like that?
Imagine him saying shit like that in a bar? At a party?

People would avoid him like he was a creature from Pluto.

He is, or course.

a temptation to use homophobia as a club to insult him with. One needn't be homophobic oneself to feel the force of that. I agree it is one that must be resisted.

C. S. Lewis once wrote about insults that (and this is drastically paraphrased) that if you really want to get one home, find out what the person you want to insult despises most. The example he used was the word "villain," which now just means a bad guy, and is unlikely to sting if used on Trump or any "Conservative." But it originally meant a person living exclusively on someone's villa in the country, likely a servant or slave, but definitely not a city person, and consequently not civilized. Hick. Bumpkin. Peasant. It isn't much of a stretch to cite "redneck." And when it was applied to people with any kind of power or authority, it definitely had a sting.

Actual country dwellers have lived through that and I suppose eventually actual LGBT could live through homophobic insults which are not aimed at them but at the homophobes who despise them. But yeah, we should be better than that.

But I don't believe anyone who succumbs to it is necessarily a homophobe themself.

Keep speaking out - people are capable of learning.

say Hillary or Pelosi going down on Putin.

As others have said, the implication of Trump performing oral sex on Putin as an insult relies on the belief that for a man to perform oral sex on another man is to be subservient.

I know the argument from the "pro" side is always, but it is insulting to Trump because he is homophobic and it gets under his skin. Sure, but why? See above.

Propagating homophobic tropes, even to insult homophobic people is still propagating homophobia. We can do better.

Do I now have to worry about my straight friends' feelings? Shit on a popsicle stick, political commentary gets a bye in my world. People who are offended by what someone says can take care of their own offended feelings. It's hard for me to call winners and losers for others. Seems to me saying IMPOTUS will be "going down on Putin" would offend homophobic deplorables more than gays, and isn't that the point?

If so, done with eloquence!

as long as people we hate are offended more?

You cannot use me as a bludgeon without bruising me, and I don't like it. This homophobic crap needs to stay off of DU.

If I was on a jury and this OP came up for review on alert for bigotry/insensitivity, I would vote to hide. Juries are how DU community standards are shaped, defined and enforced. However, I see it as a close call, with valid points of contention. As long as the OP remains, it will be my honor to discuss variant viewpoints with community members of many persuasions. I try not to be offended as I go through life, and to avoid taking things people say personally. Generally, it's not about me. More often, it's about them. This discussion helps me understand better what DU's community standards are. Thank you for engaging. It is helpful.

and the white folks thought it was hunky-dory and black folks were offended?

Community standards on matters of bigotry should never be set by the majority - those aren't the folks who are hurt by it (and may not even recognize it). I'm tired of having implications that people we hate are gay straight-splained away as calling out hypocrisy, or subservience, etc. If the point is hypocirsy or subservience are the issue - there are plenty of ways to point that out withoug using me as a bludgeon.

If you and I examine each other's respective signature line, perhaps we will step back for a reflective pause? Let me just say that it is my belief this is not about you, unless you choose it to be. I don't see anyone bludgeoning you. It appears to me you have chosen to seize the club and bludgeon yourself. But I digress. It is time for me to pause.

to insult Republicans?

It IS personal. Describing what it feels like to open thread after tread on a progressive website, in which my life is being used to bludgeon Trump (or other people we hate) is the only thing that has ever gotten the message across. Not very often - but at least once in a blue moon.

Are you aware of the suicide/attempted suicide rate for LGBT individuals - particularly youth? Of the murder rate for transpeople - especially women? Both of those are the direct result of the culture of hate in which we must live our lives- and both the internal and external hatred directd at us. We should not be forced to tolerate it on a site that purports to prohibit such hatred (according to the TOS.)

First, we can take care of our gay selves, thank you. No need for the condescending feels.
Second, I laughed my gay ass OFF! JF has the soul of a shady queen running through his veins!

friends would feel, but even more than that, youth or others who are not yet out.
My older gay friends who've been out for years can take care of themselves, but I have been a straight ally for close to 50 years and have been the confidant of a number of gay youth ( I taught middle school and high school) and have seen the extreme angst so many go through.

One lived with me for six months when he was 18 after his fundie right wing parents found out he was gay and he was no longer able to live with them, and I saw first hand how he struggled. Suicide attempt in 8th grade. THis was 22 years ago and things have changed a lot. But I still know youth who are not yet able to be out to their parents, etc. So I am sensitive in particular to how people who are not yet out would feel, especially youth, and what kind of message it gives them.

In fact, forcing a heterosexual man to perform fellatio is probably an even more subservient act.

