Last edited Tue Jun 7, 2016, 02:31 AM - Edit history (2)
If not, then no.
We, in different contexts, play with animal imagery all the time in comedic ways. As in carnival 'barkers.'
Imagery is important in denigrating someone, so if "dick" as in "Donald Trump is just another swinging dick," it might be funny, though derogatory. In the drug or prison contexts, saying that someone's your bitch echoes millennial-old animal dominance that women understand as common in a context where they might NOT be present to suffer emotional or physical harm. Is it okay? In that context, yes.
In other contexts, I'd say no, because the air gets filled with a kind of violent intent that only the impulsive will think gives them permission to act as such. That same word, "bitch," in mixed company contexts, creates a brutal, denigrating and veiled signal -- a "dog whistle" to other men and to women of an uncivil cast, because there's not supposed to be any context of inequality or hierarchy in civilized contexts. Nor signals of it.
Notice that Maher is conscientious in explaining the historical context that Trump himself echoes when Schlong Don puts down women today. My nickname for Trump doesn't sound too civilized in this context, either. For him to say in a formal political arena that Hillary got "schlonged"?
As a feminist, I understand the flipping of that sexist period's lingo on Trump himself because, as part of a context of scoffing at civility in politics, with the uncivil rhetoric Littlefinger uses to pander to the meanest, uncivil urges of his followers, he signals primitive threat impulses.
When an outgroup still suffers institutional and legal oppression or restriction in allegedly orderly, rule bound societies, it's not appropriate to use denigrating language toward the outgroup, even in jest. When anyone of a privileged class feels free to denigrate outgroups through a rep like the president, they invite retaliatory rhetoric but feel shielded from it psychically.
Put downs of people -- anyone -- using body parts (shoes, thumbs, mooning, tongues) shows a disrespect that is chimpy laughable if it's done toward those people who presume privilege, power or public propriety.
When Maher puts this "man" down, Maher is careful to say, "...And I mean in no way to disparage the vagina, but 'what a pussy!' That's an example of chimp poo flinging back at a barbarian who presumes to lead a civi lized country.
"It's a joke!" is the kidding-on-the-square basis of jesters in courts or clowns' silly attempts to be functional while slapsticky before general audiences. Or kids laughingly farting in front of their moms in private but never in public.
I don't know if this applies to your question but thought I'd give it a shot.
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