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RSS icon Comments on For Sale At Amazon.com: "Anti-Abortion, Pro-Date-Rape" T-Shirts

1

I think the first one is amusing, in a "most pro-lifers are idiots/hypocritical, let's point it out" kind of way, but I'm not sure if that's intended or not.

The second is just dumb and irritating.

Posted by Abby | July 2, 2008 12:24 PM
2

I understood the irony on it. I'm sure there are a ton of christian bros out there who are way against abortions but have said "just the tip, just for a second" hundreds of times. I'm also sure those guys aren't the intended market for those shirts.

I may just buy one for my BGFF.

Posted by Little Red Ryan Hood | July 2, 2008 12:26 PM
3

Granted, the first one's horrible, but the second one isn't even in the same league.

Oh, and if those offend you, stay away from tshirthell.com.

Posted by Georgia Guy | July 2, 2008 12:28 PM
4

Who fucking cares, Erica? Like you'd ever hang out with a person who wears "humorous" shirts? If anything they'll tell you right off the bat that the person is a gigantic douchebag and you want nothing to do with them.

What are you pulling for here? Should Amazon remove the shirt? Is that shirt really offending you? Can you see how many fingers I'm holding*? Do you need medical attention? Should they pull all of their sacrilegious shirts, too? Those offend a shitload of people. I think they should pull any "villiage idiot" "hot bitch!" "princess" shirts, because the offend me with their terrible taste.

I also think that The Stranger should be removed from the streets. For any child to be able to open The Stranger freely, well, that offends me, and it's horrible for the child. Get rid of it.

Blah blah blah. But you don't care about any of that. No-no, you only care about important things. Like sexism, sexism, sexism, and sexism.

*,.|..

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 2, 2008 12:29 PM
5

Does anybody remember the Harry Potter vibrating broomstick for children Amazon had to pull a few years back? LOL


But seriously for how vast their product line is, it's probably difficult to control every.single.thing. vendors put up on the site.

Posted by Non | July 2, 2008 12:30 PM
6

Wahhhhhh! Wah, wah, wahhhhhhh! Wahhhhhhhhhh! WAHHHHHHHHH!

Posted by A Big Ole' Crybaby | July 2, 2008 12:35 PM
7

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...Erica C. Barnett.

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 2, 2008 12:39 PM
8

The beauty of free speech is it lets you know where people stand. Somebody that shirt is clearly saying "Erica, avoid me. You won't like me."

Ban the shirt, lose a valuable warning label.

Posted by flamingbanjo | July 2, 2008 12:39 PM
9

For Christ's sake, Erica, don't ever go on a beach vacation. You'll see shirts a thousand times more offensive than that. They appeal to the sort of young man who will react "whoa, dude, that's sick!" Sick humor -- have you heard of it? It's been around for fifty years. Lenny Bruce? It doesn't surprise me at all that your education in the area of humor has some gaps in it.

Posted by Fnarf | July 2, 2008 12:45 PM
10

Good point #8.
The first shirt is, as has been mentioned, apparently trying to be ironic and pointing out hypocrisy. At the same time I can't imagine ever wanting to wear it, nor anyone I know wanting to wear it. It's a little IN YOUR FACE.
The second one is just dumb. Aw boo hoo, you made a decision and it didn't work out. NO ONE CARES. How about either getting a divorce or not marrying in 1st place.

Posted by Becky | July 2, 2008 12:47 PM
11

@7 - Now people at work are wondering why the heck I just snorted.

Posted by Georgia Guy | July 2, 2008 12:47 PM
12

Wow! Slog webmasters discovered modern javascript frameworks (though I personally prefer JQuery, Scriptaculous is pretty cool too). How long has the magic image zoom been enabled?

On topic, notify Amazon.com if something bothers you; This isn't being sold by Amazon, it's being sold through them. They won't remove it if no one reports it.

Posted by Jason Petersen | July 2, 2008 12:50 PM
13

The first one is...dumb. I don't get the "joke", and I'm sure it would be horribly offensive to most reasonable people.

The second one is...not that funny, but completely harmless. Not even in the same ballpark as the first one, that's for sure.

Posted by Hernandez | July 2, 2008 12:50 PM
14

Erica, where were you during the "Big Johnson" t-shirt assault of the mid-to-late 1990s?

Posted by Lou | July 2, 2008 12:51 PM
15

@7 -- One big Guided By Voices box set for you, sir!

As for shirt #1, it is repulsive and would instantly label the wearer in my eye as a rube at best, a Darwinian target at least.

Shirt #2 is Leykis 101. So what. It's actually kind of funny.

Posted by Jubilation T. Cornball | July 2, 2008 12:51 PM
16

Admittedly, the shirts are not funny. However, I can see the attempts in ironic humor in their creation. The first one is mocking Pro-Lifers. The second one is making fun of the stereotypical hetero relationship between a man and woman when it comes to marriage. Everybody in their right mind should know its a joke.

Posted by frostillicus | July 2, 2008 12:54 PM
17

I agree with Erica on this. It did take a while to find something worth complaining about today though, didn't it? Third times the charm, right?

Posted by elenchos | July 2, 2008 12:55 PM
18

The first one is pretty lame, but as a married gamer myself, I thought the second one was hilarious.

Posted by Mike of Renton | July 2, 2008 12:56 PM
19

ECB: Perturbability is a weakness. Take that to heart.

Posted by Eric Arrr | July 2, 2008 12:59 PM
20

Would you guys be fine with amazon selling t-shirts saying "lynch *n-words*!" or "eradicate all jews!"?

Of course you wouldn't. That's because you only hate women, not black men or jewish men.