I don't take it that its a statement about gay sex being immoral, against nature, ungodly, or whatever other implication you are implying that they are implying. Only that one person is so subservient to the other that he might as well be satisfying him sexually. Its just a crude joke ffs. Could be said about Laura Ingraham or Jeanine Pirro on Trump too. (But let me guess, that would be deemed "sexist" ) Its about an analogy of performing a sex act to show obedience and submission.

I think you defeat your own purpose here by that kind of conflation. And weakens future actual homophobia charges. Knee jerk overly PC responses is the liberal communities Achilles heel.

Than racist alt right. Racism is the right wing's Achilles hill or it certainly is a reason why I can't ever be part of a conservative ideology.

Knee jerk liberals or Democrats have made me a better person.

No reason to just hand back the joke to them right away, giving them the last laugh watching us wring our hands and berate each other for it.

Don't repeat homophobic on DU. If you use me as a bludgeon against Trump, I'm going to yell in pain. Don't want to hear it? Think it gives ammunition to the other side? Then stop using my life to beat up Trump.

What IS homophobic is the perceived reaction to it by deplorables. But why should we care about that? We already know that.

Any joke that implies one person performed a sexual act to another out of a favour or undeserved subservience, is crude and I don't think its very smart or effective, or funny. That is John's mistake. Whether its the female exec that must have slept her way to the top, or anything else. (Whether she had a female boss or a male or whatever)

Republicans use our own legitimate concerns about things like sexual harassment, against us. (Franken, Biden, Clinton...) even though we KNOW they care nothing about the subject. Are there pockets of dumb-as-fuck deplorables that think their party is going down the drain and catering to the deep state lesbian terrorists by harping on Franken for instance? Sure. But they know that overall it hurts us more than them when they look shocked and Kelly Anne Conway gasps into the camera how liberals are all hypocrites, and poor Tweeden for not being taken seriously.

I'm sorry if you were offended. I was too maybe from a different angle. Its just overused crudeness to me. Probably because I don't see anything abnormal about two men engaged in sex.

unless you are calling out the perceived negative nature of it. Progressives should not be using men having sex with men as an insult - because those of us LGBT folks who are within earshot hear the negative implication that is inherent in using it as an insult.

There are plenty of insults that can be hurled at Trump, et al., without using one that LGBT people on DU repeatedly point out is offensive and painful.

I guess intellectualizing it does not address the very real human emotional response. I realize that now.

IMO, (generalizing) the only ones with the "perceived negative nature of it", are those that do not support LGBTQ rights, it is, in a way, rubbing it in their faces. There are two parts to that insult. the debasement of performing a sexual act for either a favor or to reward someone that has already helped you. That is the the crux of the "joke" for myself. Imagining Donald Trump sucking Vlads cock. My first reaction to that image is not...."yuk!....two men!". Its "yup, that's about right ha". And my mind goes to the analogy, the metaphoric interpretation. So you are looking at (generalizing again) two reactions from two different groups. It seems you are overly concerned about the reactions of the ones who are already hostile to your community, and will never support you. To the point that you demand the latter reaction folks to give up that tool or weapon to hurt the other side, albeit through word and imagery.

Anyways, I understand that part of that kind of joke will automatically bring back history, both generally, and individually about ridicule and discrimination. A program where a white person hires a black servant for instance, while perfectly legal and both people happy about the arrangement, may bring up uneasy feelings for some African Americans.

I think in some ways that the gay community has developed a knee jerk response to any dipiction or inference in a joke, about a man giving a BJ to another, as it must be that its an insult on their orientation. When many times, as in this case, its not. At least its not the intent.

But I respect your feelings. I understand. I'm sorry if I sound harsh. And I realize I'm treading on thin ice. Maybe my reaction is just the damn breaking for me about other sexually charged topics where we allow the Right to dictate what we can and cannot say or do because of their totally pretend concern (about women's rights, or sexual abuse, etc) Al Franken et all.

Republicans or Democrats.

I follow Wagatwe Wanjuki 🇰🇪 🇧🇸
@wagatwe

Her Twitter bio says this
Writer, speaker, thinker on Title IX, trauma, sexual assault, abuse. Anti-rape activist. Podcaster @ Wondery. Words in DAME, Teen Vogue, NYT, ESSENCE. She/hers

There are people that speak out against all forms of abuse.

And my analogy was flawed, sorry. I did not mean "forcing" as in physical force, but as in Trumps case, doing it because it will help to show favour, so even though it goes against his orientation, he "forces" himself to do it.

Anyways. sure, another act could have been substituted. But using sex tropes has always been a subject matter for jokes. My point is that IMO its just too easy to react to, and hand them back the joke and make it on ourselves.

There is a cost sure, but I guess its a matter of debate about how much cost compared to how much damage is wrought on the other side. We never have that debate. And I feel uneasy even questioning it. But we should have more discussions about uneasy topics.

No desire to offend. Its just my opinion. cheers

As long as we can see each others points.

I was being provocative as a strategy. If I crossed any line I apologize.

The idea that it is is where the insult comes from. The idea is that fellatio is degrading is silly, and comes from historically deeply held attitudes about women as inferior and gay men as inferior becauze supposedly less masculine.

particularly welcome. Not a good look for him. Did you find the tweet amusing? If so, why?

in regards to Speaker Pelosi - not a societal stance on gays or anything else. The mans a frickin comedian after all. Stop applying the Democratic Party Purity Standard to everyone and everything.

Colbert never said that about Trump?

Stephen Colbert tried to insult Donald Trump. He made a homophobic comment instead.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/identities/2017/5/2/15515066/stephen-colbert-trump-putin-homophobia-late-show

So it isn't like he said the joke and no one complained.

a pound of flesh. Some people are just pointing out that the underlying assumption is problematic abd then engaging in discussion with those who disagree.

What do you think they do in locked rooms alone?
I bet it is not pretty.

yesterday's concerns with improper language, offense to many various interest groups, used by multitudes of individuals, to censor way too much.

This is usually a right wing complaint that they can't use offensive language but still use it anyway.

Implications that being a gay male is a bad thing are just wrong. That's not a politically correct point of view. It's just a fact. It is an insult to gay men to equate "going down" on a man with something icky.

I'm sorry, but references to being "politically correct" are out of place in this instance.

A given controversial issue, like abortion v. abortion rights, can have all sorts of 'factual' claims, as well as agiven bad thing that is just plain wrong.

[My hidden agenda is humor, which is very prone to 'impropriety' attacks, justified or not].

How about that?

I have no hidden agenda.

Now do you get the difference???

John Fugelsang is free to say what he wants. He is a comedian and often has really good insights and put downs. I've listened to him for years and I doubt that he is homophobic. His use of "going down" as a sexual reference to insult Trump however, brings up questions about WHY it is a funny put down. What association is he making?

Is is about submission? Why? Men and Women perform oral sex on their male and female partners regularly. Is that funny? Demeaning? Something to be ashamed of?

What is the joke/put down here?

We like to think on "a forum like this" and we like to discuss things. If that makes you uncomfortable or wary, perhaps you need to think about why.

Worth it? Nope.

he can't intimidate or push around in DC. Or anywhere for that matter. She is the only person with the balls to stand up to him and he despises her for it.

defense mechanism renders him as dumb as a fencepost. His actual intelligence capacity is probably higher, but he can't get beyond his compulsive attempts at maintaining his brand: that which he holds a singularity of focus.

So he does stupid, crazy, cruel and unpatriotic acts all in the name of maintaining his brand. He's tearing the nation apart and no one in the GOP saw this coming.

Then it’s misogynist too. Because that phrase has a connotation to me a straight woman who has been “asked” often in my youth. By obnoxious male humanoids.

Especially coming from John Fugelsang. It seems to be more of a suggestion that 45 is submissive to his handler, Putin. Anybody kneeling in front of someone performing oral sex could be viewed the same way...homosexual or heterosexual.

It doens't belong on DU, any more than initiating or repeating N****r "jokes" does.

Can't we have a little fun here without the PC police raining on the parade? The point isn't homophobia, it's that giving someone oral is submissive, and by extension Trump is submissive to Putin.

If the issue is submission, then call him out for submission in way that does not involve using men having sex with men as the vehicle for that message.

So your wife/girlfriend Husband/boyfriend is submissive to you if they choose to give you oral sex? That is news to me. I certainly don't consider myself submissive when performing that act on my partner.

So does that mean that oral sex is demeaning too? Cause it seems that point is to insult Trump for being "submissive" by performing oral sex on Putin.

Should wives, husbands, partners be ashamed of doing this because they are being submissive and thus demeaned?

Words do not stand alone in a vacuum. They have meaning because of their associations in life.

That is not PC that is asking people to think about what they are using as an insult.

Ok let’s go wash John down with bleach. It will help Dems win over so many voters

from his wife. i rarely complied.
i got a new man now, and it aint like that.

sex is complicated and visceral.
everybody knows what this means.

It's also a popular thing for most people. It's a shame to attempt to make it equivalent to a bad thing, I think.

As long as it is a voluntary and consensual thing, it's just another thing people do in their sexual activity, regardless of the sexual orientation of the people involved.