Posted by poppy | July 2, 2008 1:00 PM
21

I'm pretty sure that shirt #1 is intended to be ironic, because no one would admit to being pro-date-rape. There isn't a date rape movement to support. There's just spoiled, drunk frat boys. Would this be offensive to ECB if The Onion were selling it instead of Amazon? Because the Onion gets way more shocking with its irony than this shirt. Someone send ECB a copy of the Onion.

Who cares about the second shirt. Print up another one with a frowning bride and smiling group and we'll all be equal again.

Posted by Mary F | July 2, 2008 1:03 PM
22

Self @ 19: Perturbability is... not actually a word.

sigh

Posted by Eric Arrr | July 2, 2008 1:04 PM
23

@19: Nonsense. What was the civil rights movement all about if not our God-given right to be offended about every little thing?

Huh? Huh?

Thought so.

Posted by Dan | July 2, 2008 1:07 PM
24

Hernandez, being offensive IS the joke.

Posted by Fnarf | July 2, 2008 1:09 PM
25

If you don't like them, don't buy them.

You know, like "If you don't like this song, don't listen to it." Or, "If you don't like this book, don't ban it."

Posted by Jason Josephes | July 2, 2008 1:10 PM
26

I'm a douchebag, pass it on.

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 2, 2008 1:12 PM
27

@23 - Are you really equating Erica being offended at a T-shirt with the civil rights movement? I think you are. And I think Erica would agree with you.

Posted by sleestak | July 2, 2008 1:19 PM
28

The second shirt is funny (in a cliched version of heterosexuality kind of way).

I really don't get the first shirt. It's supposed to be ironic? Jokes like that are usually only funny when they're a propos, like something about how pro-lifers are against killing fetuses but are fine with the death penalty, the Iraq war, etc. And, I don't particularly get the sense that pro-lifers are into date rape. So I don't really see how it's pointing out hypocrisy.

Of course a shirt that says I'm pro-date rape is inappropriate, but if somehow it actually was a joke, I wouldn't have a big problem with it. But, I can't even see how the first shirt was intended to be funny.

Posted by Julie | July 2, 2008 1:20 PM
29

@27 - in hindsight, you might have been making a joke. I still think ECB believes that, though.

Posted by sleestak | July 2, 2008 1:21 PM
30

Looks like Amazon made the t-shirt unavailable a few minutes ago.

That was easy! It's still early in the day so let's end the military's tolerance of rape and stop genital mutilation this afternoon.

Posted by elenchos | July 2, 2008 1:28 PM
31

Fucking free speech.

Posted by Anon | July 2, 2008 1:31 PM
32

first they said "...take my wife--PLEASE!" and i didn't speak up, because i wasn't a wife.

Posted by chops | July 2, 2008 1:33 PM
33

wow, 3 manufactured outrage posts in the span of just a few hours! you've really hit your stride, you've reached your weekly average in a single day. did michelle malkin host a seminar or something?

Posted by brandon | July 2, 2008 1:53 PM
34

Seriously, Erica? People sell these kind shirts just to make your head explode. That's the point.

Posted by Greg | July 2, 2008 1:53 PM
35

I just hope you vaginized P.C. retards don't find rottencotton.com

oops.

Posted by jerks | July 2, 2008 3:16 PM
36

@7 and @11 for the win! Man, if it wasn't for ECB, I'd be even more unpopular on SLOG ...

Posted by Will in Seattle | July 2, 2008 3:39 PM
37

No, Will. Here's the difference: I like Erica, even when she's wrong, which is often; I don't like you even when you're right, which is seldom.

Posted by Fnarf | July 2, 2008 4:33 PM
38

@35 - yes, I think shirts like "IS IT RAPE IF SHE'S DEAD?" and "IF SHE'S OLD ENOUGH TO PEE SHE'S OLD ENOUGH FOR ME" would just about kill some people around here.

Posted by Fnarf | July 2, 2008 4:40 PM
39

Are these shirts offensive? Yes. Should they necessarily be banned from Amazon? It depends. If Amazon were banning similar shirts but making an exception for these, then maybe they'd need a nudge in the direction of consistency, but overall, I think we can spend our time on more important things.

Posted by DRF | July 2, 2008 5:18 PM
40

Wow, this is a tough one. On the one hand, I have no doubt that ECB could find offense in a paperclip.

On the other hand, Amazon's policy does use the mealy-mouthed "offensive" criteria, and clearly both of these shirts (along with any paperclips they might sell) are going to offend some one.

So maybe someone (ECB?) should go on a crusade here and harass Amazon until they either remove the word "offensive" from their criteria for not carrying items or they agree to pull everything on the entire site when offends anyone (books on feminism, Neil Diamond CD's, etc).

Posted by also | July 2, 2008 5:55 PM
41

A failed effort at irony, at best.

Posted by RDM | July 2, 2008 8:35 PM
42

A friend of mine's getting married, and I think it would be great to pass out shirt #2 to everyone at the bachelor party.

Posted by cliched stereotype | July 2, 2008 9:24 PM
43

I don't know how anyone found the date-rape t-shirt. I just tried to search amazon for shirt no. 2, to no avail -- T-shirts.com lists over 52,000 T-shirts on amazon.

Posted by cliched stereotype | July 2, 2008 9:42 PM
44

@8 - ...which is precisely why I would not want cell phones banned on buses, check-out lines, or public areas. You might encounter a physically attractive person, naturally you're interested, but then he/she starts yapping loudly on the phone. It's valuable information. In an instant you know not to associate yourself with this person.

Posted by erik | July 2, 2008 10:25 PM
45

Considering most of Amazon's high-falutin' HR people spend half their shift down the street drinking at Lark or doing lines of blow in the ladies room, these t-shirts aren't too shocking.

Posted by Arrogant drunks get fired | July 2, 2008 10:51 PM

